Pérez Art Museum Miami Announces 13th Annual Art + Soul Celebration, Honoring Fab 5 Freddy

Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) is bringing back its Art + Soul Celebration on Saturday, February 7, 2026, honoring Fred Brathwaite, widely known as Fab 5 Freddy. Now in its 13th year, the evening is positioned as one of Miami’s major social and fundraising events, with proceeds supporting the PAMM Fund for Black Art and an on-site reveal of a newly selected artwork for the museum’s permanent collection.

Art + Soul sits at the intersection of nightlife energy and collection-building strategy. The event’s fundraising directly strengthens PAMM’s ability to acquire contemporary work by Black artists and expand what the museum can present on its walls long-term, with support from PAMM’s Ambassadors for Black Art. In recent years, that acquisition component has become a defining feature: in 2025, the event raised over $1.4 million and announced the acquisition of Lauren Halsey’s lil e-man (2024). Since 2013, Art + Soul has raised over $8.4 million for the fund and helped bring 28 artworks into PAMM’s collection.

Why Fab 5 Freddy

Honoring Fab 5 Freddy makes sense for a night focused on cultural impact and institutional permanence. His career has long connected scenes that shaped how Black creativity travels, from the early days of graffiti culture moving into galleries, to music, television, and film that carried hip-hop aesthetics into mainstream view. PAMM points to an early moment from 1980, his Warhol soup-can imagery painted on a New York City subway, as a vivid example of his role in bridging worlds.

Many audiences know his public-facing legacy through media: he served as the original co-host of Yo! MTV Raps, a major platform for hip-hop’s global reach. His film work includes co-producing, starring in, and composing music for the cult-classic Wild Style, a touchstone for the era when hip-hop, street style, and visual art were converging in real time. PAMM also notes a publishing milestone ahead: his memoir, Everybody’s Fly, is scheduled for release in March 2026 through Penguin Random House.

What to Expect on the Night

Pérez Art Museum Miami entrance. Photo by Dan Lundberg, CC BY-SA 2.0.

For Art + Soul attendees, the night is built as a full program, then a late celebration. The schedule begins with cocktails and a seated dinner at 6:15pm, designed by Chef Raheem Sealey, along with the program and the unveiling of the Ambassadors for Black Art’s most recent acquisition selection. The celebration portion continues at 10pm with cocktails, desserts, and dancing under the stars, featuring music by Deep Fried Funk and DJ Aya. Gallery access is slated to begin at 9pm.

Event Leadership and Sponsors

This year’s event leadership includes co-chairs Holly and Eric G. Johnson, Tracey Robertson Carter and Christopher Carter, and Patricia Howell, with honorary chairs Deryl McKissack and Dorothy Terrell. Sponsorship support listed by the museum includes founding support from the Knight Foundation and Jorge M. and Darlene Pérez; platinum sponsors Baldwin Richardson Foods Co. and Miami-Dade County Commissioner Keon Hardemon; and a gold sponsor, J.P. Morgan Private Bank, alongside additional sponsors.

Why the Fund Matters

The museum’s Fund for Black Art is the long game behind the gala. Established in 2013 with a $1 million donation funded equally by Jorge M. Pérez and the Knight Foundation, the fund began as the Fund for African American Art and was renamed in 2021 to reflect a broader scope across the African Diaspora, including Latin America and the Caribbean. PAMM credits the fund with helping build a collection that includes early acquisitions such as works by Al Loving, Faith Ringgold, and Xaviera Simmons, joining other holdings by artists such as Leonardo Drew, Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems, Kehinde Wiley, and Purvis Young.

A quick look at the list of artists named in connection with past Art + Soul acquisitions signals how the event has functioned over time: Isaac Julien, Dawoud Bey, Calida Rawles, Kevin Beasley, Nari Ward, Lorraine O’Grady, Ebony G. Patterson, Faith Ringgold, and Tschabalala Self are among the names the museum highlights. Past honorees include Thelma Golden, Dr. Lowery S. Sims, Pamela Joyner, David Alan Grier, Jesse Williams, and Mashonda Tifrere, an indicator of the event’s blend of art-world leadership and broader cultural visibility.

For readers who track how institutions shape the canon, Art + Soul offers a useful lens: museum collections rarely shift overnight, and dedicated acquisition funds influence what becomes visible, preserved, and teachable across generations. The Art + Soul model channels a party-night format into a concrete outcome, adding work to a permanent collection in a city where contemporary culture moves fast, and memory can be short without institutional commitment.