Here’s your handy guide to art fairs, exhibitions, and more taking place in the city over the next five days.
Valentina Di Liscia
December 1, 2025
— 11 min read
Esaí Alfredo, "Biscayne Bay" (2025) (image courtesy the artist and Spinello Projects)
If your attitude toward Miami Art Week is that it's tacky, “over,” or “highbrow despicable,” well then, as they say, seek and you shall find. There's a lot to be cynical about: galleries skipping the fairs, truly disconcerting traffic reports, and a new section for digital art at Art Basel Miami Beach, "Zero 10," that will feature robo-dogs by Beeple bearing the faces of tech oligarchs. The initiative is backed by OpenSea, the online marketplace for NFTs (lol, remember those?), and its promise to "make the next chapter of contemporary art accessible and exciting for all" almost certainly guarantees it will be neither.
Or you could choose to see things differently. You could celebrate with the long-running Miami spaces that are ushering in big milestones this year, like the Bakehouse Art Complex and Spinello Projects, which are hosting their 40th- and 20th-anniversary exhibitions, respectively. You could visit Dimensions Variable, Tunnel Projects, Homework Gallery, or any number of other local art galleries and organizations that are thriving beyond this week.
You could choose not to take yourself too seriously. Ankydyn Gallery recreated a hotel room for its booth at Satellite Art Show this year. At SCOPE, artist David Emanuel Mordechai Torres (known as Rabi) presents his long-term project "We Buy Souls!," which invites the public to call a hotline and maybe strike a deal with the devil — much like anyone trying to get a restaurant reservation this week. Plus, did you know there's an Art Deco Museum in Miami Beach?
Because Miami Art Week is what we make it, here's a list of fairs, exhibitions, public artworks, and more to bring your best attitude to. As always, you can reach me for tips, story ideas, and more — I'm here all week!
Fairs
Art Basel Miami Beach
December 5–7 | artbasel.comMiami Beach Convention Center, 1901 Convention Center Drive, Miami Beach, Florida
Luisa Rabbia, "The Network" (2024–25) (image courtesy Peter Blum Gallery)You may have seen reports of a dozen or so galleries dropping out of Art Basel Miami Beach this year, but that's not stopping 283 exhibitors from shouldering substantial booth fees to peddle their wares at the Convention Center. Despite cynicism and art market woes, this remains a central event for the commercial sector, as evidenced by the continued participation of blue-chip galleries. Personally, I'm always wowed by the Meridians section, dedicated to art so big it wouldn't even fit in a billionaire's house, meaning it usually skews less decorative and more conceptually rigorous; Luisa Rabbia's 18-foot-long (~5.5-meter-long) oil on canvas rhapsody to the fight for women's rights is at the top of my list. As usual, though, many worthwhile stops will be much less visible to the naked eye: a Pedro Reyes mosaic in the booth of Lisson Gallery, works by the late New York-based Chinese artist Ming Fay with Alisan Fine Arts, and Bruce Silverstein's presentation of the pioneers of AbEx photography, staged in tribute to the late historian David Anfam.
NADA Miami
December 2–6 | newartdealers.orgIce Palace Studios, 1400 North Miami Avenue, Miami, Florida
Yi Hsuan Lai, "Luminous Containment" (2025) (image courtesy SoMad)A whopping 47 first-time exhibitors are joining in the fun at this year's NADA Miami fair, featuring 140 galleries and art spaces in total. I'm actually looking forward to several presentations coming from New York: Eric Diehl's disquieting landscapes of the American West, presented by the Tribeca gallery The Locker Room, and Yi Hsuan Lai's photo sculptures with the femme- and queer-led independent art space SoMad, among others. Also, look out for Andrea Bergart's limited-edition kaleidoscopic basketballs and “ball bags” for sale in the NADA shop (paintings by Bergart, as well as the artist's “reimagined basketball rack,” will be on display at the Chozick Family Art Gallery booth).
