As Art Basel unfolds, galleries across Miami are presenting captivating exhibitions that celebrate the city’s natural world and surreal imagination. At Nina Johnson, “Acid Bath House” explores the collision of psychedelia and sensuality, leaving visitors spellbound. Over at Locust Projects, Tara Long transforms childhood dreams into reality with a whimsical corner shop of sweets and souvenirs—a place to wander aimlessly and feel like a cartoon character come to life. Meanwhile, The ReefLine invites exploration beneath the surface, an underwater sculpture park and living reef that doubles as both a museum for marine life and a sanctuary for biodiversity.
This curated list of exhibitions offers the perfect post–Art Basel escape—slower in pace, yet rich in wonder.
Nina Johnson
Emmett Moore: “Neon Sun”
Little Haiti, Miami
Portrait of Emmett Moore. Photo by Chi Lam
Portrait of Emmett Moore. Photo by Chi Lam
Nina Johnson presents “Neon Sun,” a solo exhibition by Miami-based artist and designer Emmett Moore. Installed in the Sculpture Garden, the show features new functional outdoor works—chairs, tables, lighting, and vessels—that merge design, architecture, and sculpture within a tropical vernacular. Cast from industrial remnants and natural textures, the pieces are finished in vivid neon pink, a color Moore calls “pure and primal—the color of flesh, flowers, and flamingos.” Balancing sensuality and satire, the works reflect on Miami’s layered landscape of beauty, construction, and ecological fragility. Faux coral lamps, aluminum I-beam seating, and 3D-printed shell forms transform waste into wonder, embodying Moore’s signature synthesis of material rigor, humor, and experimentation.
What we love: An immersive outdoor installation that celebrates Miami’s vibrant aesthetics while connecting us to nature, blending humor, beauty, and thoughtful design.
Emmett Moore at Nina Johnson
December 1, 2025–February 14, 2026
Nina Johnson
Dara Friedman: “Star People”
Little Haiti, Miami
Portrait of Dara Friedman. Photo by Lisa Leone
Nina Johnson presents “Star People,” a solo exhibition by Miami- and New York–based artist Dara Friedman. Known for her emotive approach to film and movement, Friedman expands her cinematic language into sculpture, installation, and photography, connecting the body to the cosmos. Drawing from Indigenous astronomy, Classical Chinese medicine, and the poetics of rock lyrics, the works explore “light bodies and vibration”—the interplay of shadow, feeling, and form. Highlights include Star People (Seven Sisters), a constellation of aluminum figures and gongs inspired by the Pleiades, and Neptune Rising, a gleaming brass sculpture condensing sound and gesture. In Star People, Friedman transforms the Upstairs Gallery into a meditative space where light and darkness, cosmos and body, pulse in harmony.
What we love: The Upstairs Gallery is a perfect space for reflection, inviting us to connect with the cosmos, a reminder of the night sky’s quiet majesty.
Dara Friedman at Nina Johnson
December 1, 2025–February 14, 2026
Nina Johnson
“Acid Bath House”
Little Haiti, Miami
Reuben Paterson, “Earthalujah (Constellation Pavo),” 2024, glitter, Pacific pearls, Japanese fresh water pearls, acrylic and jewellery wire and mixed media on board, 40 x 30 in, photograph by Henry Hargreaves.
Dean Sameshima, “figures (no. 21),” 2024, silkscreen and acrylic on canvas, 53 x 43 x 16 7/8 in, courtesy of the artist and Soft Opening, photography by Lewis Ronald.
Nina Johnson presents “Acid Bath House,” a kaleidoscopic group exhibition curated by writer and critic Jarrett Earnest. Against the backdrop of rising authoritarianism, the show conjures a space of erotic liberation and ecstatic color—a “glittering orgy,” as Earnest describes it, where psychedelia and sensuality collide. Featuring over sixty works by twenty-five artists, including Steven Arnold, Sadao Hasegawa, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Anna Betbeze, Reuben Paterson, Juliana Huxtable, and Carrie Yamaoka, the exhibition fuses archival queer icons with contemporary voices. Velvet, glitter, pearls, and holograms meet in a maximalist tableau that celebrates desire, resistance, and radical imagination. On view in the Front Gallery, “Acid Bath House” transforms Nina Johnson into a sanctuary of color, body, and transcendence.
What we love:Watching how different artists interpret psychedelia, Reuben Paterson reaches for the cosmos, while Dean Sameshima reflects on human-made structures through his silkscreen and painting compositions.
“Acid Bath House” at Nina Johnson
December 1, 2025–February 14, 2026
Mindy Solomon Gallery
Zoë Buckman: “Who By Fire”
Allapattah, Miami
Zoë Buckman’s Studio, courtesy of the artist.
