This spring will mark a very important anniversary for art historians, especially those interested in Marcel Duchamp. Around this time 100 years ago, the French artist, widely regarded as one of the founders of conceptual art, infamously took a prefabricated porcelain urinal, signed it “R. Mutt 1917,” and submitted it for exhibition to the Society of Independent Artists. The title he chose for the work was Fountain.
Before I left Miami, I grabbed a bottle of Violetas Rusas and packed it in the one suitcase I carried. “Russian Violets” cologne smells like my childhood. When I was growing up in Miami, my mother brushed my long brown hair in a daily ritual that seemed to last an eternity.
The best time of the week is finally here — the weekend. The next three days are filled with music, art, parties, and boozy beverages galore. From Coral Gables to Little Havana to South Beach, these are the best places to be until the sun comes up Monday morning.
Despite my fondness for Quentin Tarantino, I’ve never been a Reservoir Dogs fan. Back in 1992, the writer-director’s feature debut seemed to me little more than a clever and grotesquely violent one-act play, gussied up with structural whimsy. Yes, the opening scene — black-suited crooks bantering about Madonna and the…
“I am garbage,” Amy Schumer’s Emily Middleton, on a vacation in Ecuador with her ma, Linda (Goldie Hawn), that’s gone all wrong, chimes in agreement with someone who’s leveled the insult at her — and who’s also holding the two women for ransom — in Snatched. Your enjoyment of this…
King Arthur is neither Guy Ritchie’s worst film nor his best, but it might well be his most frustrating. A compendium of all the things that make the British director so occasionally exciting and so often irritating, this new, hyper-stylized take on the Arthurian legends veers between genius and idiocy…
So long, “Saaave Me” ads. Miami-Dade Transit has removed Estrella Insurance’s controversial campaign, which featured a woman named Money tied to a chair, from its buses. The change went into effect May 1. The ads were the latest in a racy series of promotions by Estrella, which also included visuals…
There was never any doubt about the thoughtfulness with which Aziz Ansari, in the first season of his Netflix series, Master of None, addressed the kinds of societal divides — racial, cultural, generational, sexual — that most sitcoms either lack the vision to perceive at all or take on only…
An empty lot on the corner of NE Third Street and North Miami Avenue is all that remains of the Wallflower Gallery, an eclectic, indie multimedia space that thrived for 13 years. The memory of it still haunts C.D. Flash, steward of the space for much of its life. “I…
This Friday, the film Lowriders will debut on the big screen across the nation. Starring Gabriel Chavarria, best known for his leading role in East Los High; Theo Rossi of the Netflix series Luke Cage; and Desperate Housewives alum Eva Longoria, the film follows a young street artist surrounded by lowrider car culture, in which pros and amateurs alike customize their rides via hydraulic systems, dazzling designs, and other accoutrements.
The members of South Florida’s burlesque community share one thing in common: mutual respect and high praise for one another.
Michael Mann’s 1995 masterpiece, Heat, comes out this week in a brand-new, fully loaded and beautiful Blu-ray edition. To explore further what makes this epochal crime drama so special, I recently talked to the director. The story of Heat was based on real-life personalities. There was real thief named Neil…
Attention, parents of Miami: If you’ve been looking for a new space where you can relax while unleashing your tiny people upon the unsuspecting public, check out the new Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science.
Even though much of his work is inspired by Victorian-era occult and gothic romanticism, Hernan Bas exposes himself as a Miami native in the lush compositions and lurid colors of his paintings. The artist is more recently based in Detroit, but Bas will head back south to speak at…
I Love Dick, the epistolary novel, is an obsessive confessional story from a woman — a version of the author Chris Kraus — who, in her letters, lusts for an English art critic named Dick. He barely returns the affection. Yet … she persists. The story is almost like a…
The true heart of Michael Mann’s Heat is revealed a little more than an hour into the film. No, I’m not talking about the classic coffee conversation between Robert De Niro’s master thief, Neil McCauley, and Al Pacino’s obsessed LAPD cop, Vincent Hanna — that fantastic and immortal face-off comes…
Cuba may be an isolated island south of Florida, but its cultural impact is significant. This week, the newly built Pompano Beach Cultural Center will honor that impact with “Shipwrecked of Reason: Half a Century in Cuban Art.” The show, on loan from the Cuban government and curated by Isabel…
Both the poet’s body and soul are made ineradicable in Davies’ lovely film.
Since Kickstarter’s launch in 2009, its users have pledged $3.3 billion. Miami native Alex Daly and her two-person team at Vann Alexandra, are responsible for raising $20 million of that and counting. Daly’s The Crowdsourceress: Get Smart, Get Funded, and Kickstart Your Next Big Idea is the ultimate crowdfunding manifesto…
A sleepy earnestness both ennobles and afflicts Ricardo de Montreuil’s fathers-and-sons story, Lowriders. At first the film plays as a low-key corrective, a Hollywood drama with name producers (Brian Grazer, Jason Blum) that, outside a couple of tutorial info-dumps covering cultural basics, presents East Los Angeles lives like pretty much…
Young men’s heads bobbing in an ocean heavy with secrets painted on a folding screen. A flock of spoonbills flying by Stiltsville on a triptych. A sculpture of a dead flamingo, doubled over like a macabre midcentury modern table, chained to a metal ball. This is Hernan Bas’ “Florida Living.”…
As the state’s premier destination for all things related to science, the Frost Science Museum will will inspire many locals of all ages to reach for the stars.