Open Invitational
December 2–6 | openinvitational.comMelin Building, 3930 NE 2nd Avenue, 2nd Floor, Miami Design District, Florida
Andrew Li, "Untitled (DogRescue)" (2019) (image courtesy Creativity Explored)This delightfully unique show dedicated to progressive art studios exhibiting artists with disabilities is back for its second-ever Miami edition after a wildly successful launch last December. The brainchild of New York dealer David Fierman and arts patron Ross McCalla of the Outsider Institute, the fair was founded on the idea that collectors should be able to acquire great works of art while also doing their part to build a more open and equitable art world.
Art Miami + CONTEXT
December 2–7 | artmiami.comOne Herald Plaza (NE 14th Street and Biscayne Bay), Miami, Florida
Bill Brandt, "Fist on Pebbles" (1959) (image courtesy Atlas Gallery)Hop on the water taxi and get away from Miami Beach to enjoy the double-whammy that is Art Miami and its emerging-focused sister fair, CONTEXT. Though dismissed by some nose-in-the-air types as a grab bag of mainstream art with little focus, Art Miami's significance is cemented by its long-running history, massive attendance numbers, and gems on view if you take the time to look — such as surreal images by British photographer and photojournalist Bill Brandt at the booth of London-based Atlas Gallery.
Untitled Art
December 3–7 | untitledartfairs.comOcean Drive and 12th Street, Miami Beach, Florida
Jennifer Printz, "Jetsam" (2022) (image courtesy Dimensions Variable)Dimensions Variable, a local contemporary arts space, is bringing works by Jennifer Printz, Nicole Burko, and Frances Trombly as well as a new sculptural installation by Karla Kantorovich to the cheerful pink tent on the sands of Miami Beach. Another standout will be a special project by Edra Soto deepening her longstanding fascination with vernacular architecture in Puerto Rico, presented by Morgan Lehman Gallery. This year will also feature an expanded “Nest” sector, which offers subsidized booths for emerging exhibitors.
More Fairs:
Linda Lopez, "Golden Hour Mop" (2025) at Design Miami (image courtesy the artist and Mindy Solomon Gallery)Design Miami
December 2–7 | designmiami.comConvention Center Drive and 19th Street, Miami Beach, Florida
Fridge Art Fair
December 2–7 | fridgeartfair.comPalace South Beach, 1052 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach, Florida
SCOPE Art Show
December 2–7 | scope-art.comOcean Drive and 8th Street, Miami Beach, Florida
INK Miami Art Fair
December 3–7 | inkartfair.comSuites of Dorchester, 1850 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, Florida
Aqua Art Miami
December 3–7 | aquaartmiami.comAqua Hotel, 1530 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, Florida
Prizm Contemporary Pan African Art Fair
December 3–7 | prizm.artVarious locations; see link above
Satellite Art Show
December 4–7 | satellite-show.comHotel Geneva, 1520 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, Florida
Exhibitions
The 12th Street Experiment
December 4–30 | thebishopgallery.comThe Moore, 4040 NE 2nd Avenue, Miami Design District, Florida
Jean-Michel Basquiat (photo by Alexis Adler, courtesy the Bishop Gallery)In 2019, the Bishop Gallery in Brooklyn hosted an exhibition of works by Jean-Michel Basquiat donated by his friends and companions, including photographer Alexis Adler, his former partner and roommate. Fast-forward six years, and the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture acquired a trove of over 120 photos taken by Adler between 1979 and 1980, when the pair lived together in an East Village apartment. Her darkroom prints from this formative year for young Basquiat, which Bishop Gallery co-founder Stevenson Dunn, Jr., called “some of the earliest and most intimate documentation of his practice,” will go on view for the first time since their acquisition at the landmark hotel The Moore alongside works by 18 contemporary artists.
