The line-up includes Betye Saar’s little-known installations and Do Ho Suh’s take&nbsp;on homelife during&nbsp;COVID

Payal Uttam

Miami and Palm Beach: six exhibitions to see now 

Galleries and museums in Miami and Palm Beach are shifting into high gear as visitors from around the world descend on South Florida. Here are six exhibits that are not to be missed.‘Betye Saar: Serious Moonlight’ Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami Through April 17, 2022 The 95-year-old African American artist&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/27616/Betye-Saar">Betye Saar</a> is widely recognized for her mystical assemblages that explore race, gender, and politics. ‘Serious Moonlight’, however, focuses primarily on a lesser-known aspect of her oeuvre: the immersive large-scale installations she produced mostly between 1980 and 1998. Deeply influenced by her travels to Haiti, Mexico, and Nigeria in the 1970s, the works are replete with cultural symbols drawn from these places as well as mystical and autobiographical references. House of Fortune (1988), for example, features Vodou flags, a table laden with tarot cards, and candles invoking a séance, while Gliding into Midnight (2019) is a cobalt-colored canoe filled with sculptures of outstretched hands and rocks referencing the transatlantic slave trade. Each of the works plunge visitors into a liminal space between past and present, dreams and reality, the corporeal and metaphysical.

Atsuko Tanaka, ‘Paintings and Drawings, 1963–2003’ Paula Cooper Gallery, Palm Beach Through December 11 One of the most radical artists of her time, post-war Japanese artist&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/9346/Atsuko-Tanaka">Atsuko Tanaka</a> (1932–2005) is perhaps most well-known for her performance work Electric Dress (1956), in which she donned a dramatic tent-like costume made of flashing light bulbs. Knowingly risking electrocution, she made a powerful statement on the dangers of being overwhelmed by technology. Tanaka went on to develop a vocabulary of colorful circles and circuitous lines inspired by the dress’ bulbs and wires, conveyed through expressive sketches, ethereal watercolors, and slick synthetic resin paintings. A selection of these works is on view at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1094/Paula-Cooper-Gallery">Paula Cooper Gallery</a>’s Palm Beach outpost – the first exhibition dedicated to Tanaka’s work in the United States for more than a decade. Also included in the show is Round on Sand (1968), a compelling film shot on Awaji Island showing the artist tracing massive concentric circles in the sand amid rolling waves, underscoring her obsession with these forms.Pepe Mar, ‘You Should Have Never Crossed the Rio Grande’ David Castillo, Miami November 30, 2021 – January 29, 2022 Miami-based Mexican artist<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/22503/Pepe-Mar"> Pepe Mar </a> creates lush fabric paintings and technicolor assemblages from found objects, the latest of which examine the topic of migration and ruminate on the artist’s own move to the United States. At the heart of the show at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/2957/David-Castillo">David Castillo</a> are androgynous sci-fi-inspired creatures called Paprikas who act as the artist’s avatars among motifs culled from the fashion industry, queer history, Tropicalia, and Mar’s native culture. In Cyborg (2021), a belligerent Paprika is submerged underwater, wearing a spiked, armor-like rattan vest and armed with spears. In many ways, this work magnifies the perils of the immigrant experience – as does the cutting title of the show itself: ‘You Should Have Never Crossed the Rio Grande’.

‘Meleko Mokgosi: Your Trip to Africa’&nbsp; Pérez Art Museum Miami Through January 9, 2022 New York City-based Botswanan artist&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7248/Meleko-Mokgosi">Meleko Mokgosi</a>’s monumental paintings dissect preconceptions about Africa and its people. Combining the language of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European painting with cinematic tropes, he seeks to dislodge deep-seated biases about the continent. For this exhibition, he has unveiled a powerful series of figurative and text-based paintings. The centerpiece of the show is a titular work composed of a suite of eight paintings that respond to the 1966  film Unsere Afrikareise (‘Our Trip to Africa’) by Austrian filmmaker Peter Kubelka. Originally intended to be a home movie about an Austrian family’s safari in East Africa, it turned out to be a disturbing colonialist documentary. Mokgosi’s work interrogates Kubelka’s intentions and the African stereotypes he perpetuated. A highlight of the piece is a canvas hung upside-down that reinterprets Théodore Géricault’s famed painting Raft of the Medusa (1818–19). Unlike the original work, which depicted a cast of drowning Frenchmen who resorted to cannibalism, Mokgosi paints a scene of resilient Black men working together at sea.

Do Ho Suh&nbsp; Lehmann Maupin, Palm Beach Through December 30 Korean artist&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8720/Do-Ho-Suh">Do Ho Suh</a> has been preoccupied with the concept of home for more than two decades. Using translucent fabric and resin, he has built haunting life-size replicas of his former abodes which reflect on feelings of belonging and displacement. Today, in the wake of excessive time spent at home during the pandemic, Suh’s fragile domestic sculptures resonate more powerfully than ever. New works from his ongoing ‘Specimen’ series, presented at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1185/Lehmann-Maupin">Lehmann Maupin</a>’s seasonal space in Palm Beach, hone in on unassuming domestic items ranging from door knobs to light switches modeled off those in the artist’s residences and studios. Most evocative is a series of tiny sculptures of keyholes made from colorful polyester fabric, which invite viewers to meditate on their own associations with locked spaces.Kim Dacres, ‘Black Moves First’ Gavlak, Palm Beach December 1, 2020 – January 2, 2022 The first thing that registers when facing Jamaican American artist Kim Dacres’ formidable black busts is the fact that they have been fashioned from bicycle and car tires. Deftly molding and braiding the rubber, Dacres creates intensely tactile, textured forms that conjure hair, skin, and jewelry. For ‘Black Moves First’ at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1138/Gavlak">Gavlak</a>’s Palm Beach location, she has used this process to create eight totemic sculptures that act as life-size chess pieces, reimagining the gallery space as a chess game with new rules in which the black pieces move first as indicated by the show’s title. Eliminating the kings and pawns, Dacres has created an all-female cast of pieces that honor various women in her family. Among the most striking is Michelle Bishop Crown (2021), a regal, elongated body reaching almost six feet in height with a pile of rubber braids on her head and a stack of bike gears in lieu of a mouth. Deliberately imposing, the figure encapsulates the themes of Black identity, pride, resistance, and power that course through the show.Payal Uttam is an independent writer and editor who divides her time between Hong Kong and Singapore. She contributes to a range of publications including Artsy, The Art Newspaper, South China Morning Post and The Wall Street Journal.

Top image: Pepe Mar,&nbsp;Double Face (detail), 2021. Courtesy the artist and David Castillo, Miami Beach.&nbsp;Photo by Zachary Balber.

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Your essential guide to Art Basel Miami Beach 2021

The line-up includes Betye Saar’s little-known installations and Do Ho Suh’s take on homelife during COVID

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