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May 25, 2007 |
Issue # 40 |
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The Art of Friendship
A Pair of Painters from Operation Peter Pan Has
Opened Miami’s Newest Art Gallery
By Jonathan Wemette
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Nuri Bustillo and Olga Buffett,
whose friendship built a gallery |
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The Buffett
Gallery is a small establishment with one modest showroom and a cluttered back
office. The friendship that built it, however, is nearly epic in scope.
Olga Buffett
and Nury Bustillo are the friends and business partners behind Miami’s newest
art gallery. They first knew each other as four-year-old girls in 1950s Cuba.
Their
families were friends, and though the girls played together as young children,
they were not close. This changed when, at the age of 12, they were sent to the
United States together in Operation Peter Pan.
Between 1960 and 1962, Operation
Peter Pan brought more than 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban children to the United
States. After the Communist takeover of Cuba in 1959, parents who opposed the
new government and parents who feared their children would be shipped to Soviet
work camps sent their children to Miami. Financed in part by the U.S.
government, it became the largest exodus of unaccompanied children in the
history of the Western Hemisphere. |
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Wynwood: Big Changes Afoot
A New Day Dawn’s on Miami’s Down and Dirty Design
District
Story and Photos by Irene Sperber
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Perrotin Gallerie's outside
sculpture garden |
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Visiting Wynwood for Gallery Walks, 2007-style, is so markedly different
from previous years that it boggles one’s mind. We are now calling it the
Wynwood Arts District, and I found myself sharing parking spaces with customers
from Target, Marshall’s and West Elm---a far cry from my old M.O. of arriving
armed with an uzi and rottweiler. (Okay, I’m kidding, but only marginally).
Held regularly on the second Saturday of every month from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.,
the number of galleries is exploding at a rate that would impress a bunny.
There are approximately 55 art dealers at the moment. I managed only a tiny
selection on my last jaunt, which allows for repeat walks without repeating
galleries. |
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