For most of my adult life, Miami Art Week has been a more consistent annual ritual than Thanksgiving or Christmas (two of several holidays I’d personally rather replace with a couple of extra Halloweens). I don’t think I have missed a single Art Basel Miami Beach since I started going in the late aughts, even if it meant redeye international flights, skipping a week of final semester crits in grad school, or sleeping in shifts on the floor of an art-handler friend’s box truck as it rumbled down interstate 95.
This year, though, I came shockingly close to skipping it. For the past few months, most times I have casually asked artworld friends about Miami plans, I get a response along the lines of “Are you insane?!? Of course I am not going!”
A lot of my Latin American and European colleagues are justifiably aghast at the state of American politics and human rights—having spent most of 2025 watching news reports about ICE raids, “Alligator Alcatraz”, armed troops rumbling into dissident cities, and the politically-outspoken detained and searched at airports. (My friends in Spain pretty much staged something akin to an intervention in an attempt to convince me not to fly back to the States last month, with horror stories of journalists’ electronics being seized and probed at customs.) Florida, especially, has elicited travel advisories and calls for boycott from the LGBTQ+ community and reproductive rights activists, as the DeSantis administration has restricted abortion access and put its “fiscally responsible” Republican ideals on display by using tax dollars to tear up pride symbols such as the rainbow crosswalks on Ocean Drive (just outside the entrance to Untitled Art Fair), purge “subversive” content from public libraries, and censor drag shows.
This is the political backdrop to a national art scene in the midst of various crises. Countless galleries in New York, Los Angeles, and beyond have recently shuttered—losses felt particularly acutely in the high-end market that populates the storied aisles of Art Basel. One gallerist told me the exclusive fair has been reaching out to would-be first-time exhibitors with offers of steeply-discounted booth rentals in an attempt to plug the gaps. They said they turned the fair organizers down: why take even a lower-stakes gamble when there’s no guarantee that foreign collectors will show up and the domestic artworld is in turmoil?
But here I find myself, writing this from Miami Beach anyway. I can somewhat assuage my boycott-breaking guilt because I am staying with family—not in a hotel—and, honestly, I hardly ever spend any money here anyway. All that open bar champagne has already been paid for! Better I drink as much as possible rather than some fascist crypto bro, amirite?
Mostly, though, I am here for the Miamians who are resisting and thriving against all odds. The city’s oft-scrappy, tight-knit art scene has always operated with the ideals and realities their governor and president fear—a melting pot of immigrants and their weirdo queer kids/allies, working with resourceful solidarity in unexpected nooks and crannies of an ever-more speculated sprawl. Miami is a city of trilingual crowd-funded zines and HIV prevention initiatives, feminist reggaeton, and cultural organizers bringing “undesireable” content from drag to legal aid and environmental discourse to a public whose government literally banned the phrase “climate change”.
So this year, now more than ever, I am here for Miami. The Swiss mega-fair is an afterthought. I am foregrounding its satellite events and the locals on the front lines of the culture wars who’ve always given the global artworld a hearty bienvenida. Here are my picks for a week jam-packed with the best of Miami flavor, helpful travel tips, and suggestions for supporting the kinds of businesses and initiatives helping the Magic City resist.
Saturday, November 29
From the Cup Opening Reception
Treefall, 1830 N Dixie Hwy, West Palm Beach
6-9 PM
Curated by Molly Aubry and Sebastian Duncan-Portuondo
Artists: Farley Aguilar, Carlos Alves, JC Carrol, Jenna Efrein, Amaya Estrada, Manuela Gonzalez, Katherine Hofmann, Brookhart Jonquil, Monica Lopez de Victoria, Bex McCharen, Najja Moon, Christina Pettersson, Renee Phillips, Lee Pivnik, Gustavo Plascencia, Madeleine Portuondo, Scheherazade Thenard, Ariel Beau Tymark, Melissa Wallen, Cayla Willie
Every year, art week events seem to sprawl ever more both temporally and spatially across South Florida. In fact, if you can only do one weekend, I usually recommend coming the days before the fairs open rather than the “official” weekend, when “serious” art people have already either departed or are burned-out and the convention center is thronged by casual art tourists and influencers trying to find the elusive, perfect afterparty. Don’t even get me started about the traffic nightmare!
