Last night, thirty-one South Florida art projects were awarded grants in the first year of the Knight Arts Partnership, a $40 million effort to bring South Floridians together through the arts. Winning projects include a two-year residency program for up-and-coming artists, a Little League-like network of children’s choirs, and giant, inflatable sculptures in Bayfront Park.

Onajídé Shabaka of Miami Art Exchange and artist Daniel Arsham were in attendance and offered their thoughts on the current Miami art scene:

Watch video of Miami Program Director Lorenzo Lebrija as well as videos of the winners and details for each grant on the Knight Arts site and in the press release.

From today’s press release:

Leaders of the Washington, DC Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, Inc., announced today that former President Bill Clinton will receive the Foundation’s “Humanitarian Award” and serve as the keynote speaker at a January 8, 2009 Miami Dream Dinner to raise funds for Memorial to be built on the National Mall. The dinner will take place at Fontainebleau Hotel and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which donated $1 million to the Memorial Foundation, will serve as the lead dinner sponsor.

…

President Clinton played a key role in the Memorial’s inception and has remained an active supporter. On July 16, 1998, Clinton signed a Joint Congressional Resolution authorizing the building of a memorial and on November 13, 2006 he participated in the Ceremonial Groundbreaking. He has served on the Memorial Foundation’s President’s Council for several years.

An expected 22 million people a year will visit the tribute to King’s transformational impact on the country, and the world.

How would you commemorate King?

Thanks to the News Challenge winner Lisa Williams of Placeblogger and the Berkman Blog Group for a great Boston meetup last night where we talked about the history of the News Challenge (the $5MM yearly contest to find innovative digital delivery ideas), the Garage site for working through ideas before applying, how mentoring in the Garage works, and brainstorming ideas for this year’s contest.

You’ll see Steve Garfield and Jason Pramas (Open Media Boston) in the group below as well as developers and thinkers from MIT, Harvard, and Somerville organizations.

Next Thursday, we’ll host meetups in Austin and we’ll also be at the Maker Faire during the weekend. After that, we’ll talk in San Francisco (Facebook invite). We hope to meet you then–

Remember that the News Challenge contest closes November 1st; you can apply here and work through your idea before applying here with a mentor who has won the contest in the past.

As we’ve previously blogged, one section of Knight’s annual progress report asks what you think about the Miami arts scene and the new Knight Arts Partnership, a $20 million matching challenge to fund individuals and organizations with ideas for the future of arts in Miami.

I asked Rick of the South Florida Daily Blog (SFDB), who summarizes area blogs, to help us identify art bloggers whose audiences might be interested and have ideas for arts in Miami.

Rick posted an entry on SFDB yesterday (thank you, Rick), asking his readers which art blogs they followed.

The readers suggested a few in the comments (TuMiami, ArtLurker, a new Miami Art Exchange url). We plan to follow up with these blogs, and we’ve noted Roger L’s comment that summer isn’t, perhaps, the liveliest season of the Miami art scene.

What you think about the Miami arts scene? Other Miami art blogs you follow?

Tell us in the comments below or on the annual report site.

Part of the annual progress report, Knight Foundation asks what you think about the Miami Knight Arts Partnership.

Bonnie Clearwater, executive director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, explains some of their recent work in this video:

“We’ve gone from about 100 arts groups to more than 1,200 in the past two decades,” said Lorenzo Lebrija, Knight’s Miami program director. “It shows a real growth and maturing of Miami’s creative community.”

What do you think about arts in Miami? What would you like to see funded in the Knight Arts Partnership?

Leave a comment below or on the progress report site.

Knight Foundation supports Miami’s Wolfsonian-Florida International University’s new poster exhibition “Thoughts on Democracy” through the Knight New Work Award. A video about the exhibit, which opened July 3rd, is below, followed by details on included artists and the inspiration for the exhibit.

“The Thoughts on Democracy exhibition is comprised of posters created by fifty-five leading contemporary artists and designers, invited by The Wolfsonian to create a new graphic design inspired by American illustrator Norman Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms” posters of 1943, which were recently gifted to the museum by Leonard A. Lauder.

Some of the participating artists involved in the project are Neville Brody, Seymour Chwast, Wim Crouwel, Elliott Earls, Richard Tuttle, Lawrence Weiner, Paula Scher, Francesco Vezzoli, Chip Kidd, and Italo Lupi, among others.

Rockwell’s images, reproduced by the U.S. Office of War Information for mass dissemination, communicated FDR’s vision of ‘a world founded upon four essential human freedoms’—Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear. The exhibition will be on view and free to the public in the museum’s lobby.”

At the July 3rd exhibit opening, visitors were asked for their thoughts on democracy. You can watch their responses on the Thoughts on Democracy blog.

What are your thoughts on democracy and this exhibit?

Editor’s note: Lorenzo Lebrija is the Program Director for the Knight Foundation community program in Miami and manages the Knight Arts Partnership, a new experimental art contest for South Florida, where the Knight Foundation is based.

The Knight Arts Partnership began with a simple premise: we don’t know all the answers, and great ideas are in the community. So, let’s ask for them. In the end, we received 1,643 applications with ideas for the arts in South Florida.

Yesterday, we announced to the community the 77 finalists for the Knight Arts Partnership. Our next step is to see whether the ideas, when explained further, are as good as the quick descriptions. Are the groups or individuals right to carry them out? Do they have a plan to raise the match of our funds? We’re excited to find out.

Not all 77 finalists will secure grants (we only have $4 million!), but we have a good pool from which some ideas, when fully developed, will stand out.

It’s going to be an interesting summer!