With the barrage of Design Miami– and Art Basel–pegged installations about to open their doors, December 3–8 is going to be one hectic time for Miami-bound creatives. To help you cut through the noise, AD PRO has selected 16 exhibitions, installations, and events happening around town that are sure to compel.
Marc Ange’s "The Garden of Beauty" at Visionnaire
Inspired by the colorful and majestic peacocks he encountered in India, Los Angeles–based French-Italian artist Marc Ange dreamed up Il Pavone, a capsule collection for the Italian luxury furniture brand Visionnaire. To celebrate the launch of his dramatic throne, fashioned from bespoke blue-and-green Visionnaire fabrics, camel leather, and bronze-plated brass, as well as a complementary quintet of pared-down armchairs, Marc Ange has fittingly reimagined Visionnaire’s newly renovated Wynwood showroom as an otherworldly garden.
2063 Biscayne Boulevard; December 2–8, except the evening of December 4
Versace’s "South Beach Stories"
Following her presentation with the brand at Milan Design Week, New York interior designer Sasha Bikoff plunged into the Versace archive yet again to make six different furniture pieces. A velvet chair trimmed with multicolor fringe, for instance, calls to mind a marine-life-motif skirt from Versace’s spring-summer 1993 campaign, just as a racy leather bondage swing, plumped up with gilded Medusa hardware, evokes dresses from the “Miss S&M” fall-winter 1992 collection. The exhibition, at the Palm Court event space, features another touch of vintage glamour: Photographer Doug Ordway’s Versace campaign imagery, selected by Bikoff, covers the walls.
140 NE 39th Street; opens December 6
Massive Miu Miu M/Marbles Stools
First came the interactive, three-legged Miu Miu M/Matching Colorstool, a collaboration with M/M (Paris). Introduced at this year’s Salone del Mobile, the piece encourages users to plug “matchsticks” of different colors into myriad perforated holes. The next incarnation, the palm wood and crepe rubber Miu Miu M/Marbles Stool garnished with hand-blown Murano glass pegs, hits the market with a bang in two playful installations. At the Standard Spa, Miami Beach, and the historic Buena Vista Post Office in the Miami Design District, the stools are blown up to Alice in Wonderland–size proportions.
40 Island Avenue (Standard Spa) and 3246 N Miami Ave (Buena Vista Post Office); December 6–8
LOEWE Foundation's "Chance Encounters V"
Finding a connection between the late English ceramics artist James Ewen Henderson and contemporary English film and video artist Hilary Lloyd might not come easily, but that’s the point of LOEWE Foundation’s fifth exhibition in its "Chance Encounters" series. The pairing of these seemingly disparate sculptures and installations promises to spark meaningful dialogue.
110 NE 39th Street; opens December 3
Les Lalanne at the Raleigh Gardens
The Raleigh Hotel has still not emerged from its much-talked-about renovation, but the opening of the Raleigh Gardens, designed by architect Peter Marino and landscape architect Raymond Jungles, brings the Art Deco restoration one step closer to completion. Orchestrated by real-estate developer and investor Michael Shvo, the inaugural public exhibition in the lush space showcases more than 40 surreal sculptures by Claude Lalanne and François-Xavier Lalanne, the late French artist couple simply known to the art world as Les Lalanne. Strolling through the grounds, taking in the anthropomorphized cabbage with feet or the immense gorilla, is sheer delight.
1775 Collins Avenue; through February 29
Joana Vasconcelos Reinterprets Roche Bobois
Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos, known for fashioning stiletto heels from stainless-steel pans and lids and constructing a chandelier out of tampons, has channeled that same streak of colorful creativity into Roche Bobois. The French furniture brand asked her to breathe new life into six of its iconic pieces—later to be auctioned off, with proceeds donated to the art-supporting Joana Vasconcelos Foundation—and she responded accordingly. Two Ava chairs, Lady G and Nuage armchairs, Sismic and Cute Cut coffee tables, and a composition of the Mah Jong sofa, are all awash in vivid hues or adorned with delicate crochet work. See the range at the Perez Art Museum Miami.
1103 Biscayne Boulevard; December 2–5
The Faena Festival
Blending the spiritual, the religious, and the culinary, this year’s second annual Faena Festival is themed "The Last Supper," emphasizing the importance of communion and ritual. Organized by Faena Art chief curator Zoe Lukov, it mixes installations, videos, and performances by Yael Bartana, Myrlande Constant, Gabriel Chaile, Camille Henrot, Zhang Huan, the Propeller Group, and Emeka Ogbo throughout the Faena District. Look out for Argentinian artist Chaile’s six pre-Columbian totems made of adobe, and Chinese artist Zhang Huan’s duo of aluminum and incense-ash Buddhas.
3201 Collins Avenue; December 2–8
Art Basel's Meridians Exhibition
Thirty-four large-scale sculptures, paintings, and video installations by established and emerging artists largely from the Americas comprise Art Basel’s first edition of Meridians. Curated by Magalí Arriola, director of Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, the exhibition includes British artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien’s nine-screen installation chronicling the legacy of architect Lina Bo Bardi, as well as Los Angeles–based Candice Lin’s meditation on the embedded histories of exploitation and colonial violence. Another highlight: Belgian artist Laure Prouvost’s DEEP TRAVEL Ink, a mesmerizing, fictional travel agency of yore.
