IRREVERSIBLE honoring our great mentor Dr. Carol Damian. She is a graduate of Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, and received her MA in Pre-Columbian Art History and her Ph.D in Latin American History from the University of Miami. A professor and former chairperson of FIU’s Department of Art + Art History, she is also a prominent figure in Miami’s arts community and a nationally recognized art historian.
Photography by Natasha Kertes
“My passion is art and teaching,” says Dr. Carol Damian, former Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University. Dr. Damian is a powerful, educated, intelligent and charming woman, full of spirit and energy. Her smile shows her warm nature but also her confidence as she did run the Frost Museum and works tirelessly to transform the permanent collection into a museum quality collection of international clout she also created a prime art and educational facility that represents FIU all over the world.
Photography Natasha Kertes. © 2012 The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum.
Lydia Azout studied at David Manzur’s workshop in Bogotá from 1970 to 1974. Later she continued her studies with Luis Camnitzer in Lucca, Italy (1981) and at the Granite and Art Institute in Petrasanta, Italy (1988). Since 1978, she has exhibited in important galleries, museums, and biennials. Her work is part of permanent collections in Mexican, Colombian, Puerto Rican, Venezuelan, and American museums, as well as numerous private collections throughout the world. She currently lives and works in Bogotá, Colombia.
The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum enriches and educates audiences by collecting, conserving, interpreting, and exhibiting art, augmenting Florida International University's mission to serve as local and global center for knowledge.
The mission of the Frost Art Museum is to enrich and educate local, national and international audiences through the language of art by collecting, preserving, researching, interpreting and exhibiting art from diverse cultures throughout human history.
The Museum originally opened its doors in 1977 as The Art Museum at FIU on less than 3000 square feet. The museum grew in relevance, size and steadily gained recognition as one of South Florida’s key cultural institutions. It received accreditation by the American Association of Museums first in 1999 and in 2001 it became affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution. In 2003 the museum was renamed and in 2008 it transitioned to the new 46,000 square feet facility.
Currently, the museum’s collection counts over 5000 works including a fantastic selection of Benin bronzes, works by emerging artists, especially FIU alumni, important Asian art and works by major artists who have exhibited at the facility over the years.
Dr Damian has dedicated her life to the arts and education and leads the Frost Art Museum with her experience and long list of achievements and qualifications. When she was offered her current position, it took her quite by surprise. Recalling that meeting with the Dean and Phillip Frost she lights up the room with he infectious laugh. When she was offered to become Director of the facility she had no prior knowledge what the meeting was about and neither had she applied for the position but after some deliberation she could not pass this “chance of a lifetime.”
Dr Damian grew up in New York, Connecticut and Boston and studied Art History in Boston before moving to Miami with her husband, when the city was still a cultural backwater with no museums, movie theaters or even restaurants to speak of. Eventually she volunteered as a docent at the University of Miami and then decided to pursue her MA in Pre-Columbian Art History with a specialty in Peru, followed by a PhD in Latin-American and Caribbean Studies, History and Art History. In 1990 when UM, supposedly the “door to Latin-America,” decided the school was really not interested in the area, Dr Damian was part of a visionary move by the Florida International University. She left UM after 12 years and joined fellow scholar Juan Martinez in 1992 to set up the Latin-American and Caribbean Center at FIU and became a member of the art department. With her multi-disciplinary PhD Dr Damian now is part of the faculties of Art History, her primary faculty, as well as the History Department, the Cuban Research Institute, the Latin-American and Caribbean Center and the Women Studies Department.
Dr Damian and Founder Publisher/ Curator Noor Blazekovic
Dr Damian grew up in New York, Connecticut and Boston and studied Art History in Boston before moving to Miami with her husband, when the city was still a cultural backwater with no museums, movie theaters or even restaurants to speak of. Eventually she volunteered as a docent at the University of Miami and then decided to pursue her MA in Pre-Columbian Art History with a specialty in Peru, followed by a PhD in Latin-American and Caribbean Studies, History and Art History. In 1990 when UM, supposedly the “door to Latin-America,” decided the school was really not interested in the area, Dr Damian was part of a visionary move by the Florida International University. She left UM after 12 years and joined fellow scholar Juan Martinez in 1992 to set up the Latin-American and Caribbean Center at FIU and became a member of the art department. With her multi-disciplinary PhD Dr Damian now is part of the faculties of Art History, her primary faculty, as well as the History Department, the Cuban Research Institute, the Latin-American and Caribbean Center and the Women Studies Department.