Summer is here and along with it a surfeit of group shows featuring the region's top artistic talent. Corralled in exhibits rife with multimedia works during this Saturday's culture crawl beginning at 6 p.m., visitors can expect one-stop showcases of the ingenuity elevating Miami's thriving art scene to the international stage year-round.
You'll find everything from a collector's vision of a dream home filled with functional artwork, to an annual survey of the Magic City's foremost nonrepresented creative types. There's even a tiki art bash to set your pelvis gyrating and one artist's insightful look into those indistinguishable spaces that often escape our perception.
These are our picks for the smoking-hot July edition of the Wynwood art walk, during which you can find everything from a painting or photo from top-drawer South Florida talent to hang over your tattered, hand-me-down couch, to an artist-crafted chair or lamp to spruce up your dreary living room.
DCG Open: The annual homegrown talent survey at Castillo brings together 28 South Florida artists, currently without gallery representation, who illustrate some of the dominant and diverse art practices developing in the local scene. At Castillo, don't miss Antonia Wright's witty take on the quinceañera craze. Equally attention-grabbing is Herman Felipe Kaizedo's gem of an oil painting, not much larger than a paperback book, depicting a pair of anonymous lovers with their hands stuffed down each others' pants. David Castillo Gallery, 2234 NW Second Ave., Miami. Call 305-573-8110 or visit davidcastillogallery.com.
Season Review 2010/2011: Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts has cobbled together the works of its international and homegrown stable of artists with an emphasis on concepts of innovation and originality. Standouts on display include Purlieu, an installation by Caroline Lathan-Stiefel that resembles a sweeping macramé-type wall-swallowing sculpture woven in a riot of rainbow hues. It makes a nice counterpart to Charles Clary's Terr-a-diddle Infestation, an acrylic and hand-cut paper-on-panel installation rendered in organic, honeycomb shapes confected in brown sugar and spicy mustard tones and climbing from the floor to the walls like a viral contagion. Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts, 2043 N. Miami Ave., Miami. Call 305-576-1804 or visit dlfinearts.com.
Fine Art Tiki Show: Follow the torches and the ukulele music to the Harold Golen Gallery where the owner is playing the Big Kahuna and inviting the public to show up in Hawaiian shirts and sarongs for a hip-swaying good time. Golen is celebrating his annual Tiki luau featuring some of the biggest names working in the genre today. The dealer has invited artists like Kevin Kidney, Jody Daily, Shag, Skot Olsen and a raft of others to transform his Wynwood digs into a Polynesian pop paradise. Harold Golen Gallery 2294 NW 2nd Ave., Miami. Call 305-989-3359 or visit haroldgolengallery.com
Ascaso Gallery: Those with tastes veering toward figurative anatomical studies should visit this highbrow showroom specializing in modern and contemporary Venezuelan art. James Mathison's sculptures of a man's head and disembodied hands will raise your eyebrows with their exceptional attention to detail. While Pancho Quilici's beguiling paintings, conjuring a landscape of labyrinths mixed with semitransparent geometric forms of a futuristic nature, are also sure to clobber your skull. Ascaso Gallery 2441 NW 2nd Ave., Miami. Call 305-571-9410 or visit ascasogallery.com.
Metrouroboros: If you've ever found yourself wondering about those "in-between" spaces we often float through without noticing then make sure to check out Ashley Ford's perspicacious peep into highways, public restrooms, airports and other non-places we pass through with frequency, often without noticing the surroundings. At UM's Wynwood Project Space, the artist examines the psychological and sociological impact of these spots on public culture, delivering a smashing photo that reminds us of Larry Craig's romp in an airport toilet. University of Miami's Wynwood Project Space 2200 A NW 2nd Ave., Miami. Call 305-284-2543 or visit as.miami.edu/art.
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