18 December 1-7, 2022 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | music | cafe | culture | Night+Day | News | letters | coNteNts | Month XX–Month XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS | H ailing from all fabulous cor- ners of the universe, the crowds are set to descend upon the Miami Beach Con- vention Center on Decem- ber 1-3 for the return of Art Basel. Still, locals know that Miami Art Week is the best time of year to squeeze in a visit (or three) to one of the area’s art museums. From the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum on the Florida In- ternational University campus to the NSU Art Museum in downtown Fort Lauderdale, art lovers will find exhibitions that run the gamut in terms of medium, time period, style, and geography, once again proving that the Magic City is an unparalleled destination for diverse, captivating, visual art. The following alphabetical list contains only a sampling of the many museum exhibitions you’ll be able to see during Miami Art Week. THE BASS Just two blocks away from the Miami Beach Convention Center hubbub, the Bass is on a mission to excite, challenge, and educate through its collection of contemporary art. Miami Art Week sees the opening of “El fin de la imaginación,” a site-specific and large-scale environment of works by Argentine artist Adrián Villar Rojas with Mariana Telleria. A multidisciplinary artist, Villar Rojas builds immersive worlds at once fragile and impos- ing. For this show, he imagines a seemingly inevitable future of interstellar colonization to explore the paradoxical nature of über- modern life: Is humanity riding high on a tech revolution or heading toward total crisis? On view through May 14, 2023, at 2100 Collins Ave., Miami Beach; 305-673-7530; thebass.org. Admission is $15. INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, MIAMI On November 28, ICA hosts a pair of special exhibition openings. On the second floor, Chicago-born painter and sculptor Nina Cha- nel Abney presents “Big Butch Energy.” The new installation uses dynamic colors and cubistic forms to spotlight the “implicit flam- boyance and homoeroticism of frat house and sorority house environments,” the artist said in a release. In this batch of works, Black mas- culine women figure prominently in scenes that reference baroque portraiture or frater- nity composites, exploring the continuing in- fluence of social ritual and visual culture on gender perception and performance. On the ICA’s third floor, “Progressive Aesthetics” is a posthumous collection of works by Michel Majerus, a Berlin-based artist who most fa- mously created serial screenprint appropria- tions of the infamous mid-’80s collaboration between Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. On view through March 12, 2023, at 61 NE 41st St., Miami; 305-901-5272; icamiami. org. Admission is free. MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART NORTH MIAMI The most extensive retrospective to date of North Miami artist Didier William’s career, “Nou Kite Tout Sa Dèyè” — which translates to “We’ve Left That All Behind” — spans paintings, drawings, artist books, and a 12-foot wooden sculpture that resembles a column used in Haitian religious rituals, all to present a close look at William’s career and memories in his native neighborhood. Also on view at MOCA is “Kanaval,” a retrospective of the two decades photographer, filmmaker, curator, collector, and writer Leah Gordon spent documenting Carnival in Haiti. Black-and- white photographs snapped on a mechanical, medium-format camera are complemented by a series of oral histories relaying the fables and mythologies surrounding Carnival, spoken by those who oversee the celebration’s costumes. On view through April 16, 2023, at 770 NE 125th St., North Miami; 305-893-6211; mocanomi.org. Tickets cost $5 to $10. NSU ART MUSEUM FORT LAUDERDALE “Immaterial Being” is the first solo museum exhibition of South Florida artist Kathia St. Hilaire, whose work draws influence from the West African religion Vodun, a philoso- phy credited with helping to spark the Hai- tian Revolution. On lattice frameworks of linoleum resembling ceremonial Haitian Vo- dun flags, St. Hilaire combines distinctly Haitian iconography, scenes depicting death, and celestial bodies with scenes of tender family gatherings and children at play. “I Had A Wonderful Life” is a celebratory col- lection of “monument paintings” by Scott Covert, who has traveled from Montpar- nasse to Hollywood utilizing the Victorian technique of grave rubbing. Lifting impres- sions from reliefs on tombstones, Covert cre- ates collages from the names and tombstone texts of those he calls “people of character.” See if you can spot Serge Gainsbourg min- gling near Nikita Khrushchev. Finally, “Ship- wreck” presents London artist Malcolm Morley’s penchant for both “superrealism” — works so precisely rendered you may mis- take them for photographs — and surreal, complex paintings. Morley, whose close col- leagues were pop artist Roy Lichtenstein and conceptual artist Richard Artschwager, had a fondness for depicting seaworthy vessels, perhaps a nod to the World War II-era Ger- man bombing raid that destroyed the battle- ship HMS Nelson — and part of Morley’s London family home. “I Had a Wonderful Life” and “Immaterial Being” are on view through April 23, 2023, and “Shipwreck” is on view through April 16, 2023, at 1 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale; 954-525-5500; nsuart- museum.org. Tickets cost $5 to $12. PATRICIA & PHILLIP FROST ART MUSEUM Located on Florida International University’s Modesto A. Maidique Campus, the Frost Art Museum hosts a pair of exhibitions that may appeal especially to art history buffs. “In the Mind’s Eye: Landscapes of Cuba” pairs landscapes painted by contemporary Cuban artists like Juana Valdés and María Magdalena Campos Pons with the idealized, pastoral scenes created by American artists from the late 1800s and early 1900s like William Glackens and Winslow Homer, illustrating how politics and ideology seep into every facet of expression, even landscape painting. “Rembrandt Reframed” presents nearly two dozen prints by the famed Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn in conversation with the works of three contemporary artists. From Leandro Erlich to Didier William, Miami’s museums are ready for the crowds. B Y T Y L E R F R A N C I S C H I N E Perfectly Curated >> p19 Installation view of Didier William's "Nou Kite Tout Sa Dèyè" at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami Photo by Michael Lopez
