The Ringling announces $5 million gift towards The Ringling Inspires campaign

The Ringling hasn’t hosted a black tie event in more than a decade. That all changed today — and for good reason.

Members of The Ringling team, Gulf Coast Community Foundation and local media outlets gathered the evening of March 2 at the Ca d’Zan before The Ringling Inspires – Because of You Gala to hear an update on The Ringling’s latest campaign, The Ringling Inspires: Honoring the Legacy and Building for the Future.

The campaign began seven years ago with a historic goal of $100 million, High said. And to date, $92 million has been raised towards that goal.

At the press conference High announced a new gift of $5 million from Keith D. and Linda L. Monda to get even closer to that $100 million.

The gift will endow the Keith D. and Linda L. Monda Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, a position that will ensure the future of contemporary art at the museum. 

This donation also includes four significant works of contemporary art from the Mondas’ extensive art collection: Teo Gonzalez’s mixed media piece, “Untitled #406 (2006), Yayoi Kusa ma’s painting “Infinity Dots” (1993), Beverly Pepper’s steel sculpture “Curve in Curve” (2012) and Richard Serra ’s print “Untitled” (1990), all of which will be included in a future exhibition at The Ringling.

On Feb. 2, 2016, Keith and Linda Monda made their initial steps in focusing a great deal of their support on The Ringling with a $500,000 donation to the museum to create The Keith D. and Linda L. Monda Gallery of Contemporary Art. This new gift will continue their legacy of supporting new artforms.

“We believe that this is such a wonderful, historic monument, and we believe that contemporary art is an important draw and museum offering,” Keith Monda said. “Therefore, we felt that this was a real opportunity for us to make a difference and continue that offering with curatorial support to aide the future of this fine institution.”

The Mondas say they want to share this gift with everyone who steps foot on The Ringling propoerty, and they hope they’ll be able to introduce more people to new artforms because of it.

“Contemporary art adds value because of its lack of predictability,” Keith Monda says. “So what we would encourage people to do is go with an open mind and see what it tells you because if you have an open mind, it will speak to you.”