Alicia Smith, “Erendira,” on view at Pulse Art Fair (image courtesy the artist and Pulse Art Fair)
MIAMI — Miami Art Week itself, which takes over the entire city and nearly all its cultural institutions, is longer than Art Basel Miami Beach — the main fair at South Beach’s Convention Center — but the two are synonymous in name and hashtag. There are about a hundred guides to Art Week, its satellite shows and attendant lectures, parties, openings, DIY spaces, “pop-ups” — guides that’ll tell you where to go, what to avoid, how to survive.
Like every year, there is plenty more of the same, and then, in some arenas, much less of that. You might laugh or cry; you will absolutely encounter horrific traffic; you will wish you’d brought different footwear. The work this year will be inevitably referred to as sobering, which is only true if you’ve been living under a rock or never expected art to reflect the times, which are a-changin’, or maybe not — depending on who you ask. (For starters, go to Nautilus South Beach, a SIXTY Hotel and check out Suzy Kellems Dominik’s INVISIBLE, a series of soft-sculpture totems without feet: “For without feet, one cannot escape,” the artist writes, referring to the complexity of being a female-identifying person today — the work is pleasant to the eye and a clench on the heart. It’s free to look.)
My rules remain unchanged every year: carry bottled water, wear comfortable shoes, cover yourself with sunscreen, bring a raincoat. Don’t yell at service workers or venue security guards about anything out of their control, particularly the weather — just don’t ever yell at service workers. Be extra kind to your Lyft drivers, too.
Not on this list are many excellent shows at many excellent local galleries, and that’s okay, because you can source those elsewhere, along with panels, parties, concerts, and momentary reprieves. That said, a few brief honorable mentions: Make sure to check out Women in Art: A Conversation, a talk at The Wing’s Little Cabana at American Express Platinum House. It’s free, open to the public, and moderated by media sensation and writer Kimberly Drew. On the panel: artist Jamilah Sabur, artist/filmmaker Jillian Mayer, and founder of CHROMAT, Becca McCharen-Tran.
For interactive play, go to ARTECHOUSE, a digital art space, to see XYZT: Abstract Landscape, an exhibition of ten “virtual environments” generated using augmented reality, motion sensors, and what’s described as “a toolset following Pepper’s Ghost Principle.” When the fairs are over, or when you’re over the fairs, head south to the gorgeous Fairchild Tropical Gardens to check out The NightGarden: an illuminated fairyland of lighting displays, holograms, 3D projection mapping, and digi-optical illusions. Bring a child or your inner one, or get tipsy while you’re there. But never drink and drive.
Below you’ll find a guide to the 20-plus fairs and museum events. Keep in mind: the beaches are eroding. The Red Tide only just receded. You should go to the sea, anyway, because it is still beautiful.
The Fairs
When: December 6–9 / Thursday: 3pm to 8pm; Friday–Saturday: noon–8pm; Sunday: noon–6pm
Where: Miami Beach Convention Center, 1901 Convention Center Drive, Miami Beach
The one that birthed them all, this year’s fair functions just like last year’s. There are various sectors to peruse outside of the over 200 galleries on display: “Nova,” to showcase the recent work of one, two, or three artists; “Positions,” for single-artist projects; “Kabinett,” the artist-curated sections of gallery booths; “Editions,” a space for publishers to exhibit editioned works and prints; and “Survey,” for art-historical presentations. Sadly, there are a few features missing: there is no film program, nor a Public Art Program. But! There is a live performance by Abraham Cruzvillegas.
Also worth noting: Sean Kelly’s booth at the fair, where the gallery will present an activation of its Collect Wisely program. The point? “Slowing down and paying attention to the art,” says the press release. Don’t forget to do that.
