Miami, What's Up This Weekend?

You all know my LOVE for the 2nd Saturday of each month - Art night in the Design District and Wynwood.

This weekend a special event is being hosted by Sara Liss at the Zeitgeist Showroom (3886 Biscayne Blvd, Design District). Check out the flyer above.

From Sara: There will be cocktails by Rain Organic Vodka and plenty of interesting folks to mingle with. The event will probably go until 10 pm so drop by on your walk through the Design District.

At the event, there will be presentations by dynamic personalities involved in green businesses or projects. The format is 20 slides, 20 seconds to talk per slide so it will be fast (only 6 and half minutes per presenter) and not boring (hopefully!). Sort of like a fast, fun, lecture with images.

And what is a good event without a great after party? Head over to Grass Lounge (28 NE 40th St, Design District) - one of the newest hot spots in the Design District that I am just dying to check out.

So all of you come out and get Organic Vodka and take in the scene!

(click here for a previous post with more details about the Design District and Wynwood)

The Britto Backlash?

Critical Miami has a great post about the new shopping center being built on the corner of 5th Street and Alton Road in South Beach.

The same company that is constructing this complex also built the Dadeland Station as well as other shopping complexes in Kendall.

Nothing on the face is wrong with that, except for the fact that the builder is completely obsessed with Britto. Every single space they can find for art (even in their homes) is covered in bright colored stars, shapes, hearts, faces - the things that are Britto.

Well there is some law down here about art in public spaces. I guess if you are using public space (including public parking) then you must include some type of art piece in your structure. Critical Miami points to a New Times article from 2 years ago that picks up on the problems with the new South Beach shopping complex - it's either Britto and public parking or Britto and private parking.

The shopping complex planned to sell the parking garage to Miami Beach which then triggered the Art in Public Places Ordinance. Under that law the developer has to pay a fee of 1.5% of the construction costs (about $500,000) to the Arts in Public Places commission and then the Art in Public Places Committee gets involved where they approve the art chosen for the project.

Many people have come out to say that the Britto love has to stop. There is a need to pick other artists and not just those artists that are your friends. However, anyone who is stepping up against Britto is quickly going to be squashed because this shopping complex isn't required to have any art if it chooses to do everything privately. If they choose not to sell the garage to the City of Miami, the builder can choose to put up Britto no matter what anyone's opinion is.

Miami, You Have Surprised Me!

Saturday night Elad, Superbee and I went to the Gallery Walk in the Miami Wynwood Art District. It takes place every 2nd Saturday of each month.

Of course my dumb ass forgot my camera, but Critical Miami has some pictures of galleries that I don't think I went to (I think they went to galleries in the Design District and not the Wynwood District - or maybe I was drunk)

Anyway, we had a great time! I know usually we give Miami a lot of shit for being a sub-par city - being that mostly everything to do with the city sucks. But for once, I was part of something that wasn't sucky!

We started up around 36th Street and Miami Avenue. We hit up the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery and the Dot Fiftyone Gallery along with some others. At this point we were already happy with what we were seeing. Plus the free booze was flowin.

Next we walked down Miami Ave and checked out Spinello Gallery, Signature Art Gallery, Hardcore Art Contemporary Space, Kunsthaus Miami and I think some others. At this point I don't remember any names of Galleries and I am resting entirely on the Wynwood Map for guidance.

A little tipsy, we finally made our way towards the 23rd Street hub of action. All of the galleries were filled with people and offered snacks (cheese, fruit, crackers) and beverages (I had a fabulous Mojito and a Chocolate Martini....mmmmm).

In the middle of naming Superbee's first child "winesnack" and trying to hail a cab to Denny's I realized that I hadn't had that much fun in awhile. And yes, I have Miami and my lovely partners in crime for the evening to thank for that.

So if you ever are free the 2nd Saturday of the Month I highly recommend checking out the excitement in the often-shady-but-not-on-this-night Wynwood neighborhood.

Wynwood Art District - Gallery Walk

This Saturday in the Miami Wynwood Art District is the monthly Gallery Walk. It happens the second Saturday of every month.

The art galleries (which are normally closed outside of the weekly 9 to 5 business hours - and that might be stretching it) open their doors, let the champagne flow and entertain the public with all types of artistic mediums.

This will be the first weekend I am going to the Gallery Walk and hopefully I will have some report to give next week.

Here is a little walking tour that has been suggested to get through 18 galleries in 3 hours. Wow that sounds like a lot of walking. Hope it is worth it.

Any suggestions?

***UPDATE***

I went and had a great time - check out this post about the evening.

Chocolate Festival - Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens

This past Saturday Elad and I headed over to Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens to check out the Chocolate Festival that I gushed over on Friday.

I will agree that the Chocolate Festival wasn't all that. I only got a thimble of hot chocolate for free (but it was really yummy!! it had a Mexican recipe with mole). We bought a chocolate covered cookie and some chocolate covered pretzels which were great.

Otherwise we really enjoyed the scenery. We spent a few hours walking around the gardens and taking it in. They currently have a Dale Chihuly exhibit with glass sculptures mixed in with the plants and flowers. Check it out:

(click on each picture to see a larger version)