Those in-the-know in the South Florida art scene typically open their exhibitions and studios on the mainland well ahead of the beach fairs and their causeway gridlock. This show is a bit of a hike: all the way up in West Palm Beach, but well worth it. Curated by Molly Aubry and Sebastian Duncan-Portuondo (one of my favorite Miami artists) this group show brings together a who’s who of the region’s best and brightest for a reflection on ecology and spirituality, asking in the curatorial text “In times of tension, how do we hold what is sacred?”
Highlights include a wall-hanging tufted tapestry of bold, graphic flames by Monica Lopez de Victoria one could read as a wildfire-ravaged landscape or a cleansing ritual and the prismatic, geometric assemblages of Brookhart Jonquil. I can’t reiterate enough, this is really the single best event of the week to see so many of the pillars of the region’s art scene in one place. And now, the new-ish Brightline high-speed rail shaves a lot of stress off the trip from Downtown Miami. (A certain mega-collector once confessed to me that they love taking the Brightline to WPB because the bar is great, so pop a seat in the barcar because you never know who you might run into!)
Bonus: catch the train a little early and check out the Norton Museum of Art, just a stone’s throw across the lagoon from Mar-a-Lago, which you can flip-off before heading to an exhibition full of queers and their friends at an eco-feminist art collective. I can’t think of a more fitting start to this week and its contradictions.
Sunday November 30
Sunday morning at 11, Miami’s annual Progressive Art Brunch kicks off, leading visitors on a choose-your-own adventure gallery crawl around several neighborhoods on the mainland. It’s always fun. I recommend starting in Little Haiti with the intention to end up on 22nd Street in Allapattah, home to a cluster of great galleries, when the event ends at 4 PM. That way you can bop on over to KDR for the opening reception of Susan Kim Alvarez’ likely accurately-titled The Best Art Show During Art Basel.
Susan Kim Alvarez: The Best Show During Art Basel
KDR, 790 NW 22nd Street, Miami
5-8 PM
Both Alvarez and gallerist Katia David Rosenthal are alumnae of my undergraduate alma mater MICA, but even if I didn’t feel compelled to attend out of collegiate pride, I probably would be here anyway. KDR is hands-down one of Miami’s best galleries, with consistently high-quality exhibitions that always manage to surprise me.
I can’t believe I never saw Susan Kim Alvarez’s work back in Baltimore, because it sounds really compelling and fun. From the exhibition text:
Drawing from her Cuban, Vietnamese, and Jewish heritage, the artist navigates the space where celebration and contradiction coexist, creating work that holds multiple voices at once: the ornamental, the sacred, the ridiculous, and the tender.
This new body of work positions Florida as a site of living folklore, where myth and daily routine blend in the subtropical heat. Bars, parties, and street scenes become stages for storytelling—small rituals of connection that reveal how time, community, and belief shape one another. With a compositional density that echoes Bruegel’s teeming village scenes, Alvarez captures the simultaneous chaos and order of communal life, where every corner holds its own narrative.
Monday, December 1
Spinello Projects’ 20th Anniversary Exhibition — Changes: Reflections on Time & Space
Gesamtkunstwerk Building, 2930 NW 7th Ave, Miami
2-6 PM
Artists: Farley Aguilar, Esai Alfredo, Eddie Arroyo, Bernadette Despujols, Nereida Garcia-Ferraz, Elliot & Erick Jimenez, Kris Knight, Sinisa Kukec, Jared McGriff, Reginald O’Neal, Marlon Portales, Nina Surel, Naama Tsabar, Agustina Woodgate
When Anthony Spinello arrived in Miami in the early 2000s, it was a very different beast. Art Basel had just launched its American edition, and the city was abuzz with potential and cheap overlooked spaces. The gallerist shares anecdotes of sleeping on a futon in the live/work space he hung exhibitions, and using Craigslist ads to find artists. His curatorial endeavors—often a challenge to the exclusionary logic of mainstream art fairs—have always been amongst my personal highlights of Art Weeks past. Aside: one of the few times an artwork has ever moved me to tears took place in a show Spinello curated into vacant spaces scattered around a half-empty luxury mall.
In the years since its humble beginnings, Spinello Projects has established itself as one of those “made in Miami” success stories it seems impossible to replicate today. This exhibition reflects on that two decade journey through selections from the gallerist’s own collection, often acquired from past exhibitions he himself curated and indicative of the relationships he has built with the artists.