Suzy Kellems Dominik, “INVISIBLE” (2018), on view at Nautilus South Beach (image courtesy the artist and Nautilus South Beach)
When: December 6–9 / Thursday: noon–9pm; Friday–Saturday: 11am–9pm; Sunday: 11am–6pm
Where: The Aqua Hotel, 1530 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach
A companion to Art Miami, Aqua Art Fair is located in a South Beach Hotel and has, this year, 53 galleries on view and a few wonderful special events. Keep an eye out for IRREVERSIBLE PROJECTS’s local artist Adrienne Chadwick. Her work, “Ticky-Tacky,” utilizes earthenware clay to depict the crowding of apartment buildings in the Miami skyline and all the issues that come with them: housing inequality, sea-level rise, gentrification. Looking at them, I immediately thought of Malvina Reynolds’s song “Little Boxes”: And they all play on the golf course/and drink their martinis dry…/and the boys go into business/And marry and raise a family/In boxes made of ticky-tacky.
Also look for Katarra Peterson’s Uppity hair braiding project, a reinterpretation of Rapunzel, reimagined this time, says Aqua, “by an artist of color who now reimagines this story … about how she will ‘pull up’ others less fortunate.” Also cool: Shanzey Afzal’s Mobile Tattoo Tent. Afzal is the only trained and certified Muslim tattoo artist in the US, and she uses the body as a platform through which to speak.
When: December 5–9 / noon–8pm
Where: 920 NW 2nd Avenue, Miami
Art Africa’s programming is heftier than ever this year: an after-school workshop in which Overtown youth will learn about local art, parties, and film screenings, including Through the Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People.
When: December 5–9 / Wednesday–Saturday: 11am–8pm; Sunday: 11am–6pm
Where: One Herald Plaza, NE 14th Street & Biscayne Bay, Miami
One of the first-ever satellite fairs, this year’s programming includes an exhibition of work by alumni from the New York Academy of Arts MFA program, a multisensory art installation for children by Young at Art Museum, and, wildly, this: Avant Mining and Interprospekt together will present DeXtinction, a display of artifacts and jewels, including a dinosaur egg nest from the Cretaceous period (75 million years ago).
When: December 5–9 / Wednesday–Saturday: 11am–8pm; Sunday: 11am–6pm
Where: One Herald Plaza, NE 14th Street & Biscayne Bay, Miami
Context is Art Miami’s younger, smaller sibling, and this year — its seventh — features 96 participants from 64 cities. Highlights: a print signing by Art Angels (Los Angeles) for Beau Dunn, Havana gallery Studio Arte Contemporaneo’s solo show by Rubén Alpízar, and Kim Foster Gallery’s tranquility-themed booth.
When: December 5–9 / Wednesday, Saturday: noon–8pm; Thursday: 10am–8pm; Friday: 11am–8pm; Sunday: noon–6pm
Where: Meridian Avenue & 19th Street, Miami Beach
Directly across the street from Art Basel Miami Beach is a quieter, smaller affair. The winners of this year’s annual architectural commission entrance are fashion designer Carla Fernández and artist Pedro Reyes, whose booth showcases a map that features the names of over 300 original settlements across the pre-Columbian Americas. They’ll give a talk this week, “Practice with Purpose.” Bonus: One of this year’s Curio exhibition platforms caught my eye — Harry Nuriev’s The Office, inspired by the designer’s time as an intern in a windowless office in Russia. Here, an air conditioner is a symbol for “fresh air and death” and a window represents “freedom and watching your life rather than living it.”
Art Basel in Miami Beach 2017 (© Art Basel)
Faena Festival: This Is Not America
When: December 3–9 / programming hours vary and are listed here
Where: Faena Forum, 3201 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, and other locations in the Faena Art District. For more details, see above link
It was a matter of time before Faena — that is, the Faena Art District, envisioned and developed by Argentine hotelier/developer Alan Faena — premiered its own Art Week festival. This Is Not America, curated by Zoe Lukov, is free, open to the public, and seems amazing: it features work by Derrick Adams, Wu Tsang + boychild, Isabel Lewis, Luna Paiva, Tavares Strachan, Miya Ando, Cecilia Bengolea, and more. The entire district will be activated with screenings, installations, and performances, some of which I imagine will spill right into the sand. Look out for Alfredo Jaar’s “A Logo for America” — which inspired the festival’s name — and a conceptual project, “Flow,” by artist Agustina Woodgate and artist, activist, and ordained Miccosukee minister Reverend Houston R. Cypress.
