ART GALLERIES


AMBROSINO GALLERY
769 NE 125th Street, North Miami. - 305-891-5577 - www.ambrosinogallery.com
Genaro Ambrosino's got an established name and occasionally shows some real talent (notably, Carol K. Brown). Usually a good bet to stop by when slushing around during the NoMi gallery walks.

ART CENTER/SOUTH FLORIDA
800, 810 and 924 Lincoln Road., Miami Beach. - 305-674-8278
Yeah, yeah, it was cool when Ellie Schneiderman bought out these spaces on Lincoln Road in the '80s before the Beach boom and created a little artist haven. But who goes in there anymore?

ARTSPACE / VIRGINIA MILLER GALLERIES
169 Madeira Avenue., Coral Gables. - 305-444-4493 - www.virginiamiller.com
One of the better galleries in the Gables (look out for Hugo Crosthwaite).

BOX
RIP
Well, we feel bad for rippin’ on these guys for having only three openings a year. The demise of an alternative space run by three artists in a neighborhood poised for the wildfire of a real estate boom is simply a sad reality. Just wait till the Midtown Miami complex wallops its way in.

BARBARA GILLMAN GALLERY
3814 NE Miami Court, Miami. - 305-573-1920 or 305-573-1920
Good work here and there, Gillman knows her stuff. A superior venue in the spineless furniture-and-"art" strip mall of the Design District.

BERNICE STEINBAUM GALLERY
3550 North Miami Avenue, Miami. - 305-573-2700 - www.bernicesteinbaumgallery.com
Big name, via New York, with a stable of solid exhibits (especially the most memorable Peter Sarkisian video/sculpture installations).

BIKEKO GALLERY
215 NW 36 th Street, Miami. - 305-576-8151
A budding space in Wynwood. Its founder and artist-in-residence, Bayunga Nsimba Kialeuka, is a badass painter. Watch out for him.

CERNUDA ART
3155 Ponce De Leon Blvd., Coral Gables. - 305-461-1050 - www.cernudaarte.com
If you want to see good Cuban art...

CHELSEA GALLERIA
32 NE 39 th Street. - 305-576-2950 - www.chelseagalleria.com
Tina Spiro at the helm here - the "Omniart" lady (remember those monumental warehouse shows downtown during Art Basel 2004?). Specializing in Carribean work here; hit-or-miss shows.

DAMIEN B. CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER
282 NW 36th St., Miami. (Wynwood Arts District) - 305-573-4949 - www.damienb.com
A Wynwood staple - though with the occasional chi-chi photography show of "fashionable" nudes (see Claude Charlier) and the whole South Beach bottle-model crowd at openings. But there's some talent here, too, including our boy Reeve Schumacher, a recent addition to Damien's repertoire. Look out for the large projections on the warehouse wall while you're driving on the highway, sipping Sofia flutes and sniffin' that cheap etherized ye en route to the strip club.

DANIEL AZOULAY GALLERY
3900 A NE First Avenue, Miami. - 305-576-1977 - www.danielazoulaygallery.com
Some of the best photography shows in town here - from David Levinthal to Alfredo de Stefano.

DORSCH GALLERY
151 NW 24 th Street, Miami. - 305-576-1278 - www.dorschgallery.com
Brook Dorsch has one the most effective warehouse spaces in Wynwood - one massive room often divvied up during shows and another smaller area for separate exhibits, plus a backyard for performances. He also shuns most conceptual, postmodern flimsiness and rather focuses on robust painting and sculptural works - Robin Griffiths, Ralph Provisero and Jordan Massengale, to name a few.

EDGE ZONES/WORLD ARTS BUILDING
2214 N. Miami Avenue, Miami. - 305-573-2117
A massive space run by artist and curator Charo Oquet, with art showing in various rooms on three floors... So yeah, the capacity for large-scale works is good, but expect visual overkill if you go.

