Must-see contemporary shows across Miami

Viewpoints

For the late John Baldessari, art was a means of exploring ideas and systems of meaning. Faces were often obscured with colored dots, to draw the viewer’s attention away from an image’s central figures to the surrounding elements. Often he appropriated images and text, arranging them in unconventional ways to upend traditional definitions.

“John Baldessari: The End of the Line” is on display at Perez Art Museum Miami through May 9, 2027. Here: a pair of 1990 photographs, copyright John Baldessari Family Foundation.

Viewers can see 40 of those interpretations spanning his career at Pérez Art Museum Miami in the survey show, “John Baldessari: The End of the Line.” Most of the works come from the personal collection of Miami’s Craig Robins, developer of the Miami Design District and co-founder of Design Miami. Robins and Baldessari were introduced in the early 1990s by Bonnie Clearwater, now director and chief curator of the NSU Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale. The nascent collector and the artist became fast friends. Robins bought three works that first day – and kept going. “I thought he was one of the most visionary and special people that I have met in the art world,” said Robins.

Works by Jean-Michel Basquiat from the Kenneth C. Griffin Collection are on display display at Perez Art Museum Miami through June 6, 2027. Here: “In Italian,” from 1983, copyright Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

The Baldessari show runs through May 9, 2027. While you’re there, be sure to see the spectacular exhibition of 10 paintings by the late Jean-Michel Basquiat from the Kenneth C. Griffin Collection, South Florida’s largest Basquiat show to date; through June 6, 2027.

Pérez Art Museum Miami, 1103 Biscayne Blvd., Miami; pamm.org.

EXPLOSIONS OF COLOR

Visiting the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami’s Design District is like finding the spot marked X. There’s always treasure, usually overlooked or forgotten by the larger art world. This year’s discoveries include a survey of works created over 50 years by painter Carroll Dunham, and Miami-based Diego Singh’s first solo museum show.

While Dunham’s work is held in the collections of the Whitney Museum and New York’s MoMA, this will be his first museum survey show in 25 years – in part because his later work is decidedly adults-only. Viewers can ponder Dunham’s dramatic stylistic shift from abstract forms to cartoonish figurative images through the exhibition’s 50 career-spanning works.

Carroll Dunham’s “Flood (Deep Blue),” 1995-1996, will be on exhibit from Dec. 1 – March 14 at the Institute of Contemporary Art – Miami. From the Rachel and Jean-Pierre Lehmann Collection

As for Singh, while his plays on color resemble a brain on fire, they also provoke the deep emotion that characterizes the best abstract art. Both shows run Dec. 1 to April 11, 2027.

Diego Singh’s “In my Yellow Eye (Sin Nombre 3),” 2022-2025, is part of the show “Diego Singh: Deeper and Deeper,” on display from Dec. 1 – April 11, 2027, at the Institute of Contemporary Art – Miami. Armando Vaquer Courtesy of CENTRAL FINE and Luhring Augustine Gallery

Institute of Contemporary Art – Miami, 61 NE 41st St., Miami Design District; icamiami.org

GIFTED AND BLACK

Survey exhibitions of contemporary work by Black artists are surprisingly rare. Museums often focus on a single artist – as in the upcoming show of Bisa Butler’s quilts at the Smithsonian – or stylistic approach, like the Museum of African American History and Culture’s current exploration of abstraction by Black artists. Broad collections of Black art are generally held by individuals – which is how University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum’s upcoming show came to be. “Young, Gifted and Black” features 52 works by 49 leading contemporary artists from the collection of the Lumpkin-Boccuzzi family. Included are works by such established artists as Glenn Ligon, Lorna Simpson, Kara Walker and Nari Ward, and younger voices like Jordan Casteel, LaToya Ruby Frazier and Vaughn Spann. Together the works create “a snapshot in time,” in the words of Studio Museum of Harlem Director Thelma Golden. Open Oct. 23-April 24, 2027.

Lowe Museum of Art, 1301 Stanford Dr., Coral Gables on the University of Miami campus. lowe.miami.edu

ON THE LAM

Wifredo Lam was, undeniably, the most important Cuban painter of the mid 20th century. His years in Europe brought him into close contact with other major artists of his time, exposing him to the most futurist ideas of the time. But rather than succumbing to any one style, Lam developed a unique voice shaped by surrealism, cubism and his heritage as the son of a Chinese immigrant father and a mixed-race mother.

