As Miami Art Week 2023 rapidly approaches, Miami Design District (MDD) is showcasing an array of exhibitions. Here are some of them:
Atiba Jefferson Skate Photography Retrospective
Art, Design & Fashion Highlights
The Art of Hip Hop Exhibition | Wynwood
Gucci’s new dedicated men’s boutique | MDD – NEW
Atiba Jefferson’s Skate Photography Retrospective | MDD – NEW
Andres Reisinger’s “Take Over Miami” | MDD – NEW
Jayaram’s “Making Miami” | MDD – NEW
LVMH’s “Culture House” | MDD – NEW
Samuel Ross Benches | MDD – NEW install images below
“Utopia” by Lara Bohinc – Miami Design District’s 2023 Annual Design Commission | MDD
Craig Robins Collection “A Train of Thoughts” | MDD
Gagosian & Jeffrey Deitch’s “Forms” | MDD
Erick & Elliot Jimenez: “Reclining Mermaid” | MDD
Where to Dine
Miami Design District: La Màrtola (Opening January 2024), Contessa, ZZ’s Club, Sadelle’s at Kith
Miami Beach: Carbone, HaSalon
Brickell: Chateau ZZ’s (Opening soon), Dirty French Steakhouse