(F)empower Presents: 2040
When: December 6–7 / Thursday: 7pm–11pm; Friday: noon–5pm
Where: 5789 NW 7th Avenue, Miami
This isn’t a proper fair — it’s a two-day exhibition — but the show’s themes are too important to exclude it from this list. Organized by (F)empower, an activist collective here in Miami that seeks to empower black and brown femmes — and unite Miami’s artistic community — 2040 is about the apocalypse. They describe it better than I can: “Through art installations, panels, performances, and multidisciplinary media, 2040 submerges you into the future, that in this moment, has already passed us by. To stay afloat, elevate your spatial and temporal awareness of the then, the now, and the will be.” Events include Afro-Futurist Visions, a set of short film screenings; The Future is Non-Binary, Stas Schmiedt and Lea Roth’s performative lecture; and The Language of Survival, a panel moderated by poet/community organizer Niki Franco on the ways in which we might decolonize concepts of survival.
FREE! Art Fair
When: December 6–9 / 11am–7pm
Where: Brickell City Centre, 701 South Miami Avenue, Miami
A follow-up to last year’s Fair., FREE! brings a different punctuation mark and a similar sentiment: it is, again, non-commercial, and takes place at the massive Brickell City Centre. FREE! means free to love, to unite, to exist, to heal — at a time when it feels dangerous to do any of it. Curated by Anthony Spinello of Spinello Projects, FREE! features work, programming, and performances by Hank Willis Thomas, Octavia Yearwood, Cheryl Pope, Emily Shur, Genevieve Gaignard, Antonia Wright, Agustina Woodgate, Nathalie Alfosno, Misael Soto, Michelle Lisa Polissaint, Emanuel Ribas, and more.
Octavia Yearwood, whose work will be on view at FREE! Art Fair (image courtesy Passion Ward)
When: The Fridge Art Fair Grand Gala is Thursday, December 6, 6:45pm to 11:45pm
Where: Eurostar’s Langford Hotel, Bloom Sky Bar, 121 SE 1st, Miami
Fridge is proudly weird, so I’m not sure if their website is meant to be read humorously at the moment (if anyone at Fridge is reading this, sorry, but I’m out of the loop). This year’s fair is entitled The Velvet Rope: 1600 Edition, and it’s totally full, “as is the waiting list.” To keep it public, they’ve “decided to bring the components that are possible to replicate to the All for You—the Fridge Art Fair Experience Project at Eurostar’s Langford Hotel,” says their website.
When: December 5–9 / Wednesday: 9am–5pm; Thursday, Friday, Saturday: 10am–8pm; Sunday: 10am–3pm
Where: Suites of Dorchester, 1850 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach
As usual, Ink is small (15 exhibitors this year), sweet, and dedicated to works on paper.
Mana Contemporary at 777 International Mall
When: December 5–9 / 10am–9pm (later some nights)
Where: 777 International Mall, 145 E. Flagler Street, Miami
Over the last year, Mana has taken the now-defunct 777 International Mall and turned it into a haven of studio spaces for local artists — including Puerto Rican artists who relocated here following Hurricane Maria — and hosted some of the most fun, inclusive, and “locals-only” events in the city. This Art Week, expect a bunch of exhibitions. A must-see: Tschabalala Self has a site-specific installation on view, presented by Fringe Projects with lead support from Facebook Art Department. Lucky Me! is at Lee’s Deli and Market nearby at 28 SE 1st Ave, hosted by Mana; on Friday night, check out Self’s accompanying performance. There are also fashion shows, performances, and live music, including the infamous Art Basel Distraction— this year with Slack, Derrick Baseck, puppeteers Poncili Creación, and more. Bonus: Coin In/Coin Out, a new kiosk-slash-gallery by local artists Geovanna Gonzalez and Angel Lauren Garcia.
And if you’d like to see what Mana is doing at their other downtown and Wynwood locations during Art Week, click here.
Miami Street Photography Festival
When: December 6–9; hours vary and are listed here
Where: HistoryMiami Museum, 101 West Flagler Street, Miami
The Miami Street Photography Festival, which highlights documentary and — obviously — street photography, takes place at the HistoryMiami Museum, which you should be visiting anyway. 90 selected finalists from the festival’s official competition will be on display, as well as three finalists from the International Series Finalists Exhibition and three more from the Miami Photo Series competition. The programming is dense, too, with plenty of talks and workshops to choose from.