Tuesday, December 2
Tuesday marks the point in the week when visitors have to start getting seriously strategic about their time. Both Untitled and NADA have their openings, and those are the two fairs I usually prioritize to get my finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the types of galleries I tend to care about more than the blue chip or secondary markets.
I recommend starting at Untitled if you’re staying on Miami Beach. The oceanfront setting is a beautiful palate cleanser before a day of trying to see it all that can quickly devolve into logistical stressing. This year I am extremely excited to see Beverly’s booth. The combo gallery/bar is a mischievous stalwart of the Lower Manhattan art scene, and their pop-ups at Material Art Fair in Mexico City have always been among that fair’s highlights. At Untitled they’re presenting a booth described as “a Classical artist salon in a Venetian Palazzo during high tide.” Fantastic.
Bonus: Untitled is right by the 12th Street Beach, the heart of what was once a much gayer gayborhood. There are some promising new kids on the block though. Wanderlust, a queer “all day cafe” has opened at the infamously dead corner of 12th and Washington, serving breakfast in the morning and sickening drag looks by night. Please support businesses like this while you’re in South Beach! The neighborhood used to be a mecca of gay bars, but between gentrification and the state’s seeming desire to drive away all LGBTQ tourists, it’s rare to see a new one open and thrive. I know Miami doesn’t have a reputation for being the world’s most conventionally “friendly” city, but the first time I walked into Wanderlust alone every single person made a point of coming over to introduce themselves and engage in honest-to-god conversation.
Miami also does not have a reputation for having functional public transportation nor reasonably-priced, edible Asian food. So I have more good news on multiple fronts for your Tuesday plans: Miami Beach has brought back a network of free shuttles and a water taxi to help you bypass dreaded Uber gridlock. I took the water taxi last year, and while it wasn’t exactly fast, it sure as hell beat sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the causeway. On the mainland side, the water taxi drops you off right by Art Miami, where you can catch a free elevated people mover one stop directly to NADA (School Board Staton) above the chaos.
On the Beach side, the water taxi drops off at the newly-remodeled Maurice Gibb Memorial Park. If you want to impress a collector, client, board member, et al by taking them out for a fancy meal without breaking the bank, I highly recommend Uchiko Miami Beach right across Purdy Ave. This is a Japanese-French fusion restaurant that looks and tastes like it should be about five times as expensive and snobby as it is. In reality, it’s extremely reasonably priced (especially at happy hour) and super down-to-earth with a neighborhood vibe. I think this was hands-down the best meal I have ever had in Miami.
After happy hour, however, you’re going to want to end up on the mainland for some “can’t miss” events Tuesday night:
Poncili Creacíon performance at Handle With Care
Dale Zine, 50 NE 40th Street, Miami
8-9 PM
Poncili Creacíon is an adorable, chaotic Puerto Rican performance collective whose riotous punk puppetry/dance shows are truly unpredictable and oh so memorable. I once saw one of the members birthing himself out of a giant foam vagina that then became a totally different prop. In all my years of insane Miami adventures, the best night of my life involved riding a giant steel whale skeleton welded onto an 18-wheeler around South Beach while black-clad Poncili dancers hung from the ribs and gyrated over confused drivers of Lamborghinis and convertibles along Collins Avenue. Can anything ever possibly top that? Let’s find out!
Miami Gallery Night featuring Midnight Generation
ZeyZey, 353 Northeast 61st Street, Miami,
7 PM-2AM
If you’re going to splurge on a ticketed nightlife event this week, make it Miami Gallery Night. The ICA has teamed up with many of the city’s best gallerists to throw an epic party in Little Haiti featuring the electro disco stylings of Midnight Generation. This event, curated by Katia David Rosenthal, is going to be the hangover everyone will be discussing the next day at the convention center, when Art Basel Miami Beach opens for its ultra-VIP “First Choice” hours.
Wednesday, December 3
Wednesday is the big day. It’s the make-or-break moment for art dealers as Art Basel Miami Beach opens its doors at the convention center for the “First Look” VIP previews. A handful of mega-collectors will decide the fates of gallerists and artists who invested a small fortune in showing at the big fair. Careers will be decided, major acquisitions will take place, PDFs will be emailed, hearts will be broken. Traffic will be a nightmare.
