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The City of Miami Beach, in collaboration with the Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority (MBVCA) is pleased to announce the No Vacancy 2021 Juror’s Choice Award has been presented to Lauren Shapiro and the Greater Miami Convention Center & Visitors Bureau’s (GMCVB) People’s Choice Award has been presented to Chris Friday. Both works debuted for Miami Beach Art Week on November 18 and concluded on December 9.
No Vacancy is a juried art competition that celebrates artists, provokes critical discourse, and invites the public to experience Miami Beach’s famed hotels as destination art spaces. Artists were drawn from a call for submissions and selected by representatives from the City of Miami Beach Art in Public Places Committee (AiPP), Cultural Arts Council, and MBVCA. For the second edition of No Vacancy, $25,000 in prizes were awarded, including the $5,000 Public Prize by the GMCVB and the $20,000 Juror Prize awarded by a panel of local art experts.
Installed at the Royal Palm South Beach, Lauren Shapiro’s Site R 16 Transect 1 merges natural and synthetic materials to create a physical incarnation of a lost coral reef, showcasing organic textures and colors of a marine landscape. With this work, she aims to encourage environmental stewardship by memorializing an ecosystem similar to South Florida’s own coral populations, cultivating an awareness of these fragile environments.
Chris Friday’s In/Visible Men/d investigates themes of identity, race, gender, and sexuality. Recognizing problematic perspectives and their origins, Friday dispels the notion that Black bodies should be covered up or hidden from view with large-scale depictions of Black figures standing, sitting, and existing undisturbed in various spaces at the Riviera Hotel South Beach.
The works were selected from the 10 participating artists and collectives by a public vote, as well as a jury of Miami Beach art experts including Chana Sheldon, Executive Director, Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, and Leilani Lynch, Curator, The Bass, Miami Beach.
For additional information please visit: www.mbartsandculture.org/no-vacancy
Funding for this project is provided by the City of Miami Beach Cultural Arts Council, Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority, T-Mobile and the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. For additional information, please visit mbartsandculture.org.
About the Miami Beach Cultural Arts Council
The Cultural Arts Council (CAC) is an eleven-member council created in 1997 for the purpose of developing, coordinating and promoting the performing and visual arts in the City of Miami Beach. The CAC serves as arts advocates before governmental bodies, coordinates collective marketing initiatives for the local arts community and funds not-for-profit arts organizations. Since the program’s inception, the CAC has awarded approximately $18 million in cultural arts grants, supporting thousands of performances, exhibits, and other cultural activities in Miami Beach.
About the Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority
The MBVCA is a seven-member authority, appointed by the City of Miami Beach Commission, with the goal of encouraging, developing and promoting the image of Miami Beach locally, nationally and internationally as an outstanding tourist destination. To this end, the MBVCA strategically focuses its funding investments in a balanced manner, fostering outstanding existing programs, stimulating new activities, and encouraging partnerships. The MBVCA is committed to a careful, long-term plan for allocation of resources to help Miami Beach thrive as a destination with something for everyone.