NADA
When: December 6–9 / Thursday: 2–7pm; Friday and Saturday: 11am–7pm; Sunday: 11am–5pm
Where: Ice Palace Studios, 1400 North Miami Avenue, Miami
Consistently exciting and affordable (single-day admission is $20), the 16th edition of NADA will host 125 organizations and galleries from 23 countries. Highlights: Rawhide works, installed among palm trees, by the writer and artist Rindon Johnson; Reyes Projects’ exhibition of Nikita Gale and LaKela Brown (her works on view crystallize and encapsulate her childhood: door-knocker earrings, gold-capped teeth); Poolside sessions with Sex magazine (featuring a live performance by Odwalla 88); and a panel hosted by Black Lives Matter founder Patrisse Cullors-Brignac.
Work by LaKela Brown at Reyes Projects, on view at NADA (image courtesy the artist and Reyes Projects)
When: December 6–7 / Thursday: 2pm–7pm; Friday: noon–7pm
Where: Faena Forum, 3201 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach
No Commission, sponsored by Bacardi, is an exhibition organized by Swizz Beatz’s art collective, The Dean Collection, but it’s included here for its size and general noteworthiness (Swizz!). Swizz Beatz is a collector himself, and 100% of No Commission proceeds go to the artists themselves. 2018’s iteration of the program is entitled “Take the Shot,” and solely features photographic works — artists from around the country were invited to submit their portfolios for consideration.
Our Basel at Smoke Signals Studio
When: December 6–9 / 10am–5pm (gallery hours); event hours vary and are available here
Where: 6300 NW 2nd Avenue, Miami
Smoke Signals Studio, a space for art education, conversation, and community in Little Haiti, was co-founded by Phil Agnew a.k.a. Umi Selah (co-founder of The Dream Defenders) and poet Aja Monet. The Smoke Signals crew is hosting their own fair, of sorts, this year — it’s what I keep telling people to check out whenever they ask, “Any good openings next week?” Yes, definitely Smoke Signals’ Our Basel: Damon Davis’s exhibition, Darker Gods in the Garden of the Low Hanging Heavens; a talk with Davis, Agnew, and Black Lives co-founder Patrisse Cullors-Brignac (she is truly gracing Miami with her presence this Art Week); and a closing reception performance featuring serpentwithfeet, Eryn Allen Kane, Inez Barlatier, a DJ set by Rich Medina, and surprise guests.
When: Decemer 5–9 / Thursday–Saturday: noon–8pm; Sunday: noon–7pm
Where: Mana Wynwood, 2217 NW 5th Avenue, Miami
Pinta, an Ibero-American art fair, includes 60 galleries this year from across Latin America, the Caribbean, and Spain — São Paulo, Santiago de Chile, Montevideo, and Pétion Ville, Haiti are all represented. There’s also a new Projects section, curated by Ysabel Pinyol, Curatorial Director of Mana Contemporary — and Pinta Platforms, curated by Roc Laseca, which displays the work of a single artist.
Taha Clayton, “Golden Lady,” (2018), oil on panel with walnut frame, 23.5 x 32.5 inches, on view at Prizm Art Fair (image courtesy the artist)
When: December 3–9 / 10am–6pm
Where: Alfred I. DuPont Building, 169 East Flagler Street, Miami
Mostly dedicated to artists representing the African diaspora, Prizm, which is founded by Mikhaile Solomon, gets bigger every year. Now in its fourth edition, exhibiting galleries include Miami’s Emerson Dorsch, Miami and Detroit’s N’Namdi Contemporary, and Atlanta’s September Gray Fine Art. This year, the aforementioned artist and Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors-Brignac will be here, showcasing a capsule collection created in tandem with Black Panther artist Emory Douglas. It features work by Sadie Barnette, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Oto Abasi, and more. Black Lives Matter recently launched a platform to support artists of color, and purchases of their merchandise will benefit the organization directly.
In addition, Cullors-Brignac will be part of a performance at Prizm on Wednesday evening.
