NSU Art Museum showcases Latin American art in ‘Shared Dreams’ exhibition

By Alexandria Munroe •

The NSU Art Museum has unveiled “Shared Dreams,” a new exhibition showcasing a selection of Latin American art donated by Stanley and Pearl Goodman, former Fort Lauderdale residents and long-time art collectors.

For decades, the Goodmans traveled the world together collecting art from auctions and galleries that were artistically pleasing to them until they decided that their collection needed a central theme.

“Eventually it dawned on us that if we’re going to do this, that we have to focus down, that we have to collect something that’s specific,” Stanley Goodman said.

Their life in South Florida, and Pearl Goodman’s relatives in Mexico, inspired them to focus on Latin American modernism.

As their interest in the style deepened, the Goodmans said they began to study art history to determine which artists best represented each country.

“Our aim was to get the key people in each one of the Latin American countries,”

Pearl Goodman said. “Once we started studying, we picked up those bits of knowledge.”

Stanley and Pearl Goodman’s donation to the NSU Art Museum includes works from artists like Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Fernando Botero.

The 88-piece “Shared Dreams” exhibit features art from a variety of decades and Latin American countries, including Mexico, Colombia, Cuba and Uruguay.

Bonnie Clearwater, director and chief curator at the NSU Art Museum, said the exhibition highlights how artists fleeing wars or political disruption in their home countries channeled their feelings of displacement into new art styles.

“We wanted to show that art travels, artists travel, and ideas circulate,” Clearwater said. “Something new came out of that.”

The exhibition also explores how artists influenced one another across borders, connecting movements and ideas that were developing through Latin America, Clearwater said.

“There’s this fascinating idea of interconnectedness,” Clearwater said. “It’s like standing in the middle of a room where everyone’s having a conversation, and we wanted to get that dialogue going.”

Clearwater said that “Artes 110 (Arts 110),” a painting by Leonora Carrington, is a standout piece in the exhibition.

Carrington was a British-born artist who relocated to Mexico during World War II.

The painting represents her flying through the air, fleeing from a place that is crumbling.

“It’s one of the first paintings she made when she relocated to Mexico,” Clearwater said. “She stayed there for the rest of her life, and you can see that she really felt at home in her country of choice.”

Beyond the exhibition, the donations helped establish the Goodman Study Center for Latin American Art and The Annual Stanley and Pearl Goodman Lecture on Latin American Art.

“The goal was to build a collection that would be comprehensive and meaningful to donate to the museum as a whole, both for the public to view and for study by students,” Clearwater said.