Grand Ballroom at the Miami Beach Convention Center, 1901 Convention Center Drive; December 5–8
FENDI’s Roman Molds
Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, Fendi’s headquarters on the fringes of Rome, is known for its façade of mammoth arched colonnades. With this dramatic architecture in mind, Zurich design studio Kueng Caputo crafted the Roman Molds family of objects, each one of them a suitable addition to the grand building’s loggias—and many flaunting smooth curves that reference those stunning arches. Kueng Caputo melded Fendi’s own Selleria Roman leather in saturated hues with glazed terra-cotta brick to make tactile desks, benches, screens, stools, tables, and a decorative palm tree, all of which can be experienced at Design Miami in a space reminiscent of alfresco Italy.
Convention Center Drive between 18th and 19th Streets; December 4–8
Donald Judd Talk
In 2016, the Judd Foundation, in partnership with David Zwirner Books, published Donald Judd Writings, a comprehensive compilation of essays and criticisms penned by the late American artist known for his large-scale three-dimensional works. This year’s follow-up, Donald Judd Interviews, brings together 60 different interviews conducted with Judd over the course of four decades. Take a Design Miami break to hear Judd’s son Flavin, artistic director of the Judd Foundation, chat with Alexandra Cunningham Cameron, curator of contemporary design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and Lucas Zwirner, head of content at David Zwirner Gallery.
Convention Center Drive between 18th and 19th Streets; December 6 at 2:30 p.m.
Sterling Ruby at the ICA
Experimental American/Dutch artist Sterling Ruby works across many mediums to investigate a darker side of American culture. Taking over two floors of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (co-organized with the ICA/Boston), this exhibition—the largest Ruby survey to date—offers an in-depth look at his career over the last two decades, including early and rarely seen drawings and collages. The notion of craft is pervasive in Ruby’s works, which span numerous forms and materials. Ceramics, spray-painted canvases, fiberfill-stuffed figures, and towering urethane sculptures are all part of his oeuvre.
61 NE 41st Street; through February 2
Leandro Erlich’s Order of Importance
Spurred by the climate-change crisis, Argentinean conceptual artist Leandro Erlich illuminates the vexing traffic jam in Order of Importance. Commissioned by the City of Miami Beach, and curated by Miami arts maven Ximena Caminos, the installation recasts 66 life-size sculptures of cars and trucks in sand. Clustered along the beachfront at Lincoln Road, these “automobiles,” seemingly at a standstill, possess a poetic, haunting air.
South Beach at Lincoln Road; December 1–15
Jean-Charles de Castelbajac’s Emotional Puzzle Murals at Ralph Pucci
He designed clothes for Farrah Fawcett in Charlie’s Angels, integrated Kermit the Frog into a runway show, and has collaborated with the likes of Keith Haring and Robert Mapplethorpe. Over the decades, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, currently the artistic director at Benetton, has surprised with his zany creations. Some of the Moroccan-French designer’s archetypal prints will now take center stage at the Ralph Pucci showroom in Wynwood as jubilant, bright murals that wrap the façade of the old box factory.
343 NW 25th Street; opens December 3
Yayoi Kusama’s All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins
It’s been drawing in guests since October and will continue to do so through January, but it’s a sure bet that Yayoi Kusama’s signature Infinity Mirror Room, seen in Miami for the first time, will be one of the week’s most popular excursions. Presented by the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, this off-site exhibition starring black polka-dotted acrylic yellow gourds examines, in typical trippy Kusama fashion, the notions of reflection and repetition.
112 NE 41st Street, Suite 106; through January 31
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Thom Browne’s Palm Tree I
Naturally, New York fashion designer Thom Browne’s first large-scale public artwork, a soaring 21-foot-tall palm tree, is created from a slew of elegant fabrics that evoke balmy American summers—gingham oxford, pincord, and yellow, green, and pink seersucker. Palm Tree I, which makes its debut at the Moore Building, is at first glance eye-catching tropical pop art. But on a deeper level, the installation, which weaves in a black mirror and sandpit, reflects on the blurred lines between work and vacation, paradise and performance.
191 NE 40th Street; opens December 5
Virgil Abloh’s Sculpture in Jade Alley
Last year, Virgil Abloh proved his talents are vast with the unveiling of "PAY PER VIEW," his solo exhibition addressing the impact of media on society at the Kaikai Kiki Gallery in Tokyo. Now the artistic director of menswear at Louis Vuitton and founder of the Milan label Off-White, chosen as one of the artists for the Miami Design District’s public art program, revisits the topic. Abloh’s outdoor sculpture (a new iteration of one that was seen in Japan) in Jade Alley depicts a sinking Sunoco gas station sign and asks viewers to question the relationship between commerce and communication.
Paseo Ponti, Between NE 40th & 41st Streets