Pulse Art Fair
When: December 6–9 / Thursday: 1pm–6pm; Friday–Saturday: 10am–7pm; Sunday: 10am–5pm
Where: Indian Beach Park, 4601 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach
For the 14th edition of Pulse, the fair returns to its home at Indian Beach Park. In addition to its group exhibitions, solo booths, artist conversations, and the POINTS booths dedicated to non-profits, there’s also PROJECTS, powerful presentations of just one artist each. The work this year is strong: look for Ann Lewis’s One in Five of Us, a display that acts as allusion to the country’s horrifying rape statistics; in the PLAY section, look for Alicia Smith’s Erendira, in which the artist addresses anti-Indigenous rhetoric by channeling the story of a Purépecha warrior princess.
When: December 6–9 / Thursday and Saturday: 1pm–9pm; Friday: 1pm–10pm; Sunday: noon–5pm
Where: Mana Wynwood, 2217 NW 5th Avenue, Miami
Red Dot is showcased alongside Spectrum Miami — a ticket to one grants you admission to the other — but this year, they’re both back in Wynwood, at the Mana Contemporary warehouse. Like last year, Red Dot hosts lots of local galleries — from Miami, Aventura, Lake Worth, Hallandale, Ft. Lauderdale — and a few international exhibitors, too. The theme at Spectrum this year is [ALLURE], brackets included.
When: December 6–9 / Thursday: 6pm–11pm; Friday–Saturday: 3pm–11pm; Sunday: 2pm–7pm
Where: 18 NW 14th Street, Miami
Always an unpretentious delight, Satellite is now located right next door to NADA, with 40 exhibitors — including solo artists (like Miami’s Sleeper), projects (The Femocrats, Brooklyn), programs (SVA’s Fine Arts MFA program), and immersive spaces (Flatsitter, from Buffalo). Performance Is Alive will partner with the fair again to present Miami’s only non-stop performance art program during Art Week. It’ll be four days of live and video performances from over 20 artists: political protests, face ballet, the weirdness of the body.
Drum & Lace performing live by Priscilla C. Scott. Drum & Lace will be performing at Satellite Art Fair (image courtesy the artist, Priscilla Scott, and Satellite Art Fair)
When: December 5–9; 11am–8pm
Where: 801 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach
This year, SCOPE, now in its 18th edition, partners with Hi-Fructose magazine, and features massive installations and projects curated by the publication. Beyond that, at Booth H01, you’ll find AICAN, Dr. Ahmed Elgammal’s art-making A.I. “machine.” Dr. Elgammal works at the Art and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Rutgers University; AICAN “creates new artwork without human intervention.” Unlike the algorithm used to create artwork auctioned at Christie’s, AICAN is “modeled from psychological theories of the brain’s response to aesthetics.” It can, reportedly, create something new. You’ll have to check it out yourself.
When: December 5–9 / Thursday–Saturday: 11am–10pm; Sunday: 11am–8pm
Where: 1001 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach, FL
Superfine describes itself as having been “built on the ethos of accessibility and transparency (read: you will find artwork you love, and you can afford it!),” and that’s one reason we like them. This year, keep an eye out for plenty of local galleries and a panel discussion on climate change-slash-the responsibility of artists to address it. Superfine! Collectors’ Society members are also granted free admission to the Bass Museum during Art Week.
Carmen Neely, “In an Alternate Reality” (2018), oil on canvas, with plastic flower crown, 81 x 63 inches, on view at Jane Lombard Gallery at UNTITLED Miami Beach, Booth D14 (image courtesy the artist and Jane Lombard Gallery)
When: December 5–9 / Wednesday–Saturday: 11am–7pm; Sunday: 11am–5pm
Where: Ocean Drive and 12th Street, Miami Beach
Under director Manuela Mozo, the fair will feature #NeverNotWorking, an ongoing performance piece featuring local participants “working” in 30-minute shifts, hanging and removing sheets from a clothesline. There are 10 special projects on display this year, by artists like Claudia Peña Salinas, as well as a collaboration with local organization the BLCK Family and Locust Projects. Their project will feature performances and readings by poet Aja Monet, tap dancer Cartier Williams, pianist Samora Pinderhughes, and an opportunity to dance — which is one reason you came to Miami in the first place, right?
