Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas

06/18/2026

06/17/2026

From Havana to the Americas: Pedro Abascal Joins the MoCA-Americas Collection
By Rodriguez Collection Team

The Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas has added to its collection a work by Pedro Abascal, a Cuban photographer based in Havana. The acquired piece, Amigos, belongs to the series Dossier Habana and has been recognized by critics as one of the artist’s most accomplished works.

The work will soon be exhibited in Mérida, Mexico, as part of a program of exchanges with local cultural institutions.

Pedro Abascal is a Cuban photographer born in Havana in 1960. Largely self-taught, he began his photographic practice in the early 1980s, combining independent exploration with workshops and professional exchanges that helped shape his visual language. Over the years, his work has moved between photojournalism, commercial photography, still photography, and more personal documentary projects.

His photographs are recognized for their refined use of contrast, their attention to urban life, and their capacity to transform everyday scenes into charged visual signs rather than simple records of reality. Through his images, Havana often appears not as a fixed subject, but as an open visual archive, marked by fragments, gestures, surfaces, memory, and the traces of lived experience.

Abascal has exhibited his work in Cuba, the United States, Switzerland, and other international contexts. In 1996, he received a Special Mention from Casa de las Américas for Wings in the Shadow. In 2003, he published Personal Documents, a volume that brought together part of his photographic practice and consolidated his position within contemporary Cuban photography.

His long-term project Dossier Habana, developed between 1989 and 2006, stands as one of the central bodies of his work. Created across the years of Cuba’s Special Period and its aftermath, the series approaches Havana as both a historical archive and a poetic field of observation, where memory, identity, urban deterioration, and human persistence converge through the photographic image.

06/17/2026

MoCAA Hosted Florida Music & Art Academy’s Spring Music Recital
By Rodriguez Collection Team

Miami, FL — The Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas hosted the Spring Music Recital presented by Florida Music & Art Academy on Saturday, June 13, 2026, at 2:00 p.m., at its museum space in Miami. The program featured piano and vocal performances by students of the academy, in an event dedicated to learning, discipline, confidence, and artistic expression.

The recital offered MoCAA an opportunity to extend its cultural mission beyond the exhibition of contemporary art. The museum defines itself as an emerging institution dedicated to the preservation, education, and interpretation of Caribbean and Latin American contemporary art, while also serving as a space for research, inquiry, training, exchange, education, and community enjoyment. In that context, the presentation of a student music recital within the museum reinforced MoCAA’s role as a platform where art, education, and community participation can meet.

Florida Music & Art Academy develops a personalized educational model for students of different ages and levels. Its programs include piano, voice, applied music theory, visual arts, creative arts, and preparation for admission exams in music programs. The academy’s educational approach emphasizes not only technical development, but also personal expression, confidence, communication skills, self-esteem, and integral growth through music and art.

The academy also works with children, teens, adults, and students with special needs, adapting its lessons to the rhythm and learning style of each person. Its public identity is summarized in the phrase “Where Music Inspires Growth,” visible in its institutional materials and consistent with its stated emphasis on music and art as tools for creativity, communication, and personal development.

The recital was guided by Massiel Rodriguez, founder of Florida Music & Art Academy. According to the academy’s official biography, Rodriguez is a music educator, singer, pianist, composer, arranger, and teacher with more than twenty years of experience in Cuba, Spain, and the United States. Her background includes studies at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, with a specialization in choral conducting, as well as professional development related to inclusive arts education.

By hosting this recital, MoCAA strengthened its commitment to educational and community-based programming. The event connected the museum’s visual arts environment with music education and created a meaningful setting for students to present the results of their study before an audience. It also affirmed the importance of artistic education as part of a broader cultural ecosystem in which museums can serve not only as places for exhibitions, but also as spaces for learning, participation, and creative growth.

06/13/2026

En MoCAA | Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas estamos dedicados a promover las artes, la educación y el intercambio cultural, creando un espacio donde la creatividad, el aprendizaje y el talento pueden florecer y compartirse con toda la comunidad.
Esta tarde nos complació recibir a los niños estudiantes de la Florida Music & Art Academy, bajo la dirección de la profesora Masiel Rodríguez. A través de la música, estos jóvenes artistas nos compartieron el fruto de su dedicación, disciplina y entusiasmo, recordándonos la importancia de apoyar la educación artística desde edades tempranas.
Gracias por brindarnos esta hermosa tarde musical. Esperamos que que haya sido también una oportunidad para que conocieran más de MoCAA, nuestra misión de apoyar a las nuevas generaciones de creadores, y fortalecer la vida cultural de nuestra comunidad.

06/13/2026

En MoCAA | Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas estamos dedicados a promover las artes, la educación y el intercambio cultural, creando un espacio donde la creatividad, el aprendizaje y el talento pueden florecer y compartirse con toda la comunidad.
Esta tarde nos complació recibir a los niños estudiantes de la Florida Music & Art Academy, bajo la dirección de la profesora Masiel Rodríguez. A través de la música, estos jóvenes artistas nos compartieron el fruto de su dedicación, disciplina y entusiasmo, recordándonos la importancia de apoyar la educación artística desde edades tempranas.
Gracias por brindarnos esta hermosa tarde musical. Esperamos que que haya sido también una oportunidad para que conocieran más de MoCAA, nuestra misión de apoyar a las nuevas generaciones de creadores, y fortalecer la vida cultural de nuestra comunidad.