FAKTURA GALLERY
7128 NW 2 Court (At NW 71st Street), Miami. - www.fakturagallery.com
Can't say much about this yet. Just opened in April. But it's a well-sized warehouse in the new St. Mary's Arts District (in Little Haiti) and the opening show features the work of ignore writer and illustrator Sven Barth.

FREDRIC SNITZER GALLERY
3078 SW 38th Court, Miami. - 305-448-8976 - www.snitzer.com
When Snitzer moved to Wynwood from the Gables, the neighborhood's hubbub got even louder. Snitzer = power. Some claim nepotism (his penchant for New World kids), while others say he's responsible for helping put Miami on the national/international art map. Either way, this is the home of the young local big shots - e.g. Hernan Bas, Naomi Fisher and Westen Charles.

INGALLS & ASSOCIATES
125 NW 23 Street, Miami. - 305-573-6263 - www.ingallsassociates.com
Also moved from North Miami to... Wynwood, natch. The new space is crispy-clean, white-illuminated, a gentle art warehouse in the badlands. Outside in the yard, don't miss a dynamically-charged mural by Kol Solthon - electricity runs through it.

KEVIN BRUK GALLERY
2249 NW 1st Place, Miami. - 305-576-2000 - www.kevinbrukgallery.com
[Ed. Note: Update when we see the new space in Wynwood]

LEONARD TACHMES GALLERY
817 NE 125th Street, North Miami - 305-895-1030
It's a bitch going up to NoMi to see shows, but yeah, there are some pretty decent galleries there too.

LOCUST PROJECTS
105 NE 23 rd Street, Miami. - 305-576-8570 - www.locustprojects.org
Locust, a non-profit exhibition space, gets props for staying off-kilter and fomenting some experimental spirit (even if it occasionally gets diluted by hollow pretensions). Some local critics are hating on Frank Haines' installation of felt cut-outs of figures and backgrounds referring to the Dark Ages and saturated all over the space's walls (Crustacean in the Hall of Furies). But that's OK; Locust is still going its way.

MIAMI ART LAB
3117 Ponce de Leon Blvd., Coral Gables. - 305-461-1443 - www.miamiartlab.com
Newcomer to the Gables, and an anomaly of sorts - it doesn't show "important Cuban artworks" or Latin American masters in an area pervaded by them.

OBJEX ARTSPACE
RIP (or on hiatus?)
Dustin, what happened? Objex was an essential Wynwood staple, despite any art snob’s denigration of the space as a merely second-rate street/urban art gallery. Fuck that. Yeah, Dustin Orlando offered a worthy look into a visual art realm that no gallerist in Miami even had a clue about, but, more importantly, dude cultivated tons of energy into that area and the “art scene” that started moving in there subsequently. We’re not gonna gossip about Dustin’s personal life like that asinine bitch in New Times, but let’s just say we’re confident he’ll be back.

PLACEMAKER
3852 N. Miami Avenue. - 305-576-6695 - www.placemakergallery.com
There's some potential here - a well-sized, glass-fronted space, a few talented artists (e.g., Martin Oppel and Daniel Arsham) in the roster and, ostensibly, plenty of room to grow.

ROCKET PROJECTS
3440 N. Miami Avenue. - 305-576-6082 - www.rocket-projects.com
Nina Arias kept the buzzzz going for Rocket when she was curating shows there, but now she's gone after an ill squabble with gallery director Nick Cindric. That's that. Color explosions and eye candy galore here, so fans of artists like Dearraindrop and Assume Vivid Astro Focus may dig. Oh, and there's the occasional art hack who shows here too (Ryan Humphrey, we're thinking of you...).

SMOKE GALLERY
793 NE 125 th Street, North Miami. - 786-315-1235 - www.smokegallery.com
Say hello to Emilio and Esteban (they might be rockin' those "STAFF shirts), grab a couple Reds and peep the work on view. No wine and cheese here. Smoke is an earnest and laid-back art joint that remains off the beaten path, but still impossible to miss during your monthly NoMi walk (mind you, Esteban might be blaring through a mic at passersby).

