By Michael Mills
Situated, as it is, at the confluence of Caribbean and Latin American cultures, the greater Miami area can’t help being the epicenter of the South Florida art world. Broward and Palm Beach counties may have increasingly vibrant art communities of their own, but Miami-Dade has Art Basel/Miami Beach, as well as the Wynwood Arts District.
Here are some expected highlights of the upcoming season:
Art Basel/Miami Beach
South Florida’s biggest, baddest art show all but defies description. For five days at the end of the year (Dec. 3-7), Miami Beach attracts representatives from hundreds of galleries and museums from all over the world, not to mention the countless satellite events that spring up in connection with the main attraction.
From masters of modern and contemporary art to emerging artists, you’ll find their work here, whether it’s paintings, sculptures, drawings, installations, photographs, films, or limited editions. Approximately 75,000 visitors attended last year.
The hub of all this activity is the Miami Beach Convention Center, 1901 Convention Center Drive, Miami Beach). The private views on Dec. 3 (11 a.m. to 8 p.m.) and Dec. 4 (11 a.m. to 3 p.m.) are by invitation only, as is the Dec. 4 vernissage (11 a.m. to 3 p.m.). Then the show opens to the public: from 3 to 8 p.m. on Dec. 4, noon to 8 p.m. on Dec. 5 and 6, and noon to 6 p.m. on Dec. 7.
One-day admission is $45 for adults, $30 for students and seniors. Accompanied children under 16 are admitted free. It’s $100 if you want to attend the whole shebang. Group and school-group rates are also available. Call 786-276-2611 or visit ArtBasel.com/Miami-Beach..
Bakehouse Art Complex, Miami
This historic Art Deco building at the edge of the Wynwood Arts District was once a bakery. Now it’s a complex of artist studios, as well as a couple of prime display spaces.
One, the 2,600-square-foot Audrey Love Gallery, will present El Jardin De Los Muertos Contentitos from Oct. 22 through Nov. 3. Artifacts from past Day of the Dead processionals will be included, along with works by event founders Jim Hammond (puppet art), Chuck Loose (prints), Janet Luru Rudawsky (ceramics), and Ian Rowan (installation art). They’re joined by Adriana Sandoval (Ofrendas, or altar objects), Omar Angulo (ink drawings), Jorge de Rojas (papier-mâché), and puppeteers Ronni Gerstel and Sonia Neira Matthews.
The Bakehouse is at 561 N.W. 32nd St., Miami. The complex is open to the public from noon to 5 p.m. daily. There is no admission fee. Call 305-576-2828 or visit BACFL.org.
Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach
The Bass celebrates its 50th anniversary with GOLD, a sprawling survey of paintings, sculptures, videos, photographs, and installations inspired by the coveted elemental metal and its associations with power, glamour, and intrigue.
Curated internally by the museum’s own José Carlos Diaz, the exhibition features some two dozen artists: Olga de Amaral, Eric Baudart, Carlos Betancourt, Chris Burden, James Lee Byars, Elmgreen and Dragset, Dario Escobar, Sylvie Fleury, Cyprien Gaillard, Patricia Hernandez, Jim Hodges, Glenn Kaino, Alicja Kwade, Sherrie Levine, Kris Martin, Fernando Mastrangelo, Yucef Merhi, John Miller, Martin Oppel, Ebony G. Patterson, Todd Pavlisko, Robin Rhode, Cristina Lei Rodriguez, and Rudolf Stingel. The show opened on Aug. 8 and runs through Jan. 11.
One Way: Peter Marino (Dec. 4-Mar. 29) takes the intersection of art, architecture, fashion, and design as a starting point for a look at the acclaimed American architect and designer Marino, who often commissioned artists to contribute to his projects. The show will feature installations by Gregor Hildebrandt, Guy Limone, Farhad Moshiri, Jean-Michel Othoniel, and Erwin Wurm. A selection of works from Marino’s own collection of contemporary art includes works by Loris Gréaud, Keith Haring, Richard Serra, Rudolf Stingel, and Andy Warhol.
The Bass is at 2100 Collins Ave., Miami Beach. Museum hours are Wednesday through Sunday, noon to 5 p.m., except Friday, noon to 9 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and students; members and children under 6 are admitted free. Call 305-673-7350 or visit BassMuseum.org.
Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami
This private nonprofit, set up in 2002 by Ella Fontanals Cisneros and her family to promote the visual arts, specializes in emerging and mid-career contemporary artists from Latin America. Its current exhibition, Fleeting Imaginaries, opened on Sept. 5 and runs through Nov. 2. It features works by recipients of the foundation’s 2014 grants and commissions. Artists included are Pablo Accinelli (Argentina), Teresa Burga (Peru), Nayarí Castillo (Venezuela), Claudia Joskowicz (Bolivia), Marcellvs L. (Brazil), Carlos Martiel (Cuba), Mateo Pizarro (Colombia), Adrían Regnier (Mexico) Rosângela Rennó (Brazil), and Antonieta Sosa (Venezuela)
CIFO’s display space is at 1018 N. Miami Ave., Miami. Exhibition hours are Thursday and Friday, noon to 6 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Call 305-455-3380 or visit www.CIFO.org.
Frost Art Museum, Miami
How lucky is Florida International University (FIU), which boasts not one but two major art museums? One is the truly international Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum in southwest Miami. Now on display (through Oct. 18) is Kept at Bay: Art on Guantánamo, which features works that draw on the experiences of people with direct or indirect aesthetic connections to the infamous detention facility, including American military personnel and their families, Haitian and Cuban refugees, and post-9/11 detainees. Curated by FIU graduate students, under the supervision of Frost director Melissa Diaz.
