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By Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist
Guest Blogger

If you’ll be traveling to Miami this fall, be sure to take time to visit the Miami Art Museum.

Exhibits with dazzling lights, including a huge, brilliant orange sun of florescent lights, fascinating modern art, and optical illusions are a delightfully entertaining and thought-provoking experience.

One of the most moving installations is about Alzheimer’s disease. Elizabeth Cerejido, former Frost Art Museum curator, documents her mother’s descent into Alzheimer’s in Absence Series with 13 color photographs and a video assembled in a small white room.

Some of the photos are simply white lettering on a black background listing items her mother frequently misplaces: a pillbox, umbrella, and address book. Others show notes on the stove, air conditioner, and other places telling her mother not to touch them.

Most riveting is the video of Cerejidoi’s mother rocking, rocking, and rocking in a rocking chair, a habit she developed as her health declined.

The installation called to mind all of the blogs I’ve read lately on Baby Boomer concerns about Alzheimer’s disease.

Other exhibits at the Miami Art Museum are:

Shadows, Disappearances, and Illusions. Using light, perspective, and erasure, the artworks in this exhibit short-circuit the connection between the eye and the brain. They make people question what they’re seeing and make them aware of their role as viewers. Artists include Joseph Cornell, Magdalena Fernandez, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Mark Handforth, Oscar Muñoz, Maria Martinez-Cañas, Regina Silveira, and Lorna Simpson. Specially commissioned installations from Miami artists Tom Scicluna, Matt Schreiber, and Wendy Wischer are part of the exihibit. Until September 21, 2008.

Sean Duffy. Los Angeles-based artist Sean Duffy has created an installation inspired by California pop culture of the 1960s – complete with a zebra-striped Toyota Land Cruiser sporting logos reminiscent of the era’s “custom car” culture and a soundtrack coming from fire-engine red gas cans. Until October 12, 2008.

Selections from the Permanent Collection. The installation combines old favorites from the collection, such as Frank Stella’s Chodorów II and Morris Louis’ Beth Shin with more recent acquisitions, such as Kehinde Wiley’s Regard the Class Struggle as a Main Link in the Chain and Emilio Perez’ In the Middle of Something. Until November 2, 2008.

For more information for boomer consumers, see my blog The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide.