About Us
Founded in 1958, NSU Art Museum is a premier destination for exhibitions and programs encompassing all facets of civilization’s visual history.
The Museum is the hub of the South Florida Art Coast, situated midway between Miami and Palm Beach in the heart of downtown Fort Lauderdale, one of the fastest growing areas in the U.S. Its distinctive modernist building, which opened in 1986 was designed by the renowned architect Edward Larrabee Barnes. Located in Fort Lauderdale’s active Arts and Entertainment District, the Museum is a short walk to the shops, restaurants and galleries of vibrant Las Olas Boulevard as well as to the picturesque Riverwalk waterfront promenade.
NSU Art Museum’s 83,000 square-foot building contains 25,000 square feet of exhibition space, a 256-seat auditorium, Museum Store and Cafe.
The Museum’s international exhibition program, which aims to challenge viewers’ perceptions of the world around them, is overseen by its visionary Director and Chief Curator Bonnie Clearwater, who joined the Museum in 2013.
NSU Art Museum’s celebrated permanent collection contains more than 7,500 works and is known for its significant collection of Latin American, contemporary art with an emphasis on women, Black and Latinx artists, and African art that spans the 19th to the 21st-century. Among its highlights is the country’s largest collection of 19th and early 20th century paintings and drawings by the American realist William Glackens, the most extensive holding in the U.S. of works by post-World War II, avant-garde CoBrA artists (acronym for Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam) who resisted German occupation during World War II and emerged in the war’s wake.
E X H I B I T I O N S
E X H I B I T I O N S
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Peter Halley: The Mirror Stage
September 8, 2024 – January 12, 2025
NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale will present Peter Halley: The Mirror Stage, an immersive site-specific installation by New York painter Peter Halley (b. 1953, New York, New York) beginning September 8, 2024, through January 12, 2025. This spectacular exhibition has been specially commissioned for the Museum’s expansive second-floor galleries.
The Mirror Stage thrusts viewers into a mirrored universe comprised of two nearly identical spaces, each accessed through separate doors at opposite ends of a large rectangular gallery. A solid dividing wall inserted at the center of the gallery prevents viewers from passing through from either side, forcing them to move back and forth through the two entrances in order to experience the installation in its entirety. Halley further amplified the mirroring effect of the two spaces by laminating walls with highly reflective vinyl. Monumental neon-colored canvases and grids of brightly hued textured panels add to the viewer’s vivid and uncanny experience as they navigate real, pictorial, and virtual space.
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Joel Meyerowitz: Temporal Aspects
October 4, 2024 – March 16, 2025
In 1962, Joel Meyerowitz (b.1938, The Bronx, New York; lives and works in London, England) made an instant life decision: to become a photographer. His fixed determination ideally suited his new instrument, the camera, defined by its ability to seize time and space in a thousandth of a second and hold it in an immutable frame. This exhibition celebrates NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale’s commitment to photography with its recent acquisition of over 1,800 works from the archive of Joel Meyerowitz, an artist best known for his early embrace of color photography in early 1962, which both preceded and facilitated a critical acceptance of the medium. Meyerowitz’s skill is evident in both the full, visceral descriptions of his color photographs, and the graphic and human subtleties of his black-and-white prints. More critically, Meyerowitz’s importance as an image-maker is defined by his ability to select the peak fraction of a second when shifting patterns, facial expressions and vibrations of light come together to form a complete image.
NSU Art Museum
One East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
Hours:
Sunday: Noon - 5pm
Tuesday-Saturday:
11am - 5pm