de la Cruz Collection

AMONG FRIENDS - PANELIST BIOS

Rosa R. de la Cruz

Rosa R. de la Cruz was born in Havana, Cuba. She attended Barry University in Miami, Florida. Resides in Key Biscayne, Florida since l975. Before moving to Miami, lived in Philadelphia, New York City and Madrid, Spain. Married to Carlos M. de la Cruz since 1962. They have five children and seventeen grandchildren.

Director and Treasurer of the de la Cruz Companies ( Coca-Cola Trinidad-Tobago and Coca-Cola Puerto Rico Bottlers).

Recipient in 1997 of the Alexis de Tocqueville Award from United Way for community service. Member of the Ibis Society of the University of Miami. She and her husband were the 1998 honorees of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Recipient of the 2004 Red Cross Chairmen's Spectrum Award.

Chairperson and Founder of the Moore Space, Miami 2001 -2008 - Member of the Curatorial Advisory Council of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, N.Y. - Member of the Art in Public Places Board, Key Biscayne, Florida - Member of the Strategic Planning Committee, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami - Juror Hugo Boss Prize 1998, Guggenheim Museum.
In 2010, she will serve as Juror of the Marcel Duchamp Prix, Paris at the Centre Pompidou.

On December, 2009 she and her husband Carlos opened a new space in Miami's Design District to showcase their personal collection of contemporary international art. This exhibition space and library with a strong educational component serves as an extension to their home where their collection has been available for public viewing for the past
twenty years.

As of this year The de la Cruz collection started a residency program collaborating for the first year with the Sculpture Center New York to give visiting artists the opportunity to explore the history of South Florida and further their work. They also established a contest with the DASH senior architectural class where the scholarship prizes will help students with their first year of college. Also a travel grant for the senior class of the New World School of the Arts that will allow them to visit some of the world's most exciting art capitals.

Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz help develop our contemporary art scene by funding museum purchases and exhibitions.

Peter Menendez

A Miami resident since 1982, Peter Menendez has served on the boards of several community arts organizations, including Miami Light Project, Art Center South Florida and the Miami Art Museum. He has participated frequently in selection committees of the Miami Dade County Art in Public Places Program, and was a member of the Founding Host Committee for ArtBasel Miami Beach. His field of interest in contemporary art focuses on Cuban-American, Cuban, and Afro-American artists.

Craig Robins

Craig Robins is Chief Executive Officer and President of Dacra, a global real estate development company that is known for its cultivation of creative communities, integration of art and design, and its overall value creation. Based in Miami, Florida, Dacra has spearheaded some of the most successful and transformative commercial, residential and mixed-use projects in the City's history. For over ten years, Dacra has transformed a once abandoned neighborhood - the Miami Design District - into one of the most important global centers for cutting-edge art, design and now food and fashion. The neighborhood's renewal was the inspiration for the creation of the leading international design show Design Miami. Robins is a Principal of the fair owned in partnership with MCH Swiss Exhibition the producers of Art Basel.

An avid collector and supporter of the arts, Mr. Robins is also the Founder and Chairman of the Anaphiel Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting arts education, exploration and expression in all its forms. Robins is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Miami Art Museum.

Cesar Trasobares

During the past three decades, Cesar Trasobares has broadly defined his practice as an artist. In the art world, he serves as art activist, curator, educator and performer. In the studio, he produces series in various media. In the institutional field, he works in education and art administration. Addressing broad audiences, he has often focused on the social territories that welcome the involvement of creative individuals; continuing to do whatever he can to bring dignity and recognition to the status and roles of artists in society.

He received fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (1979), the Cintas Foundation (1980), and Art Matters (1995). His breadwinner jobs include: Director of Metro-Dade Art in Public Places Program, 1985-1990; New York Coordinator of the Estate Project, 1997-99; consulting artist for Artful Truth at the Wolfsonian-FIU Museum, 1999-2001 and Coordinator of the Key Biscayne Public Art Program, 2005-present, among others. He has participated in numerous artist selection panels, including the Advisory Committee for the 1991 Whitney Museum Biennial, as well as numerous conferences and community-oriented programs. He has written essays about contemporary art and artists for various publications since the late 1970s.

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