‘Suffocated self-portraits,’ satire and spooky theater: October arts in Miami
All good things must come to an end. Summer gives way to fall. People come and go. And grants have their expiration dates.
This is the October edition of Arts Notes, the Herald’s monthly column on arts and culture events in Miami. And I am Amanda Rosa, your friendly neighborhood arts reporter, at least for the time being. Yes, dear reader, the grant that keeps this author’s arts writing position afloat has ended.
The Pérez Family Foundation and the Berkowitz Contemporary Foundation in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners funded the arts reporter position for nearly three years, which allowed me to provide coverage to Miami’s exciting arts community.
I have had so much fun covering arts and culture in Miami. It has been a joy and honor reporting on Miami’s vibrant, fascinating and resilient artists and arts community. So thank you all, not just for sharing your stories with me but for creating beauty, culture and dialogue in my hometown. Miami is not Miami without the arts, and the arts are not the arts without you all.
But enough about me. It’s spooky season! The most wonderful time of year, even when it still feels like the dog days of summer outside.
The arts are in full swing in Miami. Here are the events, shows and festivals to check out this October.
Local artists census group hosts meet-up
Who knew gathering data could be so fun?
The Miami Artists Census, an artist-run research initiative, is hosting a kick-off party this weekend. The census, organized by a collective of about 100 local artists, launched this week. The comprehensive survey, inspired by a similar census in Los Angeles, aims to collect data on Miami-based visual artists’ needs and the state of Miami-Dade’s artist community. With the data, organizers say artist’s could better advocate for themselves.
Organizers are inviting community members to come listen to music, play games, enjoy refreshments and learn more about the census.
When: Oct. 5, 3-5 p.m.
Where: Locust Projects, 297 NE 67th St., Miami
Info: Event is free and open to the public. Miami-based artists can take the online survey here until Dec. 31.
Local artist makes a splash in Little Havana with ‘suffocated self-portraits’
Anyone who has ever dabbled in oil paints knows they take forever and a day to dry. A local artist’s latest exhibition explores just that.
‘HOT WET AMERICAN PAINTING” is a solo exhibition of works by Miami-based artist Connor Dolan, who specializes in unique, daring self-portraits. Dolan works out of Tunnel Studios, one of several artist-run spaces I’ve reported on that provide affordable studios and a sense of camaraderie.
The paintings in this show are made to stay wet, possibly forever. Artworks include what Dolan calls “hypoxic paintings,” small oil paintings encased in glass containers filled with argon gas. Without oxygen, the paintings can’t dry. Other works include images that appear over time made from steam and condensed water trapped inside large glass boxes. This is the kind of thing you have to see in person to believe.
“Most paintings are self portraits, so there’s some subconscious theme of depriving one’s self of oxygen that I haven’t began to understand for myself yet,” the artist said. “They’re suffocated self portraits, if you will.”
When: Opening reception on Oct. 5, 6-8 p.m. On view until Oct. 28
Where: Tunnel Projects, 300 SW 12th Ave., Miami
Info: Free and open to the public. https://www.tunnelprojects.com/
Symphony performs music of satire and resistance
While imprisoned in a concentration camp, artists Viktor Ullmann and Peter Kien created “The Kaiser of Atlantis,” a one-act opera satirizing the Nazi regime. Ullmann and Kien were murdered at Auschwitz, but the music survived.
New World Symphony, Miami’s premier orchestral academy, will perform “The Kaiser of Atlantis” along with a piece called “The Seven Deadly Sins,” a sung ballet and critique of capitalism written by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht when the Nazis took control of Berlin. In “The Seven Deadly Sins,” conducted by New World Symphony artistic director Stéphane Denève, soprano Danielle de Niese performs as Anna, a heroine who journeys through America.
This concert is part of “Resonance of Remembrance,” the symphony’s season-long series that commemorates the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and the Holocaust.
When: Oct. 19 at 7:30 p.m. and Oct. 20 at 2 p.m.
Where: New World Center, 500 17th St., Miami Beach
Info: Tickets available online at https://www.nws.edu/events-tickets/concerts/
Theater group steps into horror at Arsht Center
After productions of “Frankenstein” and “Dracula,” local theater company Zoetic Stage brings a haunting play to the stage.
“The Pillowman,” directed by Stuart Meltzer, was written by Martin McDonagh, the writer and director of “The Banshees of Inisherin,” a horror-drama film nominated for nine Academy Awards.
The play follows a writer living in a totalitarian state who is being interrogated about his gruesome short stories, which bare a striking resemblance to a string of child murders. Spooky.
When: Oct. 24 to Nov. 10
Where: Carnival Studio Theater at The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami
Info: For audiences 18 and older. Tickets and full schedule available online at https://www.arshtcenter.org
Watch future Academy Award-nominated films
This one is for the film buffs.
Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival GEMS, the festival’s fall event, returns to South Florida theaters this month. GEMS is all about the best-of-the-best of award season contenders.
This year’s GEMS fest boasts a hefty line-up of about 30 films from more than 15 countries, many of which are already getting Oscar buzz. Festival highlights include “Maria,” a biopic starring Angelina Jolie as opera’s legendary diva Maria Callas, and “Emilia Perez,” a high-octane musical about a lawyer who helps a cartel boss retire to transition as a woman. Lauren Cohen, the festival director of programming, highly recommended “The Brutalist,” a nearly four hour epic that she calls “a masterpiece.”
When: Main lineup from Oct. 30 to Nov. 3. Events throughout October.
Where: Screenings and events hosted at Silverspot Cinema Downtown, MDC’s Koubek Center, Coral Gables Art Cinema, Regal South Beach, and MDC Wolfson Campus.
Info: Full schedule and tickets available online at https://gems2024.eventive.org/schedule
Miami Beach art exhibition takes you back to the ‘80s
Those who grew up in the 305 in the ‘70s and ‘80s know Miami’s true self. The city has two sides: sun and fun on one, and doom and gloom on the other.
Artist Rachel Feinstein explores her crazy, cool and wacky childhood in Miami with a new solo show at The Bass Museum of Art. Though Feinstein has shown her work all over the world and across the county, she’s never had a solo show in her hometown until now.
The exhibition, called “Rachel Feinstein: The Miami Years,” is an homage to a version of Miami that simply doesn’t exist anymore. “It was a really amazing, lawless, fantastic time,” she said. The show’s centerpiece is a newly commissioned, 30-foot-long painting Feinstein made featuring iconic -- and sometimes extinct -- Miami places, including Vizcaya, the original Parrot Jungle and The Seaquarium.
Where: The Bass Museum of Art, 2100 Collins Ave., Miami Beach
When: On view until Aug. 17, 2025
Info: $15 for general admission. https://thebass.org
