By Elizabeth R. Miller, Knight Foundation

While headlines focus on Art Basel Miami Beach each December, a new mini-series will feature the local artists who have steadily built the region’s reputation as an international art center. Debuting Sunday in South Florida, the Artist-to-Artist series will feature artists like Daniel Arsham, whose sculptures and conceptual objects have been exhibited across Miami and were the reason he was selected as a set designer for famed choreographer Merce Cunningham.  Naomi Fisher, co-founder of an alternative art space in Miami, Bas Fisher Invitational also will be featured.

Supported by Knight, the Artist-to-Artist series is a collaboration of the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami and WPBT-PBS2. It will highlight artists each Sunday in November, starting this Sunday. The Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami’s Executive Director and Chief Curator Bonnie Clearwater, who hosts the series, says the goal is to share insights on not only what it is like for artists to make and experience art, but also how their careers have impacted the art scene locally and across the rest of the world.

Clearwater tells the Miami New Times: “So much of this history of Miami was this idea that Miami was receiving culture from outside over the last two decades…Through MOCA we’re able to contribute to the world culture. We’re not just receiving art and culture, we were actually generating and impacting how the world perceives art.”

The first of the four, half-hour episodes, “Love, Literally,” airs at 6 p.m. ET  Nov. 4 on South Florida’s Channel 2. It includes interviews with one of Britain’s most celebrated artists Tracey Emin, the British artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien, and  Jack Pierson, an American artist whose neon light installation, Paradise, is one of the most iconic works in the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami. It also features commentary by Knight Foundation’s President and CEO, Alberto Ibargüen.

Each of the featured artists has played an essential role in the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami’s history and the city’s growing arts scene. The mini-series gives them the opportunity discuss their careers. Since the mid-1990s, the museum has been a defining force in Miami’s cultural evolution and presented over 150 exhibitions of contemporary art by both emerging and established artists.

The schedule of future episodes is listed below. Full biographies of the artists are also available online.

• Nov. 11, 2012: The Intensity of Miami featuring: Daniel Arsham, Naomi Fisher, Dara Friedman, Mark Handforth, Jorge Pantoja, Ragnar Kjartansson, Magnus Sigurdarson
• Nov. 18, 2012: The End of Art was Only the Beginning featuring: Malcolm Morley, Richard Phillips, David Salle
• Nov. 25, 2012: A 21st Century Perspective featuring: Enoc Perez, Matthew Ritchie, Shinique Smith.