THE MOORE SPACE
4040 NE Second Avenue, Miami., 2 nd floor of the Moore Building. - 305-438-1163 - www.themoorespace.org
A serious space in the Design District (sigh of relief).

WHITE VINYL SPACE
In the St. Mary's Art District, the large warehouse at the end of the corridor at 71 st Steet. and NW 2 nd Court, Miami. - 305-776-1515
A money warehouse space with towering ceilings. This venue, space-wise, seems great. Question is, what artists or what kind of art's gonna show? At the opening, we saw work by Skip Van Cel (the bubbly publisher of the Biscayne Boulevard/North Beach Times and owner of the building that houses White Vinyl). We sighed at the flashing projections of crossdressers who posted lascivious ads on Craig's List and chuckled at the close-up of an anus contracting in synch with grunts recorded from Bush's voice, but, well...Let's just say it didn't really blow our minds.



MUSEUMS/INSTITUTIONS/ORGANIZATIONS


BASS MUSEUM OF ART
2121 Park Avenue, Miami Beach. - 305-673-7530 - www.bassmuseum.org
-Retratos de Carlos Luna; works by Cuban-born painter Carlos Luna; through October 23.
-Victoria Gitman: On Display; paintings and drawings by this Argentinean native; July 12-October 16.
-Retratos: 2,000 Years of Latin American Portraits; includes works by such masters as Kahlo, Rivera, Botero, Siqueiros and Tamayo; July 23-October 2.

BOCA RATON MUSEUM OF ART
501 Plaza Real, Mizner Park. - 561-392-2500 - www.bocamuseum.org
On view through August 28:
-54th Annual All Florida Juried Competition and Exhibition; 83 pieces from Florida artists.
-Robert Doisneau’s Paris; 117 prints by the prolific French reportage photographer.
-Brassaï’s Paris; works from this Hungarian-born photographer.
-Florida Artists Group Juried Exhibition; 35 works from the Florida Artists Group, a non-profit organization of recognized, professional artists.

GEN ART
www.genart.org
Ed. Note: This so-called "arts" organization has an office in Miami and sponsors events, but it's really just plastic. If still interested, go to the website.

MIAMI ART CENTRAL
5960 SW 57th Avenue, Miami. - 305-455-3333 - www.miamiartcentral.org
-Irreducible: Contemporary Short Form Video; through September 2.

MIAMI ART MUSEUM (MAM)
101 W. Flagler Street, Miami. - 305-375-3000 - www.miamiartmuseum.org
-Marking Time: Moving Images; 10 artists and 16 large-scale installations; through September 11.
-Wangechi Mutu; works by this Kenyan artist; July 22-October 9
-Figuratively Speaking (includes work by Chuck Close, Susan Rothenberg, José Bedia, Francesco Clemente, Edouard Duval-Carrié, Eric Fischl, Naomi Fisher, Ana Mendieta, Irving Penn, David Salle, and Andres Serrano); through October 30.

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART (MoCA)
77 NE 125th Street, North Miami. - 305-893-6211 - www.mocanomi.org
On view July 29-September 4:
-Trading Places; works by Kim Brown, Maria Martinez-Canas, Frances Trombly, and Salvatore La Rosa.
-For Everyone and No One; works drawn from the museum’s mail art archive.

NORTON MUSEUM OF ART
1451 S. Olive Avenue, West Palm Beach. - 561-832-5196 - www.norton.org
-Art in Bloom; works from the permanent collection, including pieces by Warhol and Braque; through July 17.
-Site Seeing: Photographic Excursions in Tourism; more than 200 photographs and artifacts from the collections of the George Eastman House; through September 4.

Ed. Note: Below is info for the three top collections in Miami - all more extensive than most of the city's museum collections, especially in terms of contemporary work:

RUBELL FAMILY COLLECTION
95 NW 29 th St., Miami. - 305-573-6090

THE MARGULIES COLLECTION AT THE WAREHOUSE
591 NW 27 th St., Miami. - 305-576-1051

WORLD CLASS BOXING/THE SCHOLL COLLECTION
170 NW 23 rd St., Miami. - 305-576-7436