Diana Eusebio and Hiba Schahbaz
Through March 16 | mocanomi.orgMuseum of Contemporary Art North Miami, 770 NE 125 Street, North Miami, Florida
Hiba Schahbaz, "The Artist's Studio" (2012) (photo courtesy MOCA North Miami)This year, MOCA is debuting not one but two show-stopping solo exhibitions by women artists: Diana Eusebio: Field of Dreams and Hiba Schahbaz: The Garden. Eusebio, a Miami-based artist working in natural dyes and digital printing, plumbs her Afro-Dominican and Indigenous Quechua Peruvian roots in textile works that evoke flights of memories and the poetry of migration. Schahbaz, a Pakistani-American artist, is inspired by Indo-Persian miniature traditions and the Islamic concept of jannat, or “paradise,” to create sumptuous mixed-media renderings of architectural and imagined worlds. Both exhibitions are ambitious in their design, transforming the galleries into all-encompassing environments.
Susan Kim Alvarez: The Best Show During Art Basel
Through January 10 | kdr305.comKDR305, 790 Northwest 22nd Street, Miami, Florida
Susan Kim Alvarez, "Mouth of Miami" (2025) (image courtesy KDR305)This exhibition's cheeky title foreshadows the inherent humor and self-referentiality of Susan Kim Alvarez's paintings. The Honolulu-born, Miami-based artist's multilayered heritage — Cuban, Vietnamese, and Jewish — informs the complexity of her compositions, which exaggerate and blur the line between cultural references. In the "Mouth of Miami" (2025), a 12-foot (~3.6-meter) triptych, tight coils of figures spring forth from fantastical maelstroms that carry the psychedelic intensity of a disco nap nightmare. Alvarez has real star power; this is not a show you want to sleep on.
Woody De Othello: coming forth by day
Through June 28 | pamm.orgPérez Art Museum Miami, 1103 Biscayne Boulevard, Miami, Florida
Installation view of Woody De Othello: coming forth by day at Pérez Art Museum Miami (photo by Lazaro Llanes, courtesy PAMM)Woody de Othello returns to his native Miami for this sprawling exhibition of new sculptures that come to life against the backdrop of vibrant clay-hued walls, herbal scents, built-in niches, and other thoughtful curatorial elements. The artist draws motifs from his Haitian heritage and African spiritualism, such as nkisi power figures, to steep everyday items in a kind of magical realism — two personified horns lock in a moving embrace; another holds its head in its arms. Working deftly across ceramic, bronze, wood, and stone, de Othello calls attention to our elemental connections to our body and the earth. Wall texts are available in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole.
Tara Long: LA ESQUINITA
Through January 17 | locustprojects.orgLocust Projects, 297 Northeast 67th Street, Miami, Florida
Tara Long's La Esquinita at Locust Projects featuring a mural by Serge Toussaint (photo by Pedro Wazzan, courtesy Locust Projects)In a transportive installation described as "part corner store, part surreal dream," Miami artist Tara Long transforms this long-running nonprofit into a deceptively sweet allegory. Visitors are greeted by a colorful mural by Little Haiti artist Serge Toussaint on the building's facade before entering the lobby, staged like a souvenir shop filled with deliberately cloying miniature sculptures. A 12-foot-high (~3.6-meter-high) crumbling cake topped with mouth-watering cherries in a separate gallery is the centerpiece of the show, whose palatable motifs belie a darker message about sugar's exploitative history and present-day echoes.
Changes: Reflections on Time & Spaces
December 1–January 10 | spinelloprojects.comSpinello Projects, 2930 Northwest 7 Avenue, Miami, Florida
Agustina Woodgate, "Changes" (2000–2004) (photo by Zachary Balber, courtesy Spinello Projects)To mark the 20th anniversary of Spinello Projects, an anchor in Miami's gallery scene known for propelling local artists to international visibility, founder Anthony Spinello is showcasing works by 15 artists with ties to the city and the gallery. Culled from his personal collection, the pieces on view include the first work in Eddie Arroyo's Developer’s Survey series, made in 2011, and Agustina Woodgate's monoprints sewn with the artist's own hair, first displayed at Spinello; both artists were later included in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. Dreamlike paintings by Esaí Alfredo and Marlon Portales and sculptures by Nina Surel are also on view. The exhibition is a snapshot of a key era in Miami contemporary art history, and hopefully a harbinger of growth and possibility at a time when the city's creative community faces growing challenges.