06/13/2026

06/13/2026

La Facultad de Arquitectura (UADY) de Mérida, Yucatán, está organizando un amplio programa de actividades con motivo de su 53.º aniversario, que se llevará a cabo en septiembre de 2026 y que involucrará a estudiantes, profesores, artistas locales, especialistas e importantes espacios del recinto académico y del circuito institucional.

El arte cubano tendrá también una presencia excepcional en estas actividades, gracias a las labores de coordinación que se han venido desarrollando en estos meses entre el director de la UADY, David Reynaldo Alcocer González; el director del Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de las Américas (MoCAA), Leonardo Rodríguez; la directora de Identidad y Cultura de Mérida, Karla Patricia Berrón Cámara; el crítico de arte y director de Artcrónica, David Mateo; la subdirectora del MoCAA, Ivonne Ferrer, y el artista y coordinador del proyecto Praxis Havana, Enrique Miralles (Tente).

Una selección significativa de obras de la colección del MoCAA, en Kendall, Florida, que incluye diversas manifestaciones artísticas y traza un recorrido histórico desde la denominada vanguardia cubana hasta la actualidad, será exhibida en el Museo de la Ciudad. La muestra contará con la presencia de sus comisarios, Leonardo Rodríguez e Ivonne Ferrer, director general y subdirectora de esta institución estadounidense, respectivamente. Ambos propiciarán espacios de intercambio y ofrecerán charlas especializadas dirigidas a los estudiantes y al claustro de profesores de la UADY.

La artista Ivonne Ferrer aprovechará la ocasión para inaugurar una muestra personal de su obra reciente en la galería del Fórum Universitario e impartirá una conferencia sobre los procedimientos técnicos y los conceptos que orientan su trabajo en el ámbito de las artes visuales.

Por su parte, David Mateo presentará tres números impresos de la revista Artcrónica dedicados al arte cubano, centrados en manifestaciones como la escultura, el diseño y la arquitectura. Asimismo, ofrecerá una disertación sobre su trayectoria como periodista y crítico de arte, y acerca de su labor en los medios de comunicación vinculados a la cultura.

06/10/2026

MoCAA Welcomes Florida Music & Art Academy’s Spring Music Recital
By Rodriguez Collection Team

Miami, FL — This Saturday, June 13, at 2:00 p.m., the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas will host the Spring Music Recital presented by Florida Music & Art Academy, an afternoon dedicated to the artistic growth of its students through piano and vocal performances.

The event will bring together children and young performers in a program conceived not only as a showcase of musical skills, but also as a celebration of learning, discipline, confidence, and creative expression. Within the museum setting, the recital takes on a special dimension: music enters into dialogue with the exhibition space, transforming the cultural experience into a shared moment among students, families, educators, and the community.

Florida Music & Art Academy develops a personalized educational model designed for students of different ages and levels. Its program includes piano, voice, applied music theory, visual arts, and creative activities, with particular emphasis on individual guidance, personal expression, and the integral development of each student. The academy also encourages students to participate in recitals, concerts, workshops, and other public experiences that strengthen stage presence and foster a direct relationship with audiences.

The recital will be guided by music educator Massiel Rodriguez, founder of the academy, a singer, pianist, composer, arranger, and teacher whose professional experience spans Cuba, Spain, and the United States. Her work is distinguished by a sensitive, inclusive, and deeply personal pedagogical vision, in which music is understood not merely as technique, but as a path toward confidence, creativity, communication, and human growth.

By opening its doors to this activity, MoCAA reaffirms its vocation as a cultural and community gathering place, capable of hosting not only contemporary art exhibitions, but also educational processes in which new generations encounter their first public experiences with the arts. The Spring Music Recital will therefore be an opportunity to listen to the results of many hours of study, while also recognizing the essential role of arts education in Miami’s cultural life.

Event: Spring Music Recital
Presented by: Florida Music & Art Academy
Date: Saturday, June 13, 2026
Time: 2:00 p.m.
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas, 12063 SW 131st Ave, Miami, FL 33186

06/10/2026

MoCAA Supports Young Musician Xander Mateo
The Museum of Contemporary Art of the Americas (MoCAA) is pleased to support the artistic development of Xander Mateo, a fifteen-year-old musician who studies at Miami Arts Studio 6-12 at Zelda Glazer, a Miami-Dade magnet school for the performing and visual arts. A percussionist, Xander performs across a range of genres, among them jazz, salsa, and rock.
Alongside his studies, Xander plays with the ensemble Southern Stampede and with the SFCPA Tambora Line, which takes part in cultural and community events throughout South Florida. This June, as Miami hosts the FIFA World Cup 26™, the group is scheduled to perform at official tournament celebrations and FIFA Fan Festival events.
MoCAA recently joined Xander at a Southern Stampede performance at Gilbert's Resort in Key Largo. Supporting the next generation of artists is central to the museum's mission, and we are glad to stand behind young musicians such as Xander Mateo as they build their craft.
Photos: Xander Mateo performing with Southern Stampede at Gilbert's Resort, Key Largo, with members of the MoCAA team.