Mindy Solomon Gallery presents “Who By Fire,” the first solo exhibition by British-born, New York–based artist Zoë Buckman. Taking its title from Leonard Cohen’s haunting rendition of the Jewish prayer Unetaneh Tokef, the show contemplates mortality, faith, and collective resilience through a deeply personal lens. Buckman merges ink and acrylic painting on vintage domestic textiles, meticulously embroidered by hand, to explore themes of inheritance, trauma, and matrilineal strength. Photographs of family members within intimate home settings evoke the fragility of sanctuary and belonging, especially within Jewish histories of displacement. In confronting denialism, antisemitism, and misogyny, Buckman transforms domestic materials into vessels of remembrance and resistance—tender yet defiant meditations on identity, loss, and endurance.
What we love: Buckman reclaims textiles and embroidery—traditionally considered “low” or domestic crafts—transforming them into elevated, powerful works of art.
Zoë Buckman at Mindy Solomon Gallery
November 30, 2025–January 10, 2026
Mindy Solomon Gallery
Celia Vasquez Yui: “Indigenous Futurism”
Allapattah, Miami
Celia Vásquez Yui, “Red Bird,” 2021, Coil-built pre-fire slip-painted clay and vegetal resins, 11.25″ x 8.25″ x 17.6″. Image courtesy of the artist, The Shipibo Conibo Center and Mindy Solomon Gallery.
Mindy Solomon Gallery presents “Indigenous Futurism,” a solo exhibition by Peruvian artist and Shipibo tribe member Celia Vasquez Yui. Supported by the Shipibo Cultural Center in Harlem, the exhibition bridges ancestral knowledge and speculative imagination, merging Amazonian cosmology with visions of the future. Known for her intricately painted ceramic sculptures rooted in the Shipibo-Conibo tradition, Yui reinterprets technology through Indigenous craft—rendering futuristic objects as if they were sacred relics rediscovered in the rainforest. Her geometric kené designs, a visual language connecting the Shipibo people to nature and spirit, appear across polychrome vessels and forms that pulse with life and memory. Immersive and visionary, “Indigenous Futurism” invites viewers to reconsider cultural preservation as an act of both remembrance and prophecy.
What we love: Walking through the exhibition, visitors leave with a full heart, inspired by the deep connection between nature, spirit, and ancestral knowledge.
Celia Vasquez Yui at Mindy Solomon Gallery
November 30, 2025–January 10, 2026
Mindy Solomon Gallery
Asif Hoque: “My Sunshine”
Allapattah, Miami
Asif Hoque, “The One That Captured Sunshine,” 2025, Oil on linen, 50” x 60”. Image courtesy of the artist and Mindy Solomon Gallery. Photography by Martin Parsekian.
Mindy Solomon Gallery presents “My Sunshine,” the third solo exhibition by Brooklyn-based Bangladeshi-American artist Asif Hoque. Expanding his mythologized world centered on his recurring figure, Golden Boy, Hoque transforms autobiography into visual legend. The new series captures the radiant instant when Golden Boy encounters his celestial beloved—the source of the golden light that has defined his power and spirit. Across seven luminous canvases, Hoque paints this revelation as both a love letter and an origin story. Drawing from Greek and Roman mythology, Baroque splendor, and South Asian miniature painting, his hybrid visual language fuses personal memory and art history into a resplendent allegory of love, transformation, and divine light.
What we love: Watching Hoque blend personal history with narrative and art history, it’s a luminous love letter to the world and to those who came before us.
Asif Hoque at Mindy Solomon Gallery
November 30, 2025–January 10, 2026
Locust Projects
Tara Long: “LA ESQUINITA (Little Corner)”
Little River, Miami
Tara Long, render of Locust Projects exterior “LA ESQUINITA,” 2025, courtesy of the artist and Locust Projects.
Locust Projects presents “LA ESQUINITA (Little Corner),” the first major solo exhibition by Miami-born artist and musician Tara Long. Transforming the gallery’s interior and exterior into a surreal “Sweets & Souvenirs” shop of over 500 miniature sculptures, Long stages a candy-coated critique of consumerism and cultural decay. Visitors move from a playful storefront into an immersive dreamscape—a teetering, 20-foot cake under a glowing moon lightbox—accompanied by a haunting original score. The installation culminates in a lush “swamp-scape” where nature overtakes the artificial, evoking Florida’s ecological and cultural precarity. Curated by Executive Director Lorie Mertes, “LA ESQUINITA” blurs fantasy and critique, tracing Miami’s transformation from sugar fields to tech hub while inviting reflection on indulgence, loss, and reclamation.
What we love: By blurring reality and fantasy, “LA ESQUINITA” conjures a childhood dreamscape where candy-colored wonders and miniature worlds collide, reminding that early passions can still sparkle in the modern world, if there’s room to play.
Tara Long at Locust Projects
November 15, 2025–January 17, 2026
The ReefLine
Leandro Erlich, Ximena Caminos, and Collaborating Artists: “The ReefLine: Concrete Coral”
Miami Beach, Florida
Render of Petroc Sesti’s “Heart of Okeanos.” Courtesy of the ReefLine.