Earlier this year, New York’s Museum of Modern Art presented a retrospective of Lam’s work. Though that closed in the spring, you can still catch two local exhibitions showcasing his influence. At the Patricia & Philip Frost Art Museum at FIU, “Modern Cuban Painters from Havana to New York, Revisited” reprises the pivotal 1940s show organized by New York’s Museum of Modern Art that introduced the U.S. to Cuba’s modernist masters; through Oct. 18. “Wifredo Lam’s Legacy” at the NSU Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale features works by Lam, Ray Azcuy, José Bedia, María Brito, Agustín Cárdenas, Los Carpinteros, Kcho, Ana Mendieta, María Martínez-Cañas, María Magdalena Compos-Pons and Ricardo Zulueta, all drawn from the museum’s collection; through March 14.

NSU Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, 1 E Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale; nsuartmuseum.org

Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum – FIU, 10975 SW 17th St., Miami; frost.fiu.edu

EPHEMERAL NATURE OF BEING

What you see is what you get – but will it stay that way? Tokyo-based artist Yuko Mohri presents machine parts and everyday items as unwitting elements in an improvisational performance driven by gravity, light and time. The objects create discrete ecosystems often bound by unseen forces.

Yuko Mohri’s installation “Decomposition,” 2024. Installation includes a vintage table, speakers, lights, 5 channel audio generated by fruits, and 5 LED lights dimmed by fruits. Photography by Koshiro Shikine. Courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York.

“Unviolated Imperfection,” Mohri’s first solo show in a U.S. museum, spans three galleries at The Bass Museum. The first installation, “Decomposition,” presents familiar fruits as they decay. There’s more than just blackening bananas; electrodes embedded in the fruit transmit electrical signals into sound and light tones that constantly shift. “Moré Moré (Leaky)” reprises her 2024 presentation at the Venice Biennale, where water moving through an array of found objects creates a chain reaction of sound and motion – much like the ceiling leaks in Tokyo’s underground stations that inspired the work. In a third gallery, “Piano Solo” uses the changing sounds of Miami Beach’s coastline to determine the composition projected from the installation’s central element, a self-playing grand piano flanked by a huge LED screen featuring scenes of the sea. Through May 30, 2027.

The Bass Museum, 2100 Collins Ave., Miami Beach; thebass.org

CONNECTIONS

Artgoers sometimes confuse El Espacio 23 with the Pérez Art Museum Miami. The latter is a public institution supported by developer Jorge M. Pérez. El Espacio showcases art from his personal collection, a deep trove of works chosen by one of Miami’s most impassioned collectors. Espacio 23’s new show, “Nothing Is Linear: Relations Across Latin America and its Diasporas,” explores the history, traditions and collective memory that transcend geography to create the borderless cultural landscape that is Latin America. Themes of migration, resistance and heritage are showcased in works by artists including Ana Segovia, Agustín Cárdenas, Tony Labat, Mariela Scafati, Julio Le Parc and José Parlá, to name a few. Nov. 19-Aug. 14, 2027.

Ana Segovia’s painting, “Huapango Torero, 2020,” is part of the show, “Nothing Is Linear: Relations Across Latin America and Its Diasporas in the Jorge M. Pérez Collection,” at El Espacio 23 through Aug. 14, 2027. Courtesy of the Jorge M. Pérez Collection

El Espacio 23, 2270 NW 23rd St., Miami; elespacio23.org

BLACK MAGIC Geoffrey Holder’s “Adam and Eve,” 2000-2005, oil on board, is part of the “Geoffrey Holder: Black Magic” at the Museum of Contemporary Art – North Miami, Nov. 4 – April 4, 2027. Courtesy of the Estate of Geoffrey Holder and James Fuentes Gallery

Geoffrey Holder was a Caribbean incarnation of a modern Renaissance man. The Trinidad native was an accomplished classical dancer, film and theater actor, director and visual artist. He danced in the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, played a villain in the Bond film “Live and Let Die,” and won Tony Awards for costume design and direction of the original Broadway production of “The Wiz.” His paintings and drawings played understudy to his other roles. In the upcoming show “Geoffrey Holder: Black Magic,” University of Miami professor Erica Moiah James argues that visual art was the foundation for his other endeavors. The show at the Museum of Contemporary Art – North Miami includes more than 60 paintings and drawings, many shown for the first time on view Nov. 4-March 14, 2027.

Museum of Contemporary Art – North Miami, 770 NE 125th St., North Miami; mocanomi.org.