While Galpin has served as curator and chief curator, this will be her first director position. At MDC, she'll oversee all museum operations, which include MOAD, MDC Special Collections, and the Kislak Center at MDC's Freedom Tower, as well as other art interests of the college.
The new executive director joins the college at an exciting time for its museum system. The Freedom Tower, donated to MDC in 2015, will reopen in 2025 for its centennial celebration after a two-year, $25 million renovation project.
Galpin says she is "looking forward to working with colleagues to position MOAD as an institution of the present and the future. We have an opportunity to be flexible and adaptable and to create significant change."
Referring to the Freedom Tower renovation, she says, "What the team has been working on with several partners in the last year or two is thinking very critically about the history of the building and going to the archives and talking to people...wanting to honor, in our grand reopening, this significant place that that building [holds] in the history of Miami."
Just a few blocks from the Freedom Tower is the David Dyer Federal Building, which MDC took possession of in 2013 and has committed to a $60 million renovation. Galpin reveals that there will be "a couple of MOAD galleries" inside the building when the renovation is completed, she says, which is expected in 2026.
As overseer, just three weeks into her new job, Galpin is already contemplating much about the future of MDC's museum system and all of its art spaces.
"We have galleries in Little Havana and Hialeah, and I'm looking forward to assisting and collaborating with my colleagues there," she says, adding there are opportunities within these art spaces to have an impact in those communities.
Leaving FIU to take on the role at MDC, staying in Miami, and serving another academic institution felt right on many levels, she says.
"One of the things I loved most about being at FIU was serving the students, and I am committed to that at MDC, too. But also, something that I have been passionate about is working with Miami artists. I am ecstatic to have an opportunity to continue to evolve my own career, of course, but also to continue to work with Miami artists. I feel there's so much documentation and contexts and opportunities that we can give these local artists."
The large canvas that she now has to work within provides opportunities for Miami's art community at large, she says. "Incorporating the galleries, thinking about the public art projects."
She refers to the commissioned series MOAD Pavilions, the second of which is "Germane Barnes: Ukhamba," curated by Isabela Villanueva, MOAD consulting curator. The first, Rafael Domenech's "Estuary," opened at the MDC Wolfson Campus in November 2022 and was later reconfigured at the MDC Kendall Campus.
"Ukhamba," which was sited on the Building 1 Plaza at MDC's Wolfson Campus in November of 2023, where it will remain until the end of February, will now be reinstalled on MDC's North Campus beginning Wednesday, March 6, where it will stay through Sunday, May 26.
"This idea of how we can share projects and move projects throughout the city and serve different audiences is a critical part of my vision."
And that vision also includes taking to heart, literally, the MOAD name.
"We are the Museum of Art and Design, so we have an important role to play in the intersection of those terms, and how might we incorporate ceramics, fashion, and other aspects into the work that we do?"
She wants to collaborate more with other museums, curators, and organizations.
"And, you know, I am always striving to be a good community member myself."
Mark Delmont's solo exhibition, "Papers: The Children of Immigrants," which opened on February 10 at the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center, was curated by Amy Galpin.
Photo by Reginald Thermidore
"It's such an honor and privilege to have played a small part in a wonderful exhibition and an opening in that space, which has also staged a number of significant exhibitions from Charles Humes Jr. and Morel Doucet, and now Mark. Both with my MDC hat and my individual hat, I hope to continue to partner with various people and organizations in the city."
On Wednesday, March 6, artist and architect Germane Barnes will be featured in an Artist Talk with special guests, interdisciplinary artist and designer Cornelius Tulloch and consulting curator Isabela Villanueva on MDC's North Campus at the Leroy Collins Center (11380 NW 27th Ave., Bldg. 4000, Miami) taking place inside "Ukhamba." (Tickets are $10.)
On MDC's Hialeah campus gallery (1780 W. 49th St., Hialeah), "Remaking Miami: Josefina Tarafa's Photographs of the 1970s" is on view through March 14. During the 1970s, the photographer, editor, and philanthropist Josefina Tarafa created images that picture Miami transformed by the arrival of her fellow Cuban immigrants. This is the first exhibition dedicated to Tarafa's photography.
– Michelle Solomon, ArtburstMiami.com