The ReefLine—a groundbreaking public art, science, and climate initiative founded by Ximena Caminos—will debut its first underwater installation this September off the coast of Miami Beach. Conceived as a hybrid reef, sculpture park, and snorkel trail, the project transforms the ocean floor into a living museum that restores marine biodiversity and combats coastal erosion. Its inaugural commission, “Concrete Coral” by Leandro Erlich, features 22 full-scale cars cast in marine-grade concrete and seeded with live corals, forming a surreal underwater traffic jam symbolizing the tension between urban life and environmental fragility. Developed with OMA and the University of New Hampshire, the long-term project will plant one million corals, positioning Miami as a global leader in eco-creative innovation and sustainable coastal design.
What we love: This underwater installation introduces a magical new layer to Miami—an artful reef that will outlast our time, nurturing the city’s marine life while transforming the ocean into a living, breathing museum.
Leandro Erlich, Ximena Caminos, and More at The ReefLine
Ongoing
The Future Perfect
Villa Paula
Little Haiti, Miami
The Future Perfect at Villa Paula. Images by Joe Kramm. Courtesy of The Future Perfect.
The Future Perfect at Villa Paula. Images by Joe Kramm. Courtesy of The Future Perfect.
The Future Perfect inaugurates its Miami outpost at Villa Paula, a 1926 Cuban Neoclassical landmark in Little Haiti. Designed by Havana architect Cayetano Freira as Cuba’s first consulate and private residence, the storied 2,000-square-foot villa—long rumored to be one of Miami’s most haunted homes—becomes the setting for a new chapter in contemporary design. Preserving its original columns, tiles, and patina, the gallery unfolds as a sequence of immersive vignettes showcasing works by Lindsey Adelman, Faye Toogood, Chris Wolston, Vikram Goyal, Jane Yang D’Haene, and others, alongside leading brands such as Bocci and Dimoremilano. Reflecting Miami’s global design legacy, Villa Paula embodies The Future Perfect’s vision of merging history, architecture, and artistry into a living dialogue between past and present.
What we love: The seamless blend of original architecture with contemporary design and artwork celebrates the past while imagining the future, showing that history can be honored and built upon rather than erased.
The Future Perfect at Villa Paula
Open November 2025
Goldman Global Arts Gallery (GGA Gallery)
Sandra Chevrier: “a Cage & a House in it”
Wynwood Walls, Miami
Sandra Chevrier, “a Cage & a House in it,” 2024, acrylics on Linen, 60 X 48 in. Curtesy of artist and Goldman Global Arts Gallery.
Sandra Chevrier, “La Cage adieu aux averses, aux orages et aux ouragan,” 2025, 48 X 36 in, acrylic on linen canvas. Curtesy of artist and Goldman Global Arts Gallery.
Goldman Global Arts Gallery presents “a Cage & a House in it,” a powerful solo exhibition by acclaimed Canadian artist Sandra Chevrier. Featuring 35 new works—including canvases, inks on rice paper, and mosaics—the show examines identity, resilience, and the fight for liberation through Chevrier’s signature portraits of women layered with hand-painted comic book fragments. Each piece juxtaposes strength and vulnerability, exploring the “masks” women wear within societal confines. Curated by Jessica Goldman Srebnick, the exhibition unfolds as a visual manifesto of empowerment, tracing women’s evolution from captivity to self-realization. Known globally for her Cages series and mural at Wynwood Walls, Chevrier now brings her vivid, introspective language indoors—transforming GGA Gallery into a space of defiance, beauty, and collective strength.
What we love: Chevrier’s exhibition feels especially timely, capturing the way many are beginning to peel back societal masks and reflect on who they truly want to be.
Sandra Chevrier at Goldman Global Arts Gallery
October 24, 2025–January 2026
Miami Design District Commission
Katie Stout: “Gargantua’s Thumb”
Miami Design District
Katie Stout Portrait, 2025, photograph by Nick Laham, courtesy of the artist.
The Miami Design District celebrates the 10th anniversary of its Annual Design Commission with “Gargantua’s Thumb,” a fantastical installation by New York–based artist and designer Katie Stout. Presented in collaboration with Design Miami Curatorial Lab and fabricated by ALTBLD, the project transforms the neighborhood into a surreal playground of oversized, hand-sculpted animal forms and interactive furniture. Inspired by Stout’s signature blend of craft, humor, and feminist subversion, the installation features sculptural benches, a whimsical carousel, and hundreds of suspended illuminated orbs that animate the District’s trees. Balancing function and fantasy, “Gargantua’s Thumb” honors a decade of bold, site-specific design commissions and continues the District’s tradition of turning public space into a dynamic, participatory work of art.
What we love: Stout’s playful, surreal forms strike a perfect balance between shape and material, letting the inherent qualities of her materials shine through even in her sculpted designs.
Katie Stout at The Miami Design District
November 2025–Spring 2026