Marisa Tellería: Still, also running through Oct. 19, is a compilation of new works ranging from individual objects to room-size installations. Running concurrently, Stadtluft Macht Frei: Jacek Kolasinski & Roberto Rovira features the work of the chairs of the Departments of Art & Art History and Landscape Architecture.
From Nov. 8 through Jan. 11, the museum draws from the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Buenos Aires for A Global Exchange: Geometric Abstraction Since 1950.
The solo show Wang Qingsong: ADfinitum, from Nov. 8 through Jan. 18, features the oversize photographs of the contemporary Chinese artist, who documents the sweeping changes taking place in his homeland.
From Oct. 1 through 26, the Frost will present Papua New Guinea: Gogodala Art and Identity, Transition and Revival. The show uses carvings and other materials to explore the changing character of the Gogodala people of southeastern Papua New Guinea.
The two-person show Hands of Korea (Oct. 1-Jan. 4) will feature the work of two Korean artists, Chunghie Lee and Jiyoung Chang, who put a contemporary twist on the traditional fiber arts of Bojagi and Joomchi.
Remember+ing Tokyo (Oct. 1-Jan. 11) uses the woodblock prints of Japanese artist Koizumi Kishio to reflect on his country’s Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923.
Chilean artist Monica Bengoa is featured in Exercises de Style (Feb. 14-April 26), a series of works in felt, paper and embroidery that take their cue from the Raymond Queneau novel, a classic in France, in which the same simple story of a man getting on a bus is told 99 different ways.
Finally, Chinese artist Xu Bing, whose calligraphic work poses interesting questions about words as images, is the subject of Writing Between Heaven and Earth, which runs from Feb. 14 through May 24.
The Frost is at 10975 S.W. 17th St., Miami. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free. Call 305-348-2890 or visit TheFrost.FIU.edu.
Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables
The University of Miami’s in-house museum, which opened in 1952, draws on its substantial permanent collection for shows that often delve deep into cultural history. The current exhibition in the museum’s ArtLab series, for instance, is Conquest and Coexistence: The Cultural Synthesis of Spanish Colonial Art; it’s been up since May and runs through April 26.
Also current (through Oct. 19) is China’s Last Empire: The Art and Culture of the Qing Dynasty, put together by a slew of Asian art experts, including the Lowe’s own director and chief curator, Brian A. Dursum.
For two exhibitions that will run from Nov. 8 through Jan. 11, the muse turns to those internal resources: Art in Real Life: Traditional Art From the Lowe Art Museum and Transformative Visions: Works by Haitian Artists From the Permanent Collection.
The Lowe is at 1301 Stanford Drive, Coral Gables. Museum hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for students and seniors. Members and children under 12 are admitted free, as are UM students, faculty, and staff. Call 305-284-5422 or visit LoweMuseum.org.
Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami
The region’s premier showcase for cutting-edge art is currently closed for reinstallation. Call the museum, which is at 770 N.E. 125th St., North Miami, at 305-893-6211 to find out details about when the facility will reopen. Normal hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for students and seniors, and free for members, children under 12, North Miami residents and city employees, and veterans.
Pérez Art Museum Miami
South Florida’s newest and glitziest art museum got its 2014-15 season under way in August with Adler Guerrier: Formulating a Plot, featuring works in sculpture, photography, print, and collage by the Miami-based Guerrier, who often uses the city as a physical site for his ruminations on American social and political history. Work from the past decade is featured, along with new work created for the exhibition, which runs through Jan. 25.
During roughly the same time frame (Aug. 21-Jan. 18), the Project Gallery adjacent to PAMM’s entrance area will present Leonor Antunes, featuring a large-scale, site-specific installation by the Berlin-based artist, who draws on Miami’s architecture and design history for inspiration.
Beatriz Milhazes: Jardim Botânico (Sept. 19-Jan. 18) is the first major American museum retrospective of the Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes, whose sources for her large abstract paintings include Brazilian and European Modernism, Baroque art, pop culture, and the ephemera of Carnival. The show will focus on work from the past 25 years.
From Oct. 9 through March 1, PAMM has commissioned a large installation by the Vancouver artist Geoffrey Farmer. Let’s Make the Water Turn Black combines Farmer’s signature collages with theatrical installations in which found objects are used to suggest puppetry.
The Pérez is at 1103 Biscayne Blvd., Miami. Museum hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., except Thursday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Admission is $12 for adults, $8 for students, seniors, and ages 7 to 18. Members, children 6 and under, and active military are admitted free. Admission is also free every second Saturday of the month and every first Thursday. Call 305-375-3000 or visit PAMM.org.
The Wolfsonian-FIU, Miami Beach
Florida International University’s Miami Beach art outpost will showcase Myth and Machine: The First World War in Visual Culture, an ambitious survey of paintings, sculpture, posters, books, and photographs assembled to coincide with the centenary of the war’s start. The exhibition, which runs from Nov. 11 through May 24, emphasizes how the unprecedented trauma of world war prompted artists, designers, and filmmakers to turn to the role of myth in trying to make sense of the carnage.
The Wolfsonian is at 1001 Washington Ave., Miami Beach. Museum hours are Monday through Saturday, noon to 6 p.m., except Friday, noon to 9 p.m. Admission is $7 for adults, $5 for students, seniors, and children ages 6 to 12; admission is free for members and children under 6. Admission is also free on Friday from 6 to 9 p.m. Call 305-531-1001 or visit Wolfsonian.org.
Wynwood Arts District
More than 70 galleries, studios, and other art-related businesses are crammed into this heavily Puerto Rican neighborhood, which also boasts nearly three dozen walls of publicly sanctioned street/graffiti art. Once home to warehouses and manufacturing, it’s now known for its Second Saturday Art Walks. Visit WynwoodMiami.com.