Museums and Collections
Bass Museum of Art
When: Click here for regular hours
Where: 2100 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach
The Haas Brothers’ Ferngully, the Los Angeles-based designers’ first solo museum exhibition, opens during Art Week, and perhaps it’ll feel transporting. Taking its title from the 1992 children’s film, Ferngully: The Last Rainforest, the show finds its inspiration in “the cycles of renewal and rebirth found in nature.” Their furniture and sculptures here recall palm trees, fungi, and strange monsters. Also on view are Paola Pivi’s Art with a View and Aaron Curry’s Tune Yer Head, both equally wonderful.
The Haas Brothers, “Uma Worm-an,” (2018), black Icelandic sheep skin, cast bronze beast bench, 87 (L) x 26 (W) x 25.5 (H) inches, on view at the Bass Museum of Art (image courtesy the artists, R & Company, New York and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen, © The Haas Brothers, photo by Joe Kramm)
Boca Raton Museum of Art
When: Click here for regular hours
Where: 501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton
Take a drive up north to enjoy the Boca Raton Museum of Art’s exhibitions, including the playful Michael Smith: Excuse Me!?!…I’m Looking for the “Fountain of Youth”; Daniel Faust: Florida Photos from the 1980s (deeply uncanny); and the sweeping, 200+-piece show, Imagining Florida: History and Myth in the Sunshine State, featuring paintings and objects from the 1750s through the 1970s, all depicting and imagining the magic of this strange peninsula.
de la Cruz Collection
When: Click here for regular hours
Where: 23 NE 41st Street, Miami
A lecture by Hans Ulrich Obrist at this storied (and free) collection is already at capacity, so you’ll just have to come for the exhibition. More / Less showcases cultural shifts over the last 30 years, and the 200 works from Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz’s collection include written word and abstraction. You’ll find Ana Mendieta, Félix González-Torres, Salvador Dalí, Sterling Ruby, Rashid Johnson, Martin Kippenberger, Alex Katz, Tauba Auerbach, Jorge Pardo, and far more.
Haitian Heritage Museum
When: Click here for regular hours; Miami Art Week reception is Wednesday, December 5, 6pm-9:30pm
Where: 4141 NE 2 Avenue # 105C, Miami
Haïti à La Mode, which features works by the photographer Marc Baptise, opens on December 5 and runs through April 2019. Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Baptiste has worked for magazines like Vogue, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, and Harper’s Bazaar. His photographs of Haiti are as cinematic as the rest of his oeuvre.
Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
When: Miami Art Week Hours: December 5–9 / Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday: 10am–7pm; Thursday: 10am–5pm; Friday: 10am–10pm
Where: 61 NE 41st Street, Miami
Larry Bell: Time Machines, its optical illusions, pitch-black room, and strange magic is enough of a pull for this free institution. There’s also Manuel Solano’s remarkable I Don’t Wanna Wait For Our Lives To Be Over and, opening during Art Week, Judy Chicago: A Reckoning, which includes sketches and test plates from The Dinner Party. Also, The Misshapes are DJing during ICA’s monthly First Friday party; the reaction has been “Weird flex, but okay” — in a good way.
Judy Chicago, “Bigamy Hood” (1965/2011), sprayed automotive lacquer on car hood, 43 x 43 x 4 1/8 inches (© Judy Chicago/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York; photo ©Donald Woodman/ARS NYCourtesy Salon 94, New York, and Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco)
Jewish Museum of Florida – Florida International University
When: Click here for regular hours.
Where: 301 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach
There are a few exhibitions on view here, including a retrospective of work by Edna Glaubman and Daniel Chimowitz’s Walking Canvases, which combine fine art-on-canvas with hand-sewn clothing. But come for The Art of the Lithograph. Prints by Alexander Calder, Lee Krasner, Camille Pissarro, Marc Chagall, and R.B. Kitaj are displayed, as are litho stones and a step-by-step guide to the process of making lithographs.
