Current Art Shows

Castillos en el Aire: "Miami is closer to the sky than to the Earth in every aspect and no matter how you look at it," says Spanish photographer Vicenta Casañ. But unlike Chicago or New York, the Magic City isn't recognizable by its skyscrapers. So Casañ's photos of Miami's signature buildings in the downtown and Miami Beach areas (with their tops floating among choreographed cloud formations) seem bizarre, unless of course she's playing around. Could these edifices be drifting in so-called clouds of real-estate speculation? Casañ's colorful photos exude a peculiarly pure humor, but they also convey our present predicament of speculative greed and carry the ominous quality of a bubble waiting to burst. -- Alfredo Triff Through September 30. Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts, 3080 SW 38th Ct., Miami; 305-774-5969.

Humberto Calzada: Humberto Calzada's work is skillful and bright. His architectonic subject matter is sedate, even nostalgic; his sober white interior geometric vistas, adorned with stained-glass arches and flooded with water, have become mainstream. Beyond that, Calzada clearly creates a more complex, Escher-like space with stairs folding in on themselves and mock walls supporting nothing but air. If non-Euclidean spaces are easy prey for chaos, then Calzada's seeming paradox of ageless ruins built around four elements -- the column, stained glass, water, and light -- is not so much about the space's visual ease as much as the possible anxiety of being too comfortable within it. This exhibit shows a lighter side of Calzada, but he certainly has the capability to stir greater emotion. Let's hope for more of that soon. -- Alfredo Triff Through October 3. The Americas Collection, 2440 Ponce de Leon Blvd., Coral Gables; 305-446-5578.

New Art 2005: Works by recipients of the South Florida Cultural Consortium's coveted annual arts fellowship are on display at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art. Some deserving Miami-Dade artists are among them, including Charo Oquet, whose usually dynamic assemblages appear more diminished as objects titled Anointments. Featuring stacked wooden blocks and severed mannequin heads and limbs, they can't avoid referencing Louise Bourgeois. Thomas Nolan's sculptures work best when, with a single smudge or drop of paint, they seem to capture infinity -- as when he speckles black vinyl chair-backs, creating the illusion of a starry white cosmos. Geoffrey Thomas's digital video works incorporate sequential storyboards that explore the anomie of an individual being evaluated by a system. -- Michelle Weinberg Through November 6. Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art. One E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale; 954-525-5500.

For complete up-to-date South Florida art listings, click on Culture on the navigation bar to the left, scroll down to the Listings Search and "Category" pulldown, then select "Art Galleries" or "Museums."