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Best Museum in Palm Beach

Norton Museum of Art

The grande dame of South Florida museums just got grander: In March, the Norton continued its astonishing expansion with a new 45,000-square-foot, 14-gallery wing that brings the place to a total of 122,500 square feet, making it the largest art museum in the state. This follows the expansion and renovations of the early 1990s, which transformed a small, dignified facility into a cultural institution worthy of its holdings. And those holdings are vast -- so vast that the museum has never quite figured out how to showcase them properly, trotting out selections from time to time but never really finding a way to emphasize the depth and breadth of the permanent collection. Founders Ralph and Elizabeth Norton kicked off that collection in 1941 with an emphasis on European art after 1870, including works by Picasso, Matisse, Gauguin, Braque, Monet, Renoir, Brancusi, and Camille Pissarro. Other subsets of the permanent collection include photography (Julia Margaret Cameron, August Sander, Philippe Halsmann), contemporary art (Duane Hanson, Frank Stella), European art before 1870 (Courbet, Rubens), and American art (Georgia O'Keeffe, Jackson Pollock). The Chinese collection includes pieces ranging from the 12th Century B.C. to the early 18th Century. The new three-floor wing, which includes a dramatic atrium featuring a dazzling glass ceiling installation by Dale Chihuly, will give the permanent collection room to breathe as large segments of it are rotated, while the rest of the museum will continue to play host to such shows as the recent "Fire and Form: The Art of Contemporary Glass." Now if the Norton could just come up with enough parking to satisfy those crowds it's already attracting.

Best Museum in Palm Beach

Norton Museum of Art

The grande dame of South Florida museums just got grander: In March, the Norton continued its astonishing expansion with a new 45,000-square-foot, 14-gallery wing that brings the place to a total of 122,500 square feet, making it the largest art museum in the state. This follows the expansion and renovations of the early 1990s, which transformed a small, dignified facility into a cultural institution worthy of its holdings. And those holdings are vast -- so vast that the museum has never quite figured out how to showcase them properly, trotting out selections from time to time but never really finding a way to emphasize the depth and breadth of the permanent collection. Founders Ralph and Elizabeth Norton kicked off that collection in 1941 with an emphasis on European art after 1870, including works by Picasso, Matisse, Gauguin, Braque, Monet, Renoir, Brancusi, and Camille Pissarro. Other subsets of the permanent collection include photography (Julia Margaret Cameron, August Sander, Philippe Halsmann), contemporary art (Duane Hanson, Frank Stella), European art before 1870 (Courbet, Rubens), and American art (Georgia O'Keeffe, Jackson Pollock). The Chinese collection includes pieces ranging from the 12th Century B.C. to the early 18th Century. The new three-floor wing, which includes a dramatic atrium featuring a dazzling glass ceiling installation by Dale Chihuly, will give the permanent collection room to breathe as large segments of it are rotated, while the rest of the museum will continue to play host to such shows as the recent "Fire and Form: The Art of Contemporary Glass." Now if the Norton could just come up with enough parking to satisfy those crowds it's already attracting.

Best Proof that Minimalism Lives

Telephone Piece (1997/2001) by Yoko Ono

"YES YOKO ONO"

Depending upon your source, minimalism ended in the mid-1970s. Tell that to Yoko Ono. The notorious Beatle widow has never been one to heed the dictates of the art world, as she demonstrated in a recent landmark retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art. The piece? A simple white Slimline telephone, with an equally simple instruction posted nearby: "When the telephone rings, pick up the receiver and talk to Yoko Ono." And for the show's three-month run, Ono made random calls and chatted with whoever answered. You can't get much more minimal than that.

Best Proof that Minimalism Lives

Telephone Piece (1997/2001) by Yoko Ono

"YES YOKO ONO"

Depending upon your source, minimalism ended in the mid-1970s. Tell that to Yoko Ono. The notorious Beatle widow has never been one to heed the dictates of the art world, as she demonstrated in a recent landmark retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art. The piece? A simple white Slimline telephone, with an equally simple instruction posted nearby: "When the telephone rings, pick up the receiver and talk to Yoko Ono." And for the show's three-month run, Ono made random calls and chatted with whoever answered. You can't get much more minimal than that.

Best Solo Art Exhibition

"Maria Martínez-Cañas: A Retrospective"

Photography has a very good friend in Maria Martínez-Cañas, whose retrospective at Fort Lauderdale's Museum of Art last year was her first one-woman show at a South Florida museum. The Cuban-born, Puerto Rican-reared, Miami-based artist in a very real sense reinvents photography, transforming it into a hybrid medium better suited to her needs. She's smart to steer clear of digitally manipulated photography, which is still new enough to come across, in most hands, as gimmicky and contrived, but she also eschews what we usually think of as photography: no portraits, no still lifes, no landscapes, at least not in any ordinary sense. Instead, Martínez-Cañas incorporates drawing and collage into her photographs, manipulating the imagery in her own ways to make it extraordinarily expressive -- she snips photographs into fragments that she then uses as compositional elements, or she takes them apart and reassembles them in unexpected ways. At a time when the medium is just over a century old and still coming to terms with its long-fought-for status as an art form, Martínez-Cañas takes that status for granted and runs with it.

