“Follow me,” by Wang Qingsong, upcoming exhibit at the Frost Museum.

Carol Damian is stepping down as director of the Frost Art Museum-FIU. She’s been at the helm as both the museum and the arts community as a whole in Miami have exploded. Six years ago, the Frost unveiled their three-story new museum building on campus – a significant statement, as it literally moved from small, tight confines into an expansive space with wide views of the campus, signaling that the Frost would be a prominent force in the new art scene.

Under Damian, we’ve seen an amazing variety of exhibitions: shows based around the large Haitian collection that the museum holds; or centered on two women artists from Jamaica and Kenya, Ebony G. Patterson and Peterson Kamwathi, which was an outstanding show. The Frost has also concentrated on new works from Asia, such as this summer’s solo exhibit from painter-sculptor-musician Simon Ma, and the upcoming Art Basel-featured exhibit from Wang Qingsong.

Along the way, the Frost under Damian has made a point to highlight local artists, as was the case with recent shows from multimedia artist Leonel Matheu, and the delicate, atmospheric drawings and paintings from Arturo Rodriguez.

The annual Aesthetics & Values was also inaugurated under Damian’s tenure; it’s a unique program curated by the students of the Honors College of FIU (not all art students) that allowed them to discover the work of local artists and then create an exhibition of those who inspired them.

Carol Damian.

Along the way, the excellent neon works from Argentine Ivan Navarro were exposed to Miami, as were the monumental, cedar-beam sculptures from Polish-born Ursula von Rydingsvard. And the graduates and faculty of FIU would get to show their artistic faces in annual shows.

That’s quite a resume, one that added to Miami’s burgeoning cultural landscape. As a final farewell, along with Wang Qingsong, an expansive exhibit covering Geometric Abstraction – so powerfully rooted in Latin America in the latter part of the 20th century art – will also open for Art Basel Miami Beach, on Nov. 8. A parting gift from Damian.

The Frost Museum-FIU: 10975 S.W. 17th St., Miami; thefrost.edu.fiu