Knight Arts Challenge winners and finalists make “Best of Miami” list
Every year, Miami New Times compiles a ‘Best of Miami’ list. The categories are seemingly endless, and while you may not agree with every winning choice, the list is a great place to find new places to go and different things to do, eat or see. Miamians seem to put a lot of stock in the paper’s choices, and this year, five Knight Arts Challenge winners and finalists were mentioned in the ‘Best of’. We’re proud to see the organizations and projects, listed below, recognized in a major local publication.
When was the last time you went to Bayfront Park for any reason — besides attending a music festival, showing around tourists, or boarding a casino boat? If you can’t remember, don’t worry. The folks at the Miami Downtown Development Authority gets it. So this past spring, they started the DWNTWN concert series at the park. On regular early Friday evenings, the DDA has booked some of Miami’s best live favorites to play a series of free sunset concerts. Shows have spanned genres and demographics, featuring everybody from young party-starters Afrobeta, to live-circuit staples Spam Allstars, to Latin greats such as Conjunto Progreso and Arturo Sandoval. With hot music and cool drinks from the pop-up full bar, a DWNTWN show is truly a happy hour in paradise. Stay tuned to the DDA website for the opening date of the next round.
The sparkling debut of Miami’s first new museum in a decade was greeted with critical acclaim and thunderclaps of applause from the public when the Frost reopened its doors this past November. Designed by Yann Weymouth, the 46,000-square-foot building is a work of art that rivaled the impressive exhibits organized for the unveiling. The museum boasts a dazzling Chinese granite façade, a soaring atrium, and a floating stairwell, and features more than 10,000 square feet of exhibition space.
Inside the concave-shaped gem, galleries are bathed with natural light filtered through skylights. Its ceilings are covered with fiberglass petals that protect the art from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. The Frost christened its new home with six exhibitions, including “Modern Masters from the Smithsonian,” which featured 43 key paintings and sculptures by 31 of the most celebrated artists who came to maturity in the 1950s. The sprawling show examined the complex and varied nature of American abstract art in the mid-20th Century.
Add to the fresh new museum smell a bold exhibition schedule and the Steven and Dorothea Green Critics’ Lecture Series, and the trek to the hinterlands becomes more of a joyous cultural pilgrimage than a headache. The museum’s new Target Wednesday After-Hours programming also gives visitors the chance to engage in gallery talks, visiting artist lectures, films, live music, and performance art the first Wednesday of every month. And, unlike other local museums, admission to the Frost and its programs are free to the public.
This nearly pitch-perfect exhibition, organized by curator Dominic Molon over a five-year span, explored the deep-rooted and primal alliances between rebellious spirits haunting both the sonic and visual realms. It featured more than 100 paintings, drawings, installations, and videos by 56 artists and artist collectives. The show was organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, where it drew stadium-size crowds. MoCA’s turnstile numbers skyrocketed as well. Although some knuckleheads wailed about holes in the exhibition’s version of rock history, you couldn’t leave without giving this devil his due.
Are you one of those rare sexual creatures who prefer brain shape to butt shape? If so, you might be what the scientific community refers to as a “Brain Admirer” or BA for short. And besides discrimination, there is one major challenge facing all BAs: Where to find big-brained ladies? Sure, you could trawl the obvious spots — Mensa mixers, quiz tournaments, CAT scan clinics. But to drastically increase your chances of bagging that super-evolved female with the four-pound brain, head to The Bas Fisher Invitational Gallery where, since 2004, beautiful women with unnaturally big ideas have regularly gathered. Located in the Design District’s famed Buena Vista building, the gallery is home to Miami’s most daring contemporary art. However, resist that urge to bone up on artsy jargon; instead, get that brainiac babe to play teacher to your eager student. After all, like all good BAs say, Sexiness is all about her brain and how she chooses to use it.
Miami Beach, 2071. Two tourists, Gina and Tina, are standing outside the laser rope at the entrance to Plato, the newest “it” club on Collins. The bouncer looks them up and down. “IDs, please,” he says. The girls beam them over. The bouncer hands them back two molecular pens and presses a button that illuminates a hologram in front of them. “You have 30 seconds to successfully complete this quiz,” he says. The questions range from “What’s the 123rd element in the periodic table?” to “Briefly describe the cultural and technological ramifications of the Peloponnesian War” — tough, but Gina and Tina are prepared, having downloaded the answers into their earrings two hours ago. When they finish, the hologram turns green and the rope momentarily disappears. Woody/Andre holds the door, and they’re in. In one corner, two half-naked Russian guys are playing chess, and one looks to be playing the Benko gambit to counter the other’s fianchetto. In another corner, two Matt Damon lookalikes do trigonometry on an old-fashioned dry-erase board, while their friend declaims openly about the influence of David Foster Wallace on post-postmodernist poets. In short, Gina and Tina’s cerebellums are soaking-wet. How did Miami turn into this paradise of intellectualism?
When scholars look back, they’ll probably point to the founding of JAM@MAM, the hip cocktail party the Miami Art Museum throws every third Thursday of the month between 5 and 8 p.m. For just $10 (free for members, hint, hint), young Miamians can tour the museum’s current exhibit, swap equations in the VIP lounge, or just look professorial on the loggia while listening to live music and sampling the gourmet appetizers. Of course, there’s alcohol too (for a small donation). After all, this is Miami we’re talking about, and sometimes even geniuses need liquid courage to seal the deal.
Best Place for a Second Date Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden (Knight Arts Challenge 2009 finalist)
Hello, darling, how are you? Well, yes, yes. I had a magnificent time taking you to LIV nightclub at the Fontainebleau for our first date. I am so glad you enjoyed our private time in the skybox VIP, suspended over the club like we were a pair of woodland fairies sprinkling our happy dust all over the party revelers. Well, I was calling to see if I could interest you in a different sort of playful activity for our second date. No, no, dear, there is nothing sexually untoward about my idea. Well, baby doll, since the day is so enchanting, no threat of rain showers, just the glorious Miami sun to light our way, I figured I’d take my 1965 cobalt blue Shelby Cobra out of the garage, pick you up, and take a day trip to one of the most whimsical places in Miami-Dade. We’ll let the wind whip our faces as we cruise down Old Cutler Road, marveling at the expansive tree canopy that will shield us from the sun’s rays, to our destination, a truly marvelous tropical garden that has been around since 1938. I’ll pack us a picnic basket filled with watercress sandwiches and scones, but forget the tea. I’ll bring a couple of bottles of Mumm Napa Santana Champagne to quench our thirst. We can pick a spot on the two-acre Richard H. Simons Rainforest exhibit or stroll through the Lisa D. Anness Butterfly Garden. And, of course, you will absolutely fall in love with the Arboretum, an eight-acre display that features some 740 species of tropical flowering trees. Arranged by plant family, these collections show a fabulous diversity of form, structure, texture, color, and fragrance. And these are just a few of the things we can gaze at while we are at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. So what do you think, honey bunny? Shall I pick you up around noon? Smashing. Noon it is.