Miami buzzes with Art Basel energy as collectors and art lovers flock to exhibitions and afterparties, eager to discover new talent. Beyond the fair, the city’s museums are offering some of the season’s most compelling shows. At Pérez Art Museum Miami, Elliot & Erick Jiménez’s “El Monte” immerses visitors in Afro-Cuban cosmologies, while at The Bass, Jack Pierson revisits a bygone Miami through photographs that evoke memory and longing. The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami highlights artists Joyce Pensato, Igshaan Adams, and Richard Hunt, whose work continues to resonate, connecting past and present in urgent, unexpected ways. Whitewaller has curated a list of must-see exhibitions outside the fairgrounds for those looking to escape the crowds.
Pérez Art Museum Miami
Elliot & Erick Jiménez: “El Monte”
Downtown
Elliot & Erick Jiménez, “The Rebirth of Venus,” 2025. Archival pigment print on canvas with crystals, ivory pearls, and glass beads. 55 x 40 inches. © Elliot & Erick Jiménez. Courtesy the artists and Spinello Projects.
Elliot & Erick Jiménez, “Who is the Ram and Who is the Knife?,” 2025. Archival pigment print on canvas with metal glitter. 64 1/2 x 50 inches. © Elliot & Erick Jiménez. Courtesy the artists and Spinello Projects
Pérez Art Museum Miami presents “El Monte”, the debut solo museum exhibition by Miami-born twin photographers Elliot and Erick Jiménez. Drawing from Afro-Cuban spirituality and Lydia Cabrera’s seminal text, the show immerses viewers in Lucumí cosmologies through large-scale photographs, mixed media, and installation. Regal “shadow figures” clad in masks and garments by Willy Chavarria evoke the syncretic Afro-Caribbean religion of Santería, transforming anonymity into presence. At its heart, a monumental Ceiba tree trunk installation leads visitors through a forest-like environment that doubles as chapel and sanctuary. Interweaving dual identities, cultural heritage, and painterly photographic techniques, the Jiménez twins create a dreamlike language of ritual, resilience, and transculturation.
What we love: How the artists’ dual identities manifest through the fluid dialogue between photography, sculpture, and installation. Their ability to merge painterly composition with spiritual narrative transforms the exhibition into both a visual and emotional journey.
Elliot and Erick Jiménez at Pérez Art Museum Miami
August 28, 2025–March 22, 2026
Pérez Art Museum Miami
Woody De Othello: “coming forth by day”
Downtown
Woody De Othello, “May I look upon myself and my shadow,” 2025, glazed ceramic, 27 x 14 x 14 inches. © Woody De Othello. Courtesy the artist, Jessica Silverman, and Karma. Photo by Phillip Maisel.
Woody De Othello, “holding of a memory,”
2025, glazed ceramic and incense, 11 3/4 x 7 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches bird; 1 1/4 x 11 x 11 1/4 inches plate. © Woody De Othello. Courtesy the artist, Jessica Silverman, and Karma. Photo by Phillip Maisel.
Pérez Art Museum Miami presents “coming forth by day”, the first hometown museum solo exhibition of artist Woody De Othello. Known for animating everyday domestic objects with emotional and spiritual resonance, Othello debuts a new body of work including hand-built ceramics, mosaic wall works, and a monumental bronze sculpture. Drawing from diasporic spiritual traditions and the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the show transforms the gallery into a contemplative, ritual-like space. Clay-painted walls, herbal scents, and altar-like installations invite visitors to reflect on transformation, renewal, and collective memory. Anchored by Othello’s Haitian heritage and metaphysical symbolism, the exhibition blurs boundaries between the earthly and divine, the mundane and the sacred.
What we love: How Othello transforms the language of devotion into a contemporary reflection on identity, heritage, and renewal. Through form and material, he redefines spirituality for the modern moment.
Woody De Othello at Pérez Art Museum Miami
November 13, 2025–June 28, 2026
The Bass
Jack Pierson: “The Miami Years”
Miami Beach
Jack Pierson, “ARRAY (MIAMI),” 2025, © Jack Pierson, courtesy of the artist and Lisson Gallery.
The Bass presents “Jack Pierson: The Miami Years”, the first exhibition dedicated to the city’s profound influence on the celebrated American artist. Spanning photography, sculpture, installation, and works on paper, the show traces Pierson’s decades-long relationship with Miami Beach, beginning with his formative stay in 1984. Infused with themes of desire, memory, and escapism, the works reveal how the city’s queer nightlife, Art Deco revival, and burgeoning art scene shaped Pierson’s practice. A highlight is ARRAY (MIAMI), a monumental new commission blending printed ephemera with personal imagery to evoke narratives of longing and transience. Reflecting the intersections of art, fashion, and celebrity culture, the exhibition underscores Miami’s enduring role in Pierson’s life and in contemporary art at large.