Little Haiti Cultural Center
When: See above for regular hours; Miami Art Week opening reception is Friday, December 7, 10am–1pm / Miami Art Week programming is available here
Where: 212 NE 59th Terrace, Miami
The Elusive Master: Emmanuel Merisier, from Haiti to Beyond features the work of Emmanuel Merisier, whose paintings explore, at once, modernity and spirituality. The Little Haiti Cultural Center has extensive other programming throughout Miami Art Week, too, all of which is worth checking out.
Lowe Art Museum
When: Click here for regular hours
Where: 1301 Stanford Drive, Miami
The University of Miami’s art museum is always eclectic. On view now: Elsie Kalstone: Imaginative Things; Giampaolo Seguso: My Page is Glass; Dialogues: Studio Glass from the Werner Collection; and Yousuf Karsh: American Portraits, featuring his photographs of folks like I.M. Pei, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Grace Kelly. Glass is well-loved here, in part thanks to the private collection of Myrna and Sheldon Palley and their generous contributions.
The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse
When: Extended hours for Miami Art Week: December 3–9 / Monday–Saturday: 9am–5pm; Sundaay: 9am–2pm
Where: 591 NW 27th Street, Miami
The Margulies Collection is worth a visit for its dreamy permanent exhibition — featuring pieces by Ernesto Neto, Sol LeWitt, Isamu Noguchi, Willem de Kooning, and more — and new installations of works by Barry McGee, Imi Knoebel, Ibrahim Mahama, Cate Giordano, Peter Buggenhout, and photographers Walker Evans and Helen Levitt. The $10 entry fee is an automatic donation to the Lotus House Women’s Shelter.
Dozie Kanu with his holiday commission in the Miami Design District: playground objects and bird feeders (image courtesy the artist and the Miami Design District)
Miami Design District
When: Hours vary by event. Click here and here for more info.
Where: Click here for a map.
The Design District is no museum, but there’s enough going on here to warrant its inclusion on this list. Here’s a small sample: Dozie Kanu’s holiday commission, Bird Feeders & Play Structures, which is a playground, of sorts. Jamilah Sabur’s mural, Actual Infinity. Nite Owl Theater will host ARTHOUSE A-GO-GO, an endless stream of Arthouse movies on 35mm film. Obsolete Media Miami has open studios all week.
And, at OTL — a coffee shop — there’s Wav.Room, which the musician Suzi Analogue told me will be Art Week’s “audio-visual listening lounge,” presented by Never Normal. Come for coffee and tea; stay for DJ sets by (F)empower and Vinyl Social Club, SUBPAC’s Bass Sound Bath Meditation by DJ Earl, and talks with artists and authors Dana Goldstein, Mwanel Pierre-Louis, Jacob Katel, and the radio station HalfMoon BK. Analogue, the aforementioned polymath, will debut a performance art piece at the end of the weekend (December 9th), featuring art direction by Kristabel Delgado. For details on Wav.Room (and to RSVP), click here.
Museum of Contemporary Art-North Miami
When: Extended Miami Art Week hours: December 3–10 / Monday–Friday, 9:30am–6pm; Saturday–Sunday: 10am–5pm; Monday, December 10: 9:30am–5pm
Where: 770 NE 125th Street, North Miami
Chana Budgazad Sheldon, the museum’s new executive director, has already helped usher in fantastic and diverse programming. On view just in time for Miami Art Week is AFRICOBRA: Messages to the People, a celebration of the black artist collective of the same name (it stands for African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists). This year marks their 50th anniversary; curated by Jeffreen M. Hayes, Ph.D., on view is the work of the founding artists and five early members.
NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale
When: Click here for regular hours
Where: 1 East Las Olas Boulevard, Fort Lauderdale
If you take the Brightline high-speed train to Ft. Lauderdale, you’ll be a very short distance from this gem of a space. Currently on view: William J. Glackens and Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Affinities and Distinctions, and Remember to React: 60 Years of Collecting, the first comprehensive installation of the museum’s collection.
Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum — Florida International University
When: Click here for regular hours
Where: Modesto Maidique Campus, 10975 SW 17th Street, Miami
This free museum, attached to Florida International University, is a bit of a drive from the rest of the week’s happenings, but it’s well worth it. There are three great exhibitions on view: Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago, broken into four sections and downright breathtaking; The Writing on the Wall: Hank Willis Thomas and Dr. Baz Dreisinger, a presentation of letters, stories, and notes written by individuals in prison all over the world (they were collected by Professor Dreisinger while teaching in various prisons); and Connectivity: Selections from the Collection of the Frost Art Museum.
