The Center of It All: This ultrabusy group video and photography show gives the impression of shoehorning size-nine brogans into a pair of size-five pumps. Did Imelda Marcos curate this? Karen Knorr's opulent staged photographs of stuffed animals amid canonical works in the Musée d'Orsay, and Mintos Manetas's vibracolor prints of video-game alterations seemed torturously cramped, literally begging to breathe. Installing a gumball machine full of Dramamine in the space would not alleviate the feeling of claustrophobia, which is criminal given the stellar quality of some of the work. Also showing: Alessandra Sanguinetti, Diana Shpungin, Nicole Engelmann, Alfredo De Stefano, Fredric Nakache, Amalia Caputo, Victor Vázquez, Renata Poljak, and Harvey Zipkin. -- CSJ Through March 30. Daniel Azoulay Gallery, 3900-A NE First Ave. 305-576-1977.
Drawings: The Domingo Padrón Gallery is a small place that often exhibits interesting work. The current show is a nice collection of drawings by Latin American (mostly Cuban) artists, but don't try to find a connecting thread. Styles range from Cundo Bermudez's drawings (contoured à la Amelia Peláez and reminiscent of stained glass) to Pedro Pablo Oliva's whimsical surrealistic caricature; and from Zaida del Rio's black-and-white, female-driven symbolic settings to Luis Rodriguez's doodling satire and Ricardo Calandini's Escher-like wall labyrinths. It all reads like the rise and fall of the Latin American homo politicus -- a period that went from promise to deception to despair between the early Sixties and the late Eighties. -- AT Through March 31. Domingo Padrón Gallery, 1518 Ponce de Leon Blvd., Coral Gables. 305-444-9360.
Edgewater Ballroom: Evolutionary theory holds that survival depends on ruthless competition, but we know that human cooperation is crucial for social fruitfulness. Carol Brown's "Edgewater Ballroom" at Ambrosino Gallery wrestles with this issue. Brown's paintings and video show different aggregations of dancing couples. But they are actually the same couple continuously multiplied or decreased. He is in a white long-sleeve shirt, red tie, and dark pants; she wears a red dress. They dance to Bach and to Roby Lakatos's czardas. As Brown has erased her subjects' faces, she conjures up the dilemma of loss of identity. What matters more -- the group or the individual? You get the whole dynamic: attraction, symmetry, and aversion. -- AT Through March 31. Ambrosino Gallery, 769 NE 125th St., North Miami. 305-891-5577.
Juan Lecuona: Lecuona's art revisits decadence, but this being the 21st Century, he brings contemporary thought to his work. The result is a more detached treat. At the crossroads of Maupassant's tales and Lucienne Day's fabrics, Lecuona elaborates an art-of-the-boudoir, patternlike painting, exploring visual designs to evoke physical tickling and mental titillations. His inventions of keen coloring with refined simplicity bring to mind silk tapestry wall hangings or ribbon motifs achieved as delicate corporeal abstractions in pale blues, gold, rose, and lilac. Similar subjects drove nineteenth-century "cultivated man" to create ideals of polished style -- much out of synch with our times. -- AT Through March 31. Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts, 3080 SW 38th Ct., Coral Gables. 305-774-5969.
Francisco Luna: Are we really worse off because of globalization? Maybe it doesn't matter one way or the other; people believe what they want to believe. Argentinean Francisco Luna's No Duermas (Don't Fall Asleep) takes up the issue by steering a midcourse between Frankfurt-theory pessimism and the Zen masters' self-caution. He denounces corporate power while being frank about our surrendering to its seduction. The work is part painting, part logo, part ad, and part flat sculpture. Sleek corporate messages embedded in surfaces darkened by smudges and scribbles suggest our numbing to the oxidization of our environment. What is real and what's imagined? Look for Luna's words of caution on what the future may hold: a large landscape painting on metal, something out of William Gibson's Neuromancer. Will that be our "zone of hope"? -- AT Through March 31. Praxis International Art, 2960 Ponce de Leon Blvd., Coral Gables. 305-443-9700.
New Paintings: Emilio Perez's lush, eye-popping new work conveys a lyrical fervor that seems to echo the big-wave surfer's rush as he drops into an overhead tube. Perez romps adroitly across vibrant, churning swirls of chaos and serenity in a world all his own. This is clean, wicked stuff you won't want to miss. In the Project Room, Odalis Valdivieso's installation, Creative Destruction, tells a tale of malice in wonderland. No milk and cookies here. Digital images portraying sleeping girls camped out on the shore of a dumpsite cesspool, and a contemplative hiker breaking in his Timberlands at the foot of what seems to be Mt. Trashmore tersely navigate the region between the pastoral and apocalyptic. -- CSJ Through April 2. Rocket Projects, 3440 N. Miami Ave. 305-576-6082.
Rumba: As if being amused by life's burdens, Cubans' rumbas often begin with a poignant theme and end with a frenzied chorus loop, to which people wildly dance. Gloria Lomas's show "Rumba," at La Boheme Fine Art, sums it up in a painterly yet claustrophobic mood of ecstasy and redemption. See paintings of masses of uninhibited men and women in the middle of the dance floor, swiveling their heads and extending their arms obliquely while shaking their hands to the loud beat of the congas. Lomas's art gets better as it gets darker. I'm fond of her baroque promiscuity, her let-off attitude, and her voyeuristic, sexually charged interaction. Take it as a social critique of Cubans' apprehension between sanctioned and marginal social practices. A problem, though, is her mannerist-bordering costumbrismo -- or the literal portrayal of a country's conventions. -- AT Through March 31. La Boheme Fine Art, 2980 Ponce de Leon Blvd., Coral Gables. 305-461-5656.
The Trade Dress, Value Judgment: Photographer Hank Willis Thomas slam-dunks Madison Avenue from the three-point line with "The Trade Dress, Value Judgment," a visceral imperative that induces a pumped-fist reaction. The work hypes a provocative connection between the slave and cotton industries of the antebellum South and today's big-money advertising that exploits black sports celebrities. Hangtime Circa 1923, an inkjet print of Nike's famous sky-walking Michael Jordan logo lynched from a tree, pulls no punches. The overall impact of the exhibit, however, can't rise above off-Broadway billing owing to a lack of finesse in curatorial editing. Still it's well worth a visit. -- CSJ Through March 28. Diaspora Vibe Gallery, 3938 N. Miami Ave. 305-573-4046.
