Whitewaller Miami 2019: What to See

Outside of the fairs, be sure to save time in your schedule for visiting these exhibitions, on view at Miami’s top museums, galleries, and collections.

Teresita Fernández: Elemental
Pérez Art Museum Downtown
Now—February 9, 2020
On view at the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), “Elemental” is the first midcareer survey of work by artist Teresita Fernández. Presented in collaboration with Phoenix Art Museum, the exhibition spans the last 20 years in Fernández’s career, presenting a series of the artist’s installations, large-scale sculptures, and mixed-media works, which often reinterpret the historic landscape by exploring relationships between nature, history, and identity. In the show, viewers can expect to find works like the assembly of thousands of hand-dyed silk threads, reminiscent of burning flames, entitled Fire; a room-sized installation called Borrowed Landscape, created in 1998; and a selection of the artist’s new works.

Mickalene Thomas: Better Nights
The Bass South Beach
December 1, 2019—September 27, 2020
Mickalene Thomas’s “Better Nights” transforms the galleries of The Bass into an immersive art experience, inspired by the play Put a Little Sugar in My Bowl, which was organized and performed by the artist’s mother, friends, and family in the 1970s. Based around an apartment environment constructed using the aesthetics of the time, the installation is complete with faux wood paneling, wallpaper, and custom seating, which has been upholstered in the artist’s signature textiles. In the environment, Thomas brings her artistic universe to life, incorporating both her own works and a selection of work by artists of color. Accompanying the show is a schedule of programming including live performances, activations, a live bar, and performances by guest DJs.

“A Universe of Things: Micky Wolfson Collects”
The Wolfsonian–FIU South Beach
Now–TBD
Honoring the founder of The Wolfsonian–Florida International University, “A Universe of Things” brings together over 100 objects from Micky Wolfson’s life of collecting, centered around his own mantra—“What man makes, makes man.” Falling on the occasion of Wolfson’s 80th birthday, the show includes items ranging from his first purchase at age 12 to recent Wolfsonian donations, grouped together according to shared qualities. In one sector, viewers will find a selection of works made in 1939, the year of Wolfson’s birth. Other highlights include a selection of taboo “Tijuana Bibles,” a Japanese decorative screen with a scene of a naval battle, and a display of hotel keys kept by Wolfson from family vacations, which creates a visual summary of a lifetime of travel.

Inaugural Exhibition
The Rubell Museum Allapattah
December 4, 2019—TBD
Opening December 4, the Rubell Museum will inaugurate its new campus with an expansive exhibition of more than 300 works by 100 artists. Sourced entirely from their own collection (which includes over 7,200 works), the exhibition features the defining and seminal works of artists supported by the Rubells since the early days of their careers—like Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Keith Haring, David Hammons, and Rosemarie Trockel. The show also includes five galleries filled with the works of New York appropriation artists of the early 1980s, two Yayoi Kusama installations, pieces commissioned from the Rubells’ artist-in-residence program, and more.

“Can it Really Be 20 Years Already? Art in Our Times, Contemporary Masters, and Philanthropy
The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse Wynwood
Now—April 25, 2020
Commemorating 20 years of public exhibitions, The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse is presenting an anniversary show featuring the works of more than 50 artists, including Magdalena Abakanowicz, Olafur Eliasson, Donna Dennis, Mark di Suvero, William Eggleston, Jason Rhoades, Nancy Rubins, Cindy Sherman, Jennifer Steinkamp, and Franz West. In the exhibition, the collection celebrates a roster of some of the most significant artists of the 20th and 21st centuries (like John Chamberlain, Willem de Kooning, Mark Di Suvero, Isamu Noguchi, and Nancy Rubins), as well as two decades of serving Miami by making art more accessible through exhibitions and works donated to educational institutions. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication honoring the artists who have helped shape the collection, presented in a two-volume book set.

“Within Interdependence”
National YoungArts Foundation Edgewater
Now—September 27, 2020
“Within Interdependence” is a group exhibition featuring the works of 20 emerging artists, creating a dialogue between creations that focus on the artists’ connection to their bodies in today’s swiftly changing ecological, metaphysical, and social world. Curated by United States Artists president and CEO Deana Haggag, the show includes works by artists like Alyssa Ackerman, Maite Iribarren, Miles Phillips, and Liza Wimbish, which examine ideas of interdependence, intimacy, and the body-mind connection, bringing to the forefront what inherently connects us to ourselves, the people around us, and our environments.

