Lou Anne Colodny
Public Art and Design Committee Member

Lou Anne Colodny has been involved in the arts since 1980 as both an administrator and artist. As the founding director of CoCA, the Center of Contemporary Art in North Miami, Florida (1981-1996), she received the Governor’s award for the development of an art facility in a culturally barren area. During that time, she organized over 80 exhibitions featuring Florida artists and guest curators. She collaborated with artists and oversaw every function of the “little museum that could” which was featured in numerous articles in national art magazines.  In 1994, she arranged for over 5 million dollars of funding to build a new 40,000 square foot contemporary art museum. While continuing the exhibitions at CoCA, she oversaw the building of the new museum,  increased staff to eight and raised private monies for increased programming of the new facility. Two years later, under her leadership, MoCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art, was opened and received rave reviews.  Ms. Colodny served one year on the Cultural Arts Council of Dade County and 4 years on the Art in Public Places Professional Advisory Council (PAC), which selected artists for Miami-Dade County projects. Having realized her dreams of building the new museum, Ms. Colodny, in 1997, moved on to work as a photographic and video installation artist exhibiting in Dade County galleries and alternative spaces in Atlanta, Georgia. Her long standing commitment to the arts through these many endeavors gives her unique insights into the collaborations of artists with the public and private sector.