Pérez Art Museum Miami
When: Extended hours for Miami Art Week: December 3–9; Monday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday: 9am–6pm (free admission 9am–6pm Saturday); Tuesday: 10am–6pm; Wednesday: 9am–5pm; Thursday: 9am–5pm; 7pm–12am (free admission 9am–5pm)
Where: 1103 Biscayne Boulevard, Miami
There is a lot of beautiful work on view at the PAMM right now, but two are opening during Miami Art Week: José Carlos Martinat’s American Echo Chamber, filled with mechanical light sculptures, and Pedro Neves Marques: A Mordida, which translates to “the bite” and is Neves Marques’s first solo museum presentation. His two newly commissioned short films will be on view, based on research he conducted at a genetically modified mosquito factory in São Paulo, Brazil — they are films about politics, relationships, gender, Zika. Also incredible: Ebony G. Patterson: …while the dew is still on the roses…, Arthur Jafa: Love is the Message, the Message is Death, and Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida, 1980–83 | A Documentary Exhibition. Commemorating the 35-year anniversary of the duo’s 1983 installation, Surrounded Islands, the exhibition chronicles its history with hundreds of photographs, documents, and a large-scale model of the bay.
Rubell Family Collection
When: Extended hours for Miami Art Week: November 30–December 9 / 9am–6pm
Where: 95 NW 29 Street, Miami
On December 3, two new exhibitions open: New Acquisitions, featuring work by Tschabalala Self, Tomm El-Saieh, and Martha Jungwirth, and Purvis Young, a large-scale exhibition of over 100 paintings by the artist, who was born in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood and lived in the city during the entirety of his life (1943–2010). New Acquisitions will be, undoubtedly, fantastic, but Purvis Young must be seen.
Ameya Okamoto, “Intersectional Supper” (2017), digital print, on view at Jasmine Wahi’s Education as the Practice of Freedom (image courtesy the National Young Arts Foundation)
The Wolfsonian — Florida International University
When: Click here for regular hours; Miami Art Week reception is Friday, December 7, 8pm–11pm. RSVP here.
Where: 1001 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach
Head to the museum to see Enter the Design Age, an installation by the Paris-based studio H5. They’re taking over the facade of the building with a video at night and, by day, lots of giant typography. Also on view: The Art of Labor; Frank Brangwyn: Bringing the Empire Down; Wit as Weapon: Satire and the Great War, and more, all in a beautiful Art Deco building on South Beach.
When: December 5–9 / Monday–Thursday: 10:30am–11:30pm; Friday–Saturday: 10:30am–12am; Sunday: 10:30am–8pm
Where: 2520 NW 2nd Avenue, Miami
Beyond Words at Wynwood Walls — the center of the Wynwood Arts District — is dedicated to the transformative power of street art and features nine new installations. Work by Tomokazu Matsuyama (Japan), KOBRA (Brazil), VHILS (Portugal), and more will be on view.
The National YoungArts Foundation
When: Extended hours for Miami Art Week: December 3–9 / Monday: 9am–9pm; Tuesday–Friday: 9am–pm; Saturday–Sunday: noon–5pm
For more information on Bay Parc and Givenchy hours, click here.
Where: 2100 Biscayne Boulevard, Miami
There’s so much going on at YoungArts this year that they’re almost having a Miami Art Week all their own. First, at YoungArts itself, there’s Education as the Practice of Freedom, curated by Project for Empty Space’s Jasmine Wahi. At Givenchy, there’s an in-store installation by YoungArts alumni Naomi Fisher. Nadia Wolff (2016 YoungArts Winner in Design Arts and Visual Arts & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts)’s installation, A Place to be Held, essentially takes over a section of the Bay Parc Apartments, transforming it into a re-imagined version of the Black Caribbean home. Back at PULSE Contemporary Art Fair, 15 YoungArts alumni have their own salon-style exhibition. YoungArts is consistently brilliant, so make sure to check out at least one of these events.