What we love: Pierson’s exhibition evokes a pre-digital era, inviting viewers to be present, savor the moment, and notice the textures and rhythms of everyday life.
Jack Pierson at The Bass
September 24, 2025–August 16, 2026
Rubell Museum
Allapattah, Miami
“Thomas Houseago,” “Recent Acquisitions,” “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Rooms,” and “Collection Highlights”
Jean-Michel Basquiat, “Bird On Money,” 1981, acrylic and oil on canvas, 66 x 90 in. (167.6 x 228.6 cm). Courtesy of artist and Rubell Museum.
This December, the Rubell Museum presents a dynamic suite of exhibitions spanning immersive installation, sculpture, and major contemporary acquisitions. Highlights include a survey of new paintings and sculptures by the artist Thomas Houseago; a Recent Acquisitions exhibition with solo presentations by six artists; and Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Rooms, featuring the artist’s celebrated Where the Lights in My Heart Go (2016) and INFINITY MIRRORED ROOM – LET’S SURVIVE FOREVER (2017), alongside her mesmerizing Narcissus Garden (1966)—a river of 700 stainless steel spheres flowing through the central gallery. Additionally, a new Collection Highlights exhibition further expands the museum’s commitment to sharing transformative, accessible contemporary art experiences for all.
What we love: The Rubell Museum’s commitment to contemporary art shines through its diverse exhibitions, revealing how different artists respond to shared themes and modern-day challenges.
“Thomas Houseago,” “Recent Acquisitions,” “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Rooms,” and “Collection Highlights” at Rubell Museum
Opening December 2025
MOCA North Miami
Diana Eusebio: “Field of Dreams”
North Miami
Diana Eusebio Portrait,, photograph by Bryan Tinoco, courtesy of artist and MOCA North Miami.
MOCA North Miami presents “Field of Dreams,” the first solo museum exhibition by Peruvian-Dominican multidisciplinary artist Diana Eusebio. Drawing from her Afro-Indigenous Quechua heritage, Eusebio bridges ancestral textile traditions with contemporary techniques, transforming the gallery into an immersive ethnobotanical garden of color and memory. Using seven natural dyes—avocado, cochineal, annatto, Spanish moss, marigold, Palo Campeche, and indigo—she creates hand-dyed and digitally printed textiles that celebrate cultural preservation and the immigrant experience. Curated by MOCA’s Kimari Jackson, the exhibition reflects Eusebio’s deep research into natural pigments and her fusion of ancestral and digital processes, illuminating the enduring wisdom, beauty, and vitality of Indigenous and Afro-Caribbean traditions
What we love: The subtle beauty of Diana Eusebio’s hand-dyed textiles can only be fully appreciated in person, as their shifting shades and textures change with light and perspective.
Diana Eusebio at MOCA North Miami
November 5, 2025–March 13, 2026
MOCA North Miami
Hiba Schahbaz: “The Garden”
North Miami
Hiba Schahbaz, “Self Portrait as Grand Odalisque (after Ingres),” 2016, tea, watercolor, ink and gouache on earth stained paper, 60 x 83 in, courtesy of the artist.
MOCA North Miami presents “The Garden,” the first-ever museum survey of Pakistani-born, U.S.-based artist Hiba Schahbaz. Guest curated by Jasmine Wahi, founder and co-director of Project for Empty Space, the exhibition traces fifteen years of Schahbaz’s evolution through more than eighty multimedia paintings, including new works and a site-specific commission. Rooted in miniature painting traditions of Lahore, Schahbaz grounds her contemporary practice in centuries-old techniques while reimagining these ancient forms through intimate, human-scale compositions. Unfolding across five elemental environments—earth, fire, air, water, and the human-made—the show envisions mythical creatures and self-portraits as acts of transformation and reclamation. Like the paradise gardens of Mughal and Persian art, “The Garden” becomes both sanctuary and mirror—where beauty, ancestry, and the feminine divine bloom anew within Miami’s layered cultural landscape.
What we love: Experiencing Schahbaz’s work feels like stepping into a living myth, where the boundaries between artist, viewer, and story dissolve.
Hiba Schahbaz at MOCA North Miami
November 5, 2025–March 16, 2026
Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
Andreas Schulze: “Special”
Miami Design District
Andreas Schulze, “Untitled (Self-portrait),” 2002, acrylic on nettle cloth, 86 5/8 x 137 7/8 inches (2 parts). © Andreas Schulze / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Courtesy the artist and Sprüth Magers. Photo by Timo Ohler.