Jack Pierson: The Miami Years
Through August 16 | thebass.orgThe Bass Museum, 2100 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, Florida
Detail of Jack Pierson, "ARRAY (MIAMI)" (2025) (image courtesy the artist, Lisson Gallery, and Regen Projects)Jack Pierson was born and raised in New England, but one could say he found himself, or at least parts of himself, in Miami. This exhibition revisits the city that shaped the artist's early visual language, from his first six-month visit in 1984 to many more trips across the years. At a time when gay men's rights and safety were under attack, vignettes of queer nightlife melded with the lush hues of South Beach to evoke an aura of glamour, reverie, and refuge. The show is anchored by “ARRAY (MIAMI)” (2025), a massive new collage of photographs and ephemera commissioned for The Bass.
Anastasia Samoylova: Now Voyager
Dot Fiftyone | dotfiftyone.com7275 Northeast 4th Avenue, #101, Miami, Florida
Anastasia Samoylova, "Albino Peacock" (2025) (image courtesy the artist)Best known for her photographs charting Florida's evolving visual landscape, Miami-based artist Anastasia Samoylova refocuses her lens on painting. The new works on view in this exhibition, titled after Walt Whitman’s poem, feature drips and pours of paint gliding across a peacock’s feathers, graffitied messages, and other sights and scenes that capture the region's beauty and contradictions. A solo exhibition of the artist's work, Atlantic Coast, is also up at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach through March 1, 2026.
Programs, Public Art, and More
No Vacancy 2025
Through December 20 | miamibeachfl.govVarious locations in Miami Beach, Florida; see link above
Detail of Lee Pivnik's "Wellspring" (2025), commissioned by No Vacancy 2025 (image courtesy the artist)No Vacancy, a city-run program that invites 12 artists to create site-specific works at iconic Miami Beach hotels, is back with its sixth edition this year. Pictured above is a whimsical detail from one installation, Lee Pivnik's "Wellspring" (2025) at The Shelborne (1801 Collins Avenue), an ode to Florida's aquatic sanctuaries. Inspired by the Everglades ecosystem, Pivnik, a Miami native, presents ceramic and stained-glass sculptures and video footage from across the state alongside a model of a fountain for environmental remediation, bridging his visual practice with his commitment to "entanglement," the idea of mutual care between species.
Baker's Brunch: Open Studios and Cafecito
December 4, 9am–12pm; RSVP required at bacfl.orgBakehouse Art Complex, 561 Northwest 32nd Street, Miami, Florida
An Open Studios event at Bakehouse in 2024 (photo courtesy Bakehouse Art Complex)Meet artists where they're at by heading over to the Bakehouse Art Complex, the largest artist studio building in Miami. In addition to getting one-on-one time with more than 60 residents and sneak peeks of work in progress, visitors can peruse the organization's 40th anniversary exhibition, Bakehouse at Forty: Past, Present, Future, and admire fixtures like a massive Purvis Young mural on the building's exterior. (Personally, though, you had me at "cafecito.")
Es Devlin's “Library of Us”
December 2–7, 1pm–9pm, faenaart.orgFaena Beach, Collins Avenue and 32nd Street, Miami Beach, Florida
“Library of Us” by Es Devlin (photo Valentina Di Liscia/Hyperallergic)The British artist known for her ambitious, large-scale interventions like an immersive choral sculpture outside London's Tate Modern and for visionary stage designs for the likes of Beyoncé and The Weeknd is bringing a true “go big or go home” approach to Miami this week. Es Devlin will plunk a 50-foot-round revolving library on the sands of Miami Beach, complemented by installations inside the nearby Faena Cathedral and Project Room. The centerpiece rotating library, which boasts 2,500 books that have informed the artist's practice and life philosophy, takes on an urgent significance against the backdrop of record-breaking book bans across the state of Florida.
