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(Making Up) Carolyn: Ever daydreamed of what Jacques Derrida would do with a Home Depot gift certificate? Then survey this site-specific installation by Shane Aslan Selzer. The sculptor poetically invigorates sundry building materials while deconstructing the history of the Carolyn Apartments, now teetering on the brink of extinction before the wrecking ball of progress. — CSJ Through March 6. Worm-Hole Laboratory, 401 NE 22nd St., #1. 305-798-6529.
Fuss Free: The sicko pack of artists assembled for this unpretentious exhibit meld like Hieronymus Bosch in a headshop, overwhelming the sensory organs with fat porn chicks, Brady Bunch zombies, and syringe-pin-cushioned brains. Dude, it’s all good. Work by Esao Andrews, Hawk Krall, Thom Lessner, Travis Millard, Roy Miranda, and the Superstars. — CSJ Through March 4. Objex Art Space, 203 NW 36th St. 305-573-4400.
Kuhl and La Huis: The late Cuban painter Carlos Alfonso used to say, “Just show me a nail in a wall and let my work speak for itself.” Which is a healthy attitude when your artwork hangs in a cluttered furniture gallery doubling as an alternative space. But don’t be dismissive. First pay a pilgrimage to the Via Solferino and appreciate the work of photographer Brad Kuhl and painter John La Huis, whose stuff would hold its own in any venue. — CSJ Through March 15. Via Solferino, 3930 NE Second Ave., #105. 305-572-1182.
By the Woods: This show takes us to a humorously dark side of nature. Pepe Mar’s Totem brings taboo to the realm of innocence via stuffed toys, butterflies, trinkets, and Blue Puffy Head. More akin to Strindberg’s gloom, Norwegian painter Frank Brunner’s misty works portray nature, light, and artifice. Chris Janke documents the lives of aliens in our midst — they’re menacing but somewhat amusing. Jen DeNike brings rural mythology back to the city with prepubescent boys engaging in sexual rites of passage and sacrifice. — AT Through March 14. Miami Light Project’s Light Box, 3000 Biscayne Blvd., #100. 305-576-4350.
Lumpen Decadents (the lack of money is the root of all evil): This group show curated by Gean Moreno pitches its tent at the strange crossroads where Victorian interiors serve as trailer-park décor, where aristocratic walking sticks accessorize thrift-store finds, where Karl Huysmans meets Harmony Korine. The work is small and eccentric and a little dark, like a collection of rare specimens one imagines lining the walls of a nineteenth-century parlor. –AT Through March 13. Ingalls & Associates Gallery, 771 NE 125th St. 305-981-7900.
Francesco Scavullo: A retrospective of the work of fashion icon Francesco Scavullo, who died in January. The dean of the A-list lensmen, Scavullo’s subjects ran the gamut of the jet-set glitterati. Shots of Mick Jagger in silver booty shorts, a heavily made-up Louise Nevelson as Zorro in drag, and a clueless Andy Warhol posing with model Gail Cook. — CSJ Through March 18. ART+, Village of Merrick Park, 358 San Lorenzo Ave. #3135, Coral Gables. 786-497-1111.
Visions of a City: Sergio Payares has a figurative but very sparse style — human limbs and heads, ships, flags, stairs are connected by lines that serve as geometric pointers linking pictograms scattered all over the work’s internal space. The lines connecting limbs are structural scaffolding for further pictograms. Also on view is Unraveling, a collaboration between locals Lynne Golob Gelfman and Eugenio Espinoza. The work stretches the boundaries of each artist’s style, without losing authenticity. — AT Through February 29. Casas Riegner Gallery, 25 NE 39th St. 305-573-8242.
Ware, Massengale, and Salazar: Imagine Carl Sagan in woodshop to wrap your skull around Kerry Ware’s ethereal Harmony. The artist drilled “billions and billions” of holes in gallery walls and filled them with a galaxy of pegs to launch the spectator’s gaze and thoughts heavenward. Domestic Scenery, Mirna Massengale’s gorgeous C-prints and savory puns, read like a surreal collision between Tammy Faye Baker and Martha Stewart. Carolina Salazar’s Its the Little Things weds isolated moments of intense introspection on a sparse bone armature with meaty conceptual gristle. — CSJ Through February 28. Dorsch Gallery, 151 NW 24th St. 305-576-1278.
Tiempo y Diferencias: Sergio Bazan fiddles with sound in two dimensions. The exhibit features paintings of revolvers with embedded messages including a gun, a prescription for the antianxiety drug Xanax, images from sonograms, and references to religion. — CSJ Through February 29. Diana Lowenstein Fine Art, 3080 SW 38th Ct. 305-774-5969.
Zumblick and Ramirez: Thais Zumblick’s arresting self-portraits seem to straddle masochistic acceptance and sadistic provocation with deadpan panache. Also at Kessler: Was it Marx who said, “Man is born barefoot but everywhere he is in a pair of Nikes?” Painter Ramiro Ramirez combines a Flemish economy of space with hyperrealism in his The High Performance Machine Is About Athletic Shoes. — CSJ Through April 12. Marina Kessler Gallery, 2628 NW Second Ave. 305-573-6006.
