When you visit Wynwood this weekend you’ll notice the two flagship spaces that helped make the area Miami’s hottest cultural district are no longer part of the scene. The Fredric Snitzer Gallery has decamped for the fringes of downtown, launching a new location recently while the David Castillo Gallery will…

Stand in front of one of Beatriz Milhazes’ exuberant canvases and chances are you’ll soon begin to feel lightheaded. The Brazilian artist is known for her complex and disorienting compositions bursting with wild, decorative patterns that are typically rendered in a glowing tropical palette. They bring to mind everything from…

In his attention-commanding performance pieces, Carlos Martiel typically exposes his body to increasingly severe tests as a commentary on social and political injustices while redefining his relationship to art. “I find inspiration in the public sphere and the discomfort I experience from the violence we all currently live in,” Martiel…

Way before it became a dungeon for high-ranking Al-Qaeda leaders in the wake of 9/11, the American naval base on the southeastern tip of Cuba housed tens of thousands of Haitians and Cubans seeking to flee the political turmoil gripping their homelands. Though many of the Cuban balseros held at…

Carlos Martiel is a living, breathing work of art. The 25-year-old has sewn a business suit onto his body. He’s cloaked himself in burlap covered by wet potter’s clay and then allowed the public to beat him with police batons. He has also had himself blinded by tear gas and…

Although she was born on an island, Emma Carascon grew up far from South Florida’s tropical climes. “I was born in a very, very, very small village in England, about an hour northwest of London,” the 34-year-old, self-taught artist says. “There is literally one road in and out. No shops,…

As a teenager, Enrique Machado was captivated by the tactile nature of water. “At the time, I was attending New World School of the Arts and started making these ice sculptures of people that I would hollow out and place a light source inside,” the 28-year-old Miami native recollects. “I…

It’s no secret that strong arts programming in our schools plays a crucial role in connecting youngsters to others around them, not to mention opening them up in new ways to see the world in which they live. So it begs to reason that in a city like Miami, which…

It’s August and the galleries are mostly closed or operating on short hours. The big-name artists have hightailed it for cooler climes. So how to get your art fix? Try these three off-the-beaten-path geniuses. In the lavishly landscaped yard behind his Hialeah home, Jose Tonito waves his arms like a…

It’s August and the galleries are mostly closed or operating on short hours. The big-name artists have hightailed it for cooler climes. So how to get your art fix? Try these three off-the-beaten-path geniuses. In the lavishly landscaped yard behind his Hialeah home, Jose Tonito waves his arms like a…

There’s no denying Miami is in the midst of transforming into a sleek and sexy model of a 21st-century global city, attracting both international architects and artists excited to play a part in its evolution. For Berlin-based artist Leonor Antunes, the Magic City has come to represent the ideal conceptual…

San Francisco has the Golden Gate Bridge. St. Louis has the Arch. Las Vegas has its retro welcome sign. It seems like every city has an iconic structure to represent itself to the rest of the world. Every city but Miami, that is. The Magic City is full of architectural…

The skeletal armatures of the mammoth cranes dotting the Miami horizon appear not unlike prehistoric creatures foraging on the landscape. For Matt Herget, the mechanical behemoths silhouetted against the Magic City’s skyline have become the inspiration behind a recent body of work. The local artist, whose creative nom de guerre…

In 1961, Piero Manzoni shocked the art world when he sealed 90 cans of his own feces and priced each 30-gram opus based on the current value of gold, or about $1.12 per gram back then. By 2008, one of the conceptual artist’s turd-filled tins snagged more than $200,000 at…

The old Miami Herald building is being demolished, while across the causeway, construction at Museum Park and towering condos near the American Airlines Arena have brought the boom cranes back to the shores of Biscayne Bay. The skeletal armatures of the mammoth cranes dotting the horizon appear not unlike prehistoric…

Patricia Hernandez would like to sell you an island. Don’t worry — she’s not another airhead celebrity realtor bidding for a Bravo TV contract. Her island is “virtual,” named “Bit Key,” and for sale only with the digital bitcoin currency. “My piece is an internet-based project exploring the signification of…

Adler Guerrier was born in Port-au-Prince in 1975. He moved to Miami 12 years later with his father, an electrician, and his mom, who now works as a local school crossing guard. He grew up in North Miami and attended the Design and Architecture Senior High School before graduating from…

Patricia Hernandez would like to sell you an island. Don’t worry — she’s not another airhead celebrity realtor bidding for a Bravo TV contract. Her island is “virtual,” named “Bit Key,” and for sale only with the digital bitcoin currency. “My piece is an internet-based project exploring the signification of…

Adler Guerrier was born in Port-au-Prince in 1975. He moved to Miami 12 years later with his father, an electrician, and his mom, who now works as a local school crossing guard. He grew up in North Miami and attended the Design and Architecture Senior High School before graduating from…

San Francisco has the Golden Gate Bridge. St. Louis has the Arch. Las Vegas has its retro welcome sign. It seems like every city has an iconic structure to represent itself to the rest of the world. Every city but Miami, that is. The Magic City is full of architectural…

Laura Vinci was working as a set designer for a Chekhov play in her native São Paulo when she experienced a vision that blew her away. It came during a moment in the production when an actor created a chaotic whirlwind by blowing a ream of paper in a swirl…