After spending most of my adult life attending these things, I still do not understand the hierarchy of VIP passes and their esoteric workings. Some years a VIP card mysteriously arrives in my inbox or is slipped across a hotel bar by a friend of a friend. Other years I end up waiting in line for press accreditation. Will whatever card the fates or art gods decide to assign you get you into the First Look? The VIP opening? The Vernissage? Some champagne lounge sponsored by an investment firm where Rirkrit Tiravanija (or an intern) is going to be serving conceptual cocktails? There’s really—to the best of my knowledge—no way to know unless you try.
All of this is to say, if you have a friend who works or is showing at the big fair, just politely ask them when they’re not too busy to put you on whatever level of the VIP list they can. I don’t stress about it anymore, just kinda show up and hope for the best. If you can’t score access to the convention center on Wednesday, it’s no big deal: the show is open to the general public all weekend. It’s a good day to walk around South Beach and people-watch, check out all of the fair’s public art installations, new sculptures on Lincoln Road, and the city’s No Vacancy exhibition initiative of installation in hotels.
Thursday, December 4
Thursday is the day Miami Beach gets weird. The only two art fairs in which I have actually been able to buy artwork both open with festive, subversive, and affordable offerings: Art Gaysel and Satellite Art Show. Both of these fairs feel like a bit of a throwback to a more optimistic time—when artist-run and DIY projects took over the city’s once-cheap hotels for pop-up exhibitions with a party atmosphere and whiff of exciting potential in the air.
Art Gaysel 10 Year Anniversary
Hotel Gaythering, 1409 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach
5 PM – 12 AM
Art Gaysel, now in its 10th year, has gone from somewhat of a kitschy curiosity side-quest with the vibe of a phallic holiday market to one of my absolute “must-see” shows. It’s not very “curated”, so the quality of offerings on view can be a bit hit-or-miss, but I’ve consistently found gems nearly every year—from garments and ceramics to photozines and drawings. If you’re a fan of figurative painting, especially, prioritize getting here early before it’s picked-over. In-the-know collectors have caught on that Art Gaysel’s labyrinth of hotel rooms are an opportunity to score work from emerging talent for a fraction of the cost you’d pay at nearly any other fair.
Plus, the silver lining of our absurd moment in the culture wars means being queer feels naughty and political again! Thank you, Ron DeSantis, for making us all feel like serious art collectors when we buy a Polaroid of a drag queen getting a blowjob in a sleazy alley.
Satellite Art Show Opening Party
Hotel Geneva, 1520 Collins Avenue. Miami Beach
7 PM – 12 AM
Walking distance from the Gaythering, Satellite Art Show is throwing the can’t-miss party of the night. Writing a preview of Satellite is an exercise in futility, because the nimble, shape-shifting art fair alternative is a total surprise depending on its context. Past iterations have taken over abandoned hotels, vacant lots, retail spaces, or cargo containers. But I always feel like I have wandered into a warehouse in Baltimore or Bushwick. Have you ever bought a painting from a genderqueer stripper in a thong and platform shoes at an art fair? I have!
Saturday, December 6
Meet the Artist: Tara Long
Locust Projects, 297 NE 67th St, Miami
7 PM – 10 PM
Long before so much of mainland Miami became wallpapered with Instagram-ready Melbourne street art to draw tourists to strip mall coffee shops with $13 nitro cold brews, a more charming vernacular sign-painting culture flourished. I have always loved the tender depictions of tennis shoes or electrodomésticos painted out of necessity on the sides of discount stores in the city’s polylingual working-class neighborhoods.
At Locust Projects—one of my favorite spots for new art in Miami—artist and beloved Miami personality Tara Long has commissioned a mural from Serge Touissant to transform the gallery into LA ESQUINITA. The installation reimagines the gallery as a pre-gentrification pastelería, housing installations and “souvenirs” Long has produced in collaboration with her expansive network of artist friends.
Don’t be fooled by any Saturday night invites you might get to a gallery or museum’s hotel pool party maniacally policed by girls-with-iPads and three-block lines… this is the one event where you’re guaranteed to get a taste of the real Miami—even if that taste is a fake cake.
Main image: LIZN’BOW’s “Portal to Niña” projected nightly from 6 PM to 10 PM at the Betsy as part of Miami Beach’s No Vacancy program of art at hotels. Photo by Monica-McGivern.
Bookmark this page! We’ll be adding more “must-see” picks for Friday-Sunday in the coming days.
