The Curator: Claire Breukel
Whereas this moment is illuminating, it is a moment, and our work on developing art exhibitions and programs that are truly impactful in the way we need them right now has only just begun.
5 QUESTIONS WITH Claire Breukel
Curator for The Miami Design District (Dacra) and the Craig Robins Collection
Miami, FL
Claire Breukel is the Curator for Dacra. As Curator, Breukel is responsible for managing Dacra’s diverse and expansive cultural programming in the Miami Design District. Her role includes selecting, developing and coordinating unique performances, exhibitions, events and activations in collaboration with emerging and established artists and institutions. Breukel also manages the Craig Robins Collection, a private contemporary art collection, arranging exhibitions showcasing the Collection throughout the year. Breukel’s full biography follows the interview.
1. Congratulations on your new position with DACRA! In this role, you are in a unique position to make art more accessible to an expanded audience, create innovative collaborations, and, as they say: “meet the public where it is”. Talk to me about your philosophy in this role…
Thanks so much, Melissa. I view the Miami Design District as an outdoor museum where great creative content informs a visitors’ experience within a unique shopping and dining neighborhood. The key is to ensure world-class and relevant art and design by local and international creatives and strive to facilitate experiences that are welcoming and meaningful. Artworks such as Buckminster Fuller’s Fly’s Eye Dome proposes a utopic space for living—how relevant today—while Dozie Kanu has constructed a space for free play, and Cristina Lei Rodriguez offers us a moment to contemplate the natural world in an urban environment. My role is to capitalize on the District’s already flourishing art program by making it more dynamic, collaborative and accessible than ever.
2. As a necessity, all programming went virtual in 2020. Now, out of necessity, choice, or economic realities some of it may stay in the digital realm. From your perspective, what are the best ways to utilize these digital platforms as both a curatorial tool and an audience engagement tool?
Research is part curatorial work so now that more information is going online, there is more available. I’ve also had incredible access to speakers whose talks I would normally not have been able to attend in person. In this sense a movement to online has been democratizing…although one does need to seek out information within the masses.
Working with artists in El Salvador for a decade I was already attuned to online studio visits as an introductory tool to an artist's practice. I’ve continued with these, however nothing beats meeting in studio and experiencing artwork in real time. In the Miami Design District we have great in situ content, and we are diversifying how we share this content, host talks and facilitate virtual immersions of the District’s artistic aura. These include making short films, using websites, social media, QR coding… and more… Interestingly, we are finding that audiences are seeking more extensive content around art posts, art talks, and didactics so we are returning to a place where content is king/queen…
3. The systemic challenges we are witnessing are all interconnected — the challenges to power, the questioning of current systems, and the critiques of wealth creation. How might those in the art world best re-examine systems related to wealth, privilege, and equity, and how do we consider this as we also imagine the future of cultural patronage?
I’ve brushed up against past moments where the decision makers deciding on modes to support Black and Brown artists are all White. How absurd. I’m now understanding that it's my job to speak up and utilize my privilege to bring these voices to the table to not only support artists and equality but ensure equity. This means insisting on more seats at the table, and if that means my seat at the table should be given up then sobeit. Having gone through Apartheid, the release of Nelson Mandela and the systematic changes in South Africa I have learned that radical change is not scary and is in fact more rewarding for everybody. There is no ratio pie being divided between groups of people, there is space for everyone…
I applaud museums which, at the expense of scaling back programs, refuse money from patrons that is ill gotten. At the same time, collectors who collect art by Black and Brown artists either see it as a financial investment or a civic investment (it can of course be both). I am excited to work with a robust museum loan program that shares Craig Robins’ Collection internationally, and which is shown regularly.
4. I think that the events of 2020 — a global health crisis, a pandemic-induced recession, and a growing social justice movement — are accelerating the changes next generation creatives, audiences, and arts supporters wanted to see. How do you think these events might change society’s view of arts as a whole, and how might we make the arts more valued in our society?
I don’t know if these happenings are accelerating the changes we would like to see, as opposed to illuminating the increased necessity for change in midst of a heightened infringement on free speech, and more. That said, art is historically and inherently a tool for social expression, activism and proposing new ideas for living so it is being activated in this way. Art can be used to raise awareness, coupled with an increased usage of digital tools making access and outreach more possible for historically disadvantaged artists and communities. In turn, we have the opportunity to learn from the self-expression of those who are underrepresented. We are a long way from actual tangible change. Whereas this moment is illuminating, it is a moment, and our work on developing art exhibitions and programs that are truly impactful in the way we need them right now has only just begun. I do sense a renewed need for community and this is both personally and professionally fulfilling.
5. What advice do you give to individuals and arts enthusiasts on how to best support artists, creatives, and the sector right now?
Being an artist is a professional career. Aspiring collectors sometimes need to be reminded of this when dismissing creative practices as “fun” and hobby-like or bargaining with artists for work. Galleries are also essential in ensuring artists careers and art exchanges so undercutting galleries is bad practice.
Artists skills and perspectives have to be recognized in an active way as they offer insight and ways of thinking that can truly inform and change the course of ideas for the better. I would love to see more artists included on business boards, and within corporate paradigms.
Claire Breukel is the Curator for Dacra. As Curator, Breukel is responsible for managing Dacra’s diverse and expansive cultural programming in the Miami Design District. Her role includes selecting, developing and coordinating unique performances, exhibitions, events and activations in collaboration with emerging and established artists and institutions. Breukel also manages the Craig Robins Collection, a private contemporary art collection, arranging exhibitions showcasing the Collection throughout the year.
Prior to joining Dacra in 2020, Breukel worked as Executive Director and Curator for the Robert S. Wennett and Mario Cader-Frech Foundation, establishing the art program Y.ES Contemporary. In 2018, Breukel co-produced the (RED) Auction curated by Theaster Gates and Sir David Adjaye. In 2013, she co-produced the (RED) Design Auction at Sotheby’s New York curated by Jony Ive and Marc Newson. In 2012, Breukel helped establish and operate the public art program Unscripted for Bal Harbour Village bringing notable artists and creative speakers to Miami. Between 2010-2012 she worked as Art Advisor for the Miami Downtown Development Authority, and from 2008 to 2010, Breukel served as the curator for PUMA and worked on arts sponsorships and partnerships.
Breukel moved to Miami in 2003 to work with the Rubell Family Collection and served as the first Executive Director of Locust Projects. During the course of her career Breukel curated exhibitions in Cape Town, Vienna, Prague, New York, Miami and El Salvador. She has written for Harvard’s ReVista, Whitewall, Arte Aldia, Eikon, ArtPulse, Women’s Review, and Hyperallergic.com among other titles.