When Franklin Sirmans became director of the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) in 2015, the art world looked a lot different than it does today.

The global franchising of name-brand art fairs was just getting started, museum websites were largely dull affairs and the Covid era’s pressure on museum attendance and budgets was yet to come.

A New York City native, Sirmans, 56, has been a steadying presence at PAMM. Having served as a curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Menil Collection in Houston, Sirmans arrived at a good moment — shortly after the museum had been renamed after its primary patron, Jorge M. Pérez, and after it debuted a striking building by the firm Herzog & de Meuron.

Image“I do believe that we have proved to be the people’s museum in Miami, in a place that has been much more well known for its private collections,” Sirmans said of PAMM.Credit...Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

As he prepared for the annual cultural spotlight that will arrive with Art Basel Miami Beach (running Friday to Sunday), Sirmans spoke on a video call about his effort to diversify art and audiences, the dearth of Black directors of major American art museums, and his sideline as a poet. The conversation has been edited and condensed.

How do you reflect on your 10th anniversary as director?

It feels momentous, because honestly, I’ve never been anywhere that long. I feel like we’ve accomplished a lot.

What are your top achievements?

I do believe that we have proved to be the people’s museum in Miami, in a place that has been much more well known for its private collections.

I’m proud that we’ve doubled the endowment. We’re about to triple it. But I’m also really proud about the way that it’s happened. Around 10 percent of the endowment right now has come through the Fund for Black Art. We decided not to just spend down money that was given by Jorge Pérez and the Knight Foundation. We turned it into an endowed fund and are only spending the proceeds of the interest.

What else?

We’ve extended the digital conversation. Working with the Knight Foundation, we’ve had considerable funding to build up the digital department. That goes to web content, PAMM TV [the streaming gallery for video art] and digitizing the collection.

What is the permanent collection like now?

We’ve tripled the size of the collection to a little over 3,500 works. But we’ve done that in a really specific way — it’s the kind of work that we’ve acquired, like getting Arthur Jafa’s video that everyone wants to have, “Love is The Message, the Message is Death.” It’s a poignant meditation told with fast-paced images documenting histories of racism and resilience.

Then there’s the Carlos Cruz-Diez installation “Chromosaturation.” People of all ages want to go in the spaces, and they want to see themselves in the changing lights.

ImagePAMM acquired the Carlos Cruz-Diez installation “Chromosaturation” (1965/2007) for its permanent collection. “People of all ages want to go in the spaces, and they want to see themselves in the changing lights,” Sirmans said.Credit...Oriol Tarridas

Speaking of the permanent collection, how do you think about the balance of those pieces with loans?

Half the building is usually for the permanent collection, and half for things coming in and out. I think that balance has been really important in terms of letting people know that if you come two months from now, there’s always going to be something new.

Do you feel that, recently, museums have started to worry a bit less about owning artworks versus showing loans?

I think it’s still important for us to own things. It’s a real demonstration of who and what we value.

I always come back to the Jafa video. We brought together Miami-Dade County kids who have been through some stuff with police officers to sit down in the same space and look at that piece together, and then talk about the ways that they feel it or experience it differently. It makes that piece so much more valuable than the little amount of money that we spent to buy it.

How do you negotiate Florida’s political climate, given that some officials are hostile to some contemporary art?

Well, we’re Miami, which is a little bit different than Florida.

Growing up in New York City in the ’80s, we also had the idea of contested histories. People don’t necessarily agree about what happened — or even what is happening in front of their eyes. I thought I would be more prepared for the current moment, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily the case.

A year and a half ago, they declared statewide zero funding for the arts. Which is sad. [The current budget restores some but not all the arts funding.]

We have much work to do, because people really have to know that arts are important across the board, to everyone. I say let’s do what we have to do to make sure that other people feel the same way.

There are still only a handful of Black directors of major art museums. Does that give you pause?

For sure. I would expect there to be more by this point in time, but I am definitely hopeful. I do think there are a lot of people that are ready to transition into that role right now.

How do you position PAMM as distinctive among local museums?

I return to this idea of being the flagship, since we are bigger than all of them and that allows us to bring a lot of people together.

What about as far as the type of art you show?

When I got to work on my first strategic plan, we said, “We’re not just a museum of international modern and contemporary art like everywhere else.” We have to be the best at presenting the work of Latin America and the Caribbean, and we look toward the African diaspora. We’ve created a Caribbean Cultural Institute within the museum and built the best collection of contemporary Cuban work.

We did five years in a row where we spent about a million dollars a year on Latin American art. It says, “This is really important to us.”

Some media and collectors only focus attention on Miami for this one week a year. Does that ever feel challenging?

The cycle is still the cycle, and we play to it. But I will say there’s been a growth in the overall population that has made the summer a little bit more upbeat.

We opened an exhibition on Aug. 28 this year, which a few years ago would have been unheard of.

So when the art world descends, what will they see?

We have this show of Woody De Othello. Woody is just such a consummate object maker. He’s got such an amazing, incredible craft and reverence for material. He demands our attention with pieces that often have a figurative base, but they’re so surreal that they could be organic forms or forms you’ve never even seen before. His being a Miami native is a big part of the story.

What does the future hold for the museum?

We have the opportunity to do some populist things. This is a sports-crazy town, and we’re right across the park from the Heat arena. We’re taking the “Get in the Game” exhibition [which originated at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art], and we’re going to add a whole bunch of elements to it and make it more Miami and more soccer-heavy. In 2026, the World Cup is going to be here for seven games.

You’re a former art writer who was once the editor of Flash Art magazine. Does that inform your current job?

Constantly. There’s always an essay or other piece of writing to do. Then there’s the world outside of the museum of still trying to write a poem. I like the challenge of that.

So you write poems, too?

I come from that, and so I try to maintain it. I am averaging three or four a year at best, sure. But at least I’m trying.