Keeping It Weird

Surrounded by steaming swampland rife with 20-foot pythons, man-eating gators, and marauding skunk apes, our little burg at the end of the continent is a certified hot spot for the dangerous, deranged, and bizarre. We’ve already had sex offenders under a bridge, cat killers in our midst, and tar balls on our beaches. But now, it’s getting stranger.

Enter the city’s creepiest crannies at “Weird Miami,” a Sin City-centric art show occupying the offices of the Bas Fisher Invitational through September 19. In one corner are the remnants — frog legs, spatulas, grease — of Jason Hedges’s unholy cooking experiments. In another is Peggy Levison Nolan’s Bar Mitzvah Boys and Prom Queens, a hauntingly benign living-room setup featuring a worn-out bamboo chair, kitschy knickknacks, and found family photos. Then, in a dark, adjoining room, Alyse Emdur’s 20-minute video documentary, Weatherwoman With Lissette Gonzalez, loops unendingly, painting the walls in a hot TV glow. Additional weirdness comes courtesy of artists Autumn Casey, Adler Guerrier, Nicolas Lobo & Kenneth Andrew Mroczek, Justin Long, and Isabel Moros.
July 10-Sept. 19, 2010