The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami presents “Andreas Schulze: Special,” the first solo U.S. museum exhibition for the German painter, known for his playful yet meticulous exploration of everyday life. Spanning over four decades, the exhibition surveys Schulze’s distinctive visual language through large-scale paintings and sculptures that merge abstraction and figuration with deadpan humor. Works such as Untitled (Rombo Duemila) (1998), Untitled (Garden) (2016), and Untitled (The Duke of Urbino) (2019) reflect his fascination with pattern, texture, and perspective, transforming domestic and urban motifs into dreamlike tableaux. Presented in collaboration with Sprüth Magers, “Special” situates Schulze’s practice within the postwar lineage of German painting while highlighting his singular ability to turn the ordinary into the uncanny.
What we love: Schulze reimagines canonical art historical subjects as dreamlike tableaux, making them uncanny and accessible to a new generation while preserving the impact of the originals.
Andreas Schulze at Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
December 2, 2025-March 15, 2026
Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
Igshaan Adams: “Lulu, Zanele, Zandile, Savannah (Stairwell Commission)”
Miami Design District
Igshaan Adams, Detail of “Savannah,” 2025, cotton twine, polypropylene and polyester rope, plastic, glass, stone, wood, and shell beads, cotton fabric, plastic and cotton lace, silk ribbon, cotton, wool, silver chain, silver ball chain and tiger tail wire, 233 x 194 cm. © Igshaan Adams. Courtesy the artist, Thomas Dane Gallery, Casey Kaplan and blank projects. Photo by Mario Todeschini.
The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami presents a monumental installation by South African artist Igshaan Adams, marking his first presentation in Miami. Known for his intricate woven installations, Igshaan Adams combines cotton twine, rope, fabric, beads, shells, and metals to create tactile landscapes that explore intersections of race, religion, and sexuality. Each work—such as Zanele (2025), Savannah (2025), and Lulu (2025)—weaves together threads of personal and collective memory, evoking pathways of spiritual and geographic migration. Drawing from Igshaan Adams’ upbringing in Cape Town’s Bonteheuwel neighborhood, Adams transforms traditional weaving into a medium of resistance and transcendence, where movement, material, and light converge to form radiant, map-like abstractions.
What we love: Igshaan Adams creates towering woven installations that unfold gradually, rewarding close inspection where every material, detail, and texture can be fully appreciated.
Igshaan Adams at Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
December 2, 2025-November 1, 2026
Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
Joyce Pensato: “Joyce Pensato”
Miami Design District
Joyce Pensato, “I Must Be Dreamin’,” 2007, enamel on linen, 90 x 72 inches / 228.6 x 182.9 cm, (PEN 07/123), courtesy of Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami.
Joyce Pensato, “Golden Batman,” 2014, enamel and metallic paint on canvas, 72 x 64 inches / 182.9 x 162.6 cm, (PEN 14/006), courtesy of Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami.
The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami presents “Joyce Pensato,” the most comprehensive survey to date of the late American painter (1941–2019). Bringing together more than 65 works from across five decades, the exhibition reveals Pensato’s fearless fusion of gestural abstraction and pop imagery. From her early Batman drawings of 1976 to her dynamic enamel paintings of Mickey Mouse, Felix the Cat, and South Park’s Stan, Pensato’s characters embody both humor and haunting intensity. Curated by Alex Gartenfeld, Gean Moreno, and Stephanie Seidel, the exhibition illuminates Pensato’s transformative vision—one that captures the psychological undercurrents of American iconography through explosive mark-making and monumental scale. A major scholarly catalogue accompanies the exhibition, contextualizing her enduring influence on postwar painting.
What we love: Walking through the exhibition, viewers can sense the period of Pensato’s life purely through her work, as each piece reflects the cultural and personal context of its time.
What we love: Joyce Pensato at Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
December 2, 2025-November 1, 2026
Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
Richard Hunt: “Pressure”
Miami Design District
Richard Hunt, “Low Flight,” 1998. ©2025 The Richard Hunt Trust / ARS, NY and DACS, London. Photo © On White Wall.
The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami presents “Richard Hunt: Pressure,” the first posthumous U.S. museum survey of the pioneering sculptor, who transformed modern abstraction through his fearless experimentation with metal. Spanning more than five decades, the exhibition features twenty-five works in bronze, steel, and aluminum—ranging from early welded forms to monumental public maquettes that confront America’s social and political histories. Highlights include Hero’s Head (1956), inspired by Emmett Till; Opposed Linear Forms (1961); and I Have Been to the Mountain (1977), an homage to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Curated by Gean Moreno, “Pressure” illuminates Hunt’s lifelong dialogue between form and justice, reaffirming his legacy as one of America’s most vital sculptors.
What we love: Experiencing Hunt’s work in person is a powerful emotional encounter, reminding us of the Civil Rights era and its continued relevance today.
Richard Hunt at Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
December 2, 2025–March 29, 2026
