Lowe Art Museum — Attraction in Coral Gables

Extremely rude staff. Most of them follow you around the rooms like they think you're going to steal something or whatnot. The irony is they do it more so in rooms with things I would pass over as junk (I get that art is subjective, but a broom on the floor with the handle leaning against a blank canvas that is not hung straight- really? I thought someone had been sweeping and left it there - no, it was one of the exhibits.) Our children were being perfectly quiet and very well behaved. They wanted to count the angles of a piece (silently in their heads) to see if they came up with the same answer. We told them that was fine. They had their pointer fingers about 3 inches away from themselves in the air while doing so and were at minimum 6 inches at one point and a good foot away the rest of the time from the piece and not 1, but 2 women felt the need to go over to them and tell them not to touch it within 5 seconds of eachother and the second person knew the first had done so. At no point in time had either of them touched anything. One - they know better. Two - my husband and I had our eyes on them at all times. I would have let it go until one of the women proceeded to give my husband and I a dirty look when she walked past again. I said, "Is there a problem?". She says, "There're signs clearly saying not to touch things.". I told her if she was really paying attention, as opposed to carrying on a personal conversation with the other woman bashing whomever they were talking about, (they weren't being quiet and even facing away from them I could hear every word without trying to) then she would know that they weren't touching a damn thing and that we (my husband and I) didn't take our eyes off of them the entire time they were counting the angles until I did just now when you walked in front of me again. She had nothing to say to that. Both of my children were upset by this as they asked why those ladies yelled at them when they didn't do anything wrong. I told them I knew they didn't and not to worry about it as clearly the women had nothing else better to do. I could understand if they were being loud, running around, or actually touching things, but that was not the case at all. They were never more than 3 feet away from my husband or I the entire time. For the majority of the time, they were holding one of our hands so.....

My children have been in numerous museums of much higher quality and tours of old estates with priceless antiques. Not once has anyone ever yelled at them or said anything negative to them in any of those other places. The only time someone in a place like that has ever said anything to my husband or I regarding our children it has been to comment on how well behaved they are being. My children are certainly not perfect, but they know very well how to behave in such places as we always make it very clear when we are going into a place where they are not to touch a single thing and we expect perfect behavior while inside places like that. They are so used to it that even in places where there are interactive exhibits and you're supposed to press a button, flip a door, or touch a screen, etc. - they ask us before doing so.

Even aside from the rude and annoying staff, this is not a place I would ever again waste my time to go to. There were a couple areas with older Asian pottery and what not that I found interesting ( I like that kind of thing), but aside from that it was time I would have rather spent doing just about...

Really the best ceramics and glass one can hope for, my family has attended in the past Ancient Chinese and contemporary Japanese exhibits, and now they have an incredible artist from Mexico (Virgil Ortiz) on display whose work fuses ceramics and glass in a retro futuristic theme that projects alternative history into a computer-game-styled dystopia, into a type of future the humankind would be better of avoiding. While the pieces openly and at-your-face advertise themself for a possible future film, this is not a flaw in the eyes of our contemporaries :), my favorite one is "the translator" ; I wish the actual geonames would not be used as the source of "bad guys" in the narrative, as the people living there now are innocent of the fantasmagories shown, otherwise it is a powerful and talented collection, highly recommend! The curation is impeccable: from the exhibit you will step out in the rooms with coordinated visually and storytelling-wise actual artifacts (some of these are also woven into the exhibit itself), and then you will face more rooms of pottery of various cultures (including astonishing Asian pieces from the permanent collection). As you enter and exit, you will see in the museum lobby the Persian glass flower composition by Chihuly :) Pay attention to the weekday as the museum is not open daily, look up on their website when they are open! Our latest visit...

Thanks to the Miami Dade Public Library System we went for for free to this museum located inside the beautiful University of Miami. The Lowe Art Museum was a very nice experience for us, with impeccable floors, different exhibitions, a friendly staff, wonderful security system and team. I parked across the entrance but I'm glad I asked because the lady told me that I can park for free on the museum's parking lot at the left of the main entrance. They had an exhibition of a Cuban artist plus many more. It was beautiful to guess what type of materials the artist used and then my son checked my guess reading the description. My favorite part was the section of the Native American, where you can see how they survived, lived and worked. Adult entrance fee is $12.5 and if you check in with Yelp you get 50% off that fee. UM staff and students enter for free. My son went back today with a friend since we still had two more tickets and they...