Eamon Ore-Giron: Darién Gap
Nina Johnson Gallery Little Haiti
December 2, 2019—January 4, 2020
An exhibition of new paintings by Eamon Ore-Giron, “Darién Gap” was named for the strip of land that runs between Panama and Colombia. Similar to how the Darién Gap links North and South America, the exhibition places the viewer within a story that runs from European abstraction to the visual culture of pre Colombian Peru. After examining art-historical legacies of the Global South and those of the Western world side by side, Ore-Giron created the works on view—a series of Flashe paintings on raw linen. A continuation of the artist’s “Infinite Regress” series, the paintings in “Dariéne Gap” infuse elements of refined geometry with the visual aspects of Peruvian goldwork, resulting in a hallucinatory-yet-meditative amalgamation of multiple eras and cultures.

“Infinite Space: A Retrospective by Refik Anadol”
ARTECHOUSE South Beach
Now—Spring 2020
On view at the digital art presenter ARTECHOUSE’s second permanent location is Refik Anadol’s “Infinite Space,” debuting there following its run in Washington, D.C. The first major retrospective of the Turkish-born artist’s work to date, the exhibition features Anadol’s Infinity Room, a world-renowned immersive installation that has been seen by more than two million people, and which challenges visitors’ conventional experiences of space and time. The show also includes a selection of multimedia works spanning the artist’s career.

Cecilia Vicuña: About to Happen
MOCA North Miami North Miami
Now—March 29, 2020
The first major solo exhibition of work by Cecilia Vicuña in the U.S., the presentation at the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (MOCA) follows the Chilean-born artist’s dedication to exploring discarded materials, people, and landscapes during a time of climate change. Including a range of performance art, sculpture, drawing, video, text, and site-specific installations spanning a 40-year period, “About to Happen” highlights dematerialization as a consequence of radical climate change, also examining a process that shapes public memory and responsibility. Featured in the exhibition are works like the installation Burnt Quipu, part of the artist’s exploration of ancient Andean writing traditions, as well as her small-scale precario sculptures, assembled out of bits and pieces of thread, wood, and other found objects.

“The Last Supper, an exploration of spirituality and food in contemporary art”
Faena Festival Mid-Beach
December 2—8
Presented during Miami Art Week at the second annual Faena Festival, “The Last Supper, an exploration of spirituality and food in contemporary art” features works that create a dialogue around the complexities of spirituality and food, presented from the viewpoint of contemporary artists. Serving as a platform to celebrate the connections between spiritual rituals and communal cultural practices such as the shared meal or prayer, the presentation will include commissions by artists like Myrlande Constant, Gabriel Chaile, and Emeka Ogboh, as well as works by Yael Bartana, Camille Henrot, and The Propeller Group, and a special film series. This year’s edition of the Faena Festival will be centered around an exploration on abundance and sacrifice, symbolism and aesthetics, and indulgence and abstinence.

“Les Lalanne at the Raleigh Gardens”
The Raleigh Hotel Miami Beach
Now–February 29, 2020
Honoring the late French artist Claude Lalanne, and her husband and collaborator François-Xavier Lalanne, “Les Lalanne at the Raleigh Gardens” is a temporary public art installation presented in the famed Gardens of The Raleigh Hotel. Animating a half-acre of the renowned Raleigh site and boardwalk, this public tribute to the late French artists is being presented by art collector and real estate developer Michael Shvo, and the garden was designed by the exceptional talent-pairing of architect and Lalanne collector Peter Marino with Miami landscape designer Raymond Jungles. This lyrical collaboration weaves together a fantastical sculpture garden animated by Claude and Francois-Xavier Lalanne’s surrealist, prized sculpture with tropical vegetation. Testimony to a profound legacy, this collaboration sources over 39 pieces from the international collections of private collectors Michael Shvo, Jane Holzer, Peter Marino, and gallerists Ben Brown, Jean Gabriel Mitterand, and Paul Kasmin.