From major surveys to art in public spaces, Miami’s institutions are presenting an impressive range of exhibitions this season

Must-visit museums during Miami Art Week

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Miami Art Week, running concurrently to Art Basel’s ‘OVR: Miami Beach’, is home to a slew of spaces intent on bringing leading artists to Miami. Out-of-town galleries such as Lévy Gorvy, in partnership with Salon 94, and Mitchell-Innes &amp; Nash will host pop-up spaces in the Design District, while local gallerists including David Castillo will open second outposts in the neighborhood. Beyond commercial spaces, museums in Miami and Miami Beach are also hosting a range of exhibitions that reflect the city’s diversity as well as its reputation as a cultural hotspot that bridges the Americas.


	 
	In public spaces throughout Miami Beach, visitors can expect to encounter sculptures, neon, sound installations, videos, and even participatory works in unexpected places thanks to ‘Art Outside’, organized by The Bass and partners. Near the museum’s reflecting pool, visitors can listen to Susan Philipsz’s Too Much I Once Lamented (2019), which vocalizes a 17th-century song that conveys the thoughts of a heartbroken lover, while Karen Rifas’s newly commissioned series Hang in There (2020) fills spaces surrounding Collins Park with eye-catching, geometrically patterned vinyl banners. Works by Roy Lichtenstein, Franz Ackermann, Dan Graham, and Elmgreen &amp; Dragset among others, acquired by the City of Miami Beach’s Art in Public Places program, are also included in this exhibition and dispersed throughout the city. Once inside The Bass, after walking past Ugo Rondinone’s brightly colored totemic sculpture Miami Mountain (2016) in Collins Park, visitors can see ‘Mickalene Thomas: Better Nights’, which opened shortly before Art Basel Miami Beach last year.

Thomas’s work is also on view at the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) as part of the exhibition ‘Allied with Power: African and African Diaspora Art from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection’, alongside pieces by William Kentridge, Zanele Muholi, Hank Willis Thomas, Kara Walker, and Sue Williamson, among others. As its title suggests, ‘Allied with Power’ highlights a number of recent acquisitions by Pérez that reflect African and African-diaspora artists – a variety of voices who, together, collapse national borders. The exhibition is complemented by ‘Polyphonic: Celebrating PAMM’s Fund for African American Art’, which features paintings, sculptures, and photographs by artists including Faith Ringgold, Kevin Beasley,&nbsp;Firelei Báez,&nbsp;Tschabalala Self, Xaviera Simmons, and Romare Bearden that have become cornerstones of the museum’s permanent collection.Elsewhere at PAMM is ‘MY BODY, MY RULES’, which examines the portrayal of women through the lenses of about 20 artists, including Zilia Sánchez, Lee Materazzi, and Patty Chang, who explore gender, race, body politics, and self-representation. Meanwhile, ‘Theaster Gates: Breathing’ presents the artist’s titular video, inspired by Eastern Buddhism as well as his own relationship with traditional gospel music, and ‘Meleko Mokgosi: Your Trip to Africa’ features a newly commissioned project that delivers political critiques of postcolonialism by centering on Peter Kubelka’s 1966 film Unsere Afrikareise (Our Trip to Africa).

Another time and place within Black history is explored in ‘Lyle Ashton Harris: Ektachrome Archive’ at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Miami. Through a series of documentary photographs and journals from the early 1990s, the show chronicles the emergence of a new generation of Black cultural producers and scholars, including curator Thelma Golden, activist scholars bell hooks and Michele Wallace, and artists Glenn Ligon, Gary Simmons, and Carrie Mae Weems. Simultaneously, the ICA is presenting ‘Thomás Esson: The GOAT’, the Cuban painter’s first solo museum presentation, and ‘Allan McCollum: Works since 1969’, the American artist’s first institutional retrospective in the US. While Esson’s energetic paintings are filled with everything from mythological references to political commentary (his first exhibition, in 1988, was censored and closed by Cuban authorities), McCollum’s conceptual and minimal works created over the past five decades speak specifically to art objects’ relationships to uniqueness, context, and value.

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), North Miami, is also hosting a milestone exhibition – ‘Raúl De Nieves: Eternal Return &amp; The Obsidian Heart’ – the most comprehensive survey of the Mexican artist’s work to date. Through various mediums, including sculpture, performance, and music, De Nieves investigates notions of beauty and transformation. The show at MOCA, which has been designed as a Gesamtkunstwerk, connects his material sensibility with his roots in punk (he fronts the noise band Hairbone), devotional ritual, and celebratory queerness.De Nieves’s tendencies toward spirituality are countered by ‘The Body Electric’ at the Museum of Art and Design, which offers an examination of humans’ relationship to technology. Focusing on the past 50 years and the interface between our bodies and screens, it features works by nearly 60 intergenerational artists, among them Laurie Anderson, Ed Atkins, Gretchen Bender, Zach Blas, Petra Cortright, VALIE EXPORT, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Juliana Huxtable, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Sondra Perry, Cindy Sherman, Hito Steyerl, and Martine Syms.With these shows and more, Miami Art Week is shaping up to be an event full of stimulating art-viewing experiences. But if you’re not going to be in town, fear not: many of the artists exhibiting at and around these museums will also be presented digitally as part of ‘OVR: Miami Beach’.Top image: Detail from an installation view of ‘Raúl De Nieves: Eternal Return &amp; The Obsidian Heart’ at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), North Miami. Courtesy of the artist and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), North Miami.

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