Best Solo Art Exhibition

"Maria Martínez-Cañas: A Retrospective"

Photography has a very good friend in Maria Martínez-Cañas, whose retrospective at Fort Lauderdale's Museum of Art last year was her first one-woman show at a South Florida museum. The Cuban-born, Puerto Rican-reared, Miami-based artist in a very real sense reinvents photography, transforming it into a hybrid medium better suited to her needs. She's smart to steer clear of digitally manipulated photography, which is still new enough to come across, in most hands, as gimmicky and contrived, but she also eschews what we usually think of as photography: no portraits, no still lifes, no landscapes, at least not in any ordinary sense. Instead, Martínez-Cañas incorporates drawing and collage into her photographs, manipulating the imagery in her own ways to make it extraordinarily expressive -- she snips photographs into fragments that she then uses as compositional elements, or she takes them apart and reassembles them in unexpected ways. At a time when the medium is just over a century old and still coming to terms with its long-fought-for status as an art form, Martínez-Cañas takes that status for granted and runs with it.

Best Group Art Exhibition

"Reality and Figuration: The Contemporary Latin American Presence"

As a rule, group exhibitions are a mixed bag, as likely to include misses as hits. The Boca Raton Museum of Art's "Reality and Figuration" was one of the rare exceptions. The show featured works by ten living artists, all but two in their 40s, representing half a dozen Latin American countries: three each from Cuba and Argentina, one each from Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Uruguay. Other than their ethnic origins, however, these artists have little in common except the idea of exile -- most have studied and worked abroad, and most are now expatriates. But their work, executed in dramatically different styles, touches on a variety of themes, and most amazingly, almost every piece in the show clicks. Credit Executive Director George S. Bolge, formerly of Fort Lauderdale's Museum of Art, who has taken the Boca museum to new heights during his tenure. This exhibition was one of them.

Best Group Art Exhibition

"Reality and Figuration: The Contemporary Latin American Presence"

As a rule, group exhibitions are a mixed bag, as likely to include misses as hits. The Boca Raton Museum of Art's "Reality and Figuration" was one of the rare exceptions. The show featured works by ten living artists, all but two in their 40s, representing half a dozen Latin American countries: three each from Cuba and Argentina, one each from Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Uruguay. Other than their ethnic origins, however, these artists have little in common except the idea of exile -- most have studied and worked abroad, and most are now expatriates. But their work, executed in dramatically different styles, touches on a variety of themes, and most amazingly, almost every piece in the show clicks. Credit Executive Director George S. Bolge, formerly of Fort Lauderdale's Museum of Art, who has taken the Boca museum to new heights during his tenure. This exhibition was one of them.

Best Self-Promoting Author

E. Robert Dunn

Known to his friends as Eston, this local sci-fi novelist is the queen of publicity. He somehow manages to get himself booked into every reading in town, then shoots off a press release before the hosting organization even jots the event in its calendar. Dunn founded ArtsUnited as a way to showcase local gay artists, including himself. If a book festival doesn't invite him to perform, he rents a booth. Dunn even found a way to put a positive spin on his rejected work: While his ideas for episodes of Space: 1999, Battlestar Galactica, and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century were turned down, his press releases boast the show titles by saying he submitted story lines. At readings, he claims none of the shows were progressive enough to even consider them. His novel, Echelon's End, twists gender and sexual orientation on a series of planets where same-sex relationships are the norm and heterosexuality a necessary evil that exists only to propagate the species. His work seems to resonate with a lot of people. While he doesn't have his own personal Trekkies, he does have a loyal following that shows up at Borders, the Pride Factory, the Gay and Lesbian Community Center -- wherever Dunn has booked himself an event.

Best Self-Promoting Author

E. Robert Dunn

Known to his friends as Eston, this local sci-fi novelist is the queen of publicity. He somehow manages to get himself booked into every reading in town, then shoots off a press release before the hosting organization even jots the event in its calendar. Dunn founded ArtsUnited as a way to showcase local gay artists, including himself. If a book festival doesn't invite him to perform, he rents a booth. Dunn even found a way to put a positive spin on his rejected work: While his ideas for episodes of Space: 1999, Battlestar Galactica, and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century were turned down, his press releases boast the show titles by saying he submitted story lines. At readings, he claims none of the shows were progressive enough to even consider them. His novel, Echelon's End, twists gender and sexual orientation on a series of planets where same-sex relationships are the norm and heterosexuality a necessary evil that exists only to propagate the species. His work seems to resonate with a lot of people. While he doesn't have his own personal Trekkies, he does have a loyal following that shows up at Borders, the Pride Factory, the Gay and Lesbian Community Center -- wherever Dunn has booked himself an event.

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