Rosa de la Cruz, a pillar of Miami’s Contemporary art community, is in a towering rage at Miami’s MOCA because of the museum’s discussions with other museums about merging. De la Cruz donated a lot of art to Miami MOCA and, understandably, finds the lack of consultation frustrating:

“My husband and I donated those works to the MOCA. M-O-C-A. Miami’s contemporary art museum,” she said. “The Bass was built for the Bass family. It has all those [Peter Paul] Rubens. Some of them real. And a room full of cats and mummies. It’s an eclectic museum, is what I’d call it. But it’s not a contemporary art museum.. They have that Egyptian room now. It is embarrassing, to tell you the truth.”

She had equal disdain for the recently opened Perez Art Museum Miami.

“PAMM or MAM or whatever its called is not a contemporary art museum either,” she said, before criticizing PAMM’s much heralded new building. “The problem with museums in Miami is that they become country clubs. The Miami Herald recently wrote about PAMM: ‘Oh, it’ll be great because they’ll have weddings and bat mitzvahs there.’ But museums should not be used as banquet halls.”

Rosa de la Cruz Bashes MOCA, Bass and PAMM: “Why Is It That Miami Museums Are Becoming Places Just For Parties?”