Real Time and Under These Circumstances One Usually Loses a Shoe: Time's passage, the preciousness of human labor, the serendipity of finding something new in the old, and the banality of daily life converge in "Real Time," a group show featuring David Castillo's stable of artists. In the project room, Monika Zarzeczna's "Under These Circumstances One Usually Loses a Shoe" combines figurative and abstract elements in 31 eye-catching drawings in which whimsical figures are injected with narrative possibility in psychologically charged scenes. It appears Castillo wants to aim at the heart of our transitory experience, and in one fell swoop he connects. — Carlos Suarez De Jesus Through October 6. David Castillo Gallery, 2234 NW Second Ave., Miami; 305-573-8110, www.castilloart.com.
Work!: An exhibit featuring paintings, sculptures, installations, videos, and photography, "Work!" was created by the Popopstudios co-op. The highlight is Blue Curry's Like Taking Sand to the Beach, a ton of sand carved out of Yamacraw Beach in the Bahamas and meticulously re-created in the gallery space. Curry's inventiveness and playful approach to materials also bore into the skull in Scleratinia Faviidae Futura Tecnoformis, a nifty installation in which he recalibrates a chunk of brain coral with electronic gadgetry as a comment on the collision between technology and nature. — Carlos Suarez De Jesus Through September 22. Diaspora Vibe Gallery, 3938 N. Miami Ave., Miami; 305-573-4046, www.diasporavibe.com.
Tamayo: A Modern Icon Reinterpreted: This probing autopsy of Rufino Tamayo's work and life marks his first major U.S. exhibition in nearly 30 years and features close to 100 paintings. Exploring 70 years of Tamayo's prolific career, the traveling exhibition is less a retrospective than a re-examination of the artist's oeuvre. It begins with a small group of works from the Twenties in which Tamayo first dabbled with early French Modernism and goes on to survey his iconic mature works from the Forties and Fifties, during which he developed his unique style of figurative abstraction.— Carlos Suarez De Jesus Through September 23. Miami Art Museum, 101 W. Flagler St., Miami; 305-375-3000, www.miamiartmuseum.org.
False Start: Onlookers can discover rubberneck heaven while gawking at Timothy Buwalda's large oil-on-canvas paintings of car wrecks. His sumptuous works depict crumpled Beemers and Toyotas, their mangled husks rendered in excruciatingly clear detail. Buwalda's powerful paintings swing between photorealism and abstraction, delivering a haymaker. — Carlos Suarez De Jesus Through October 6. Fredric Snitzer Gallery, 2247 NW First Pl., Miami; 305-448-8976, www.snitzer.com.
Variations on a Theme and What Makes a Boy Start Fires?: John Sanchez's evocative oil-and-acrylic-on-canvas paintings somberly depict desolate urban scenes as if snapped by a disposable camera through a drunken haze in the wee hours of the morning. Kyle Trowbridge injects high-octane fuel into the car crash theme, even including a burned-out pearlescent Volkswagen Beetle that was crisped on July's Friday the 13th. — Carlos Suarez De Jesus Through October 6. The Dorsch Gallery, 151 NW 24th St., Miami; 305-576-1278, www.dorschgallery.com.
Versus: Rising art star Susan Lee-Chun's solo show features a suite of knockout Lambda prints in which the artist battles with her kooky alter ego. A video monitor in the gallery's window facing the street features the blond-wigged Korean artist dressed in plaid schoolgirl garb while trying to peel the skin off an apple in one swipe. Occasionally a disembodied hand reached in from offscreen, whacking Lee-Chun in the noggin. — Carlos Suarez De Jesus Through October 6. Spinello Gallery, 2294 NW Second Ave., Miami; 786-271-4223, www.spinellogallery.com.
Wake Me Up When the Present Arrives: Over a 10-day period, Argentine artist Diego Bianchi trashed Locust Projects, filling the space with a battered boat hull, heaps of garbage, and a slick sheen of mud. Bianchi puts rock stars — and their lifetime hotel bans for taking wrecking balls to their rooms — to shame. Slapdash fountains arranged strategically across the filthy floor spew foamy streams of soap bubbles. Hundreds of LifeSavers candies dangle from fishing line, twirling like noxious snowflakes overhead. — Carlos Suarez de Jesus Through October 27. Locust Projects, 105 NW 23rd St, Miami; 305-576-8570, www.locustprojects.org.
Karen Kilimnik: Kilimnik's trove of imagery flits from childhood, ballet, pop music, film and fashion icons, romantic painting, witchcraft, murder, melodrama, and time travel in scenes that upend the historic and recent past into an unnerving vision of the present. The first American survey of the influential artist's work features more than 90 paintings, drawings, photographs, assemblages, and installations dating back to the Eighties. — Carlos Suarez De Jesus Through November 11. Museum of Contemporary Art, 770 NE 125th St., North Miami; 305-893-6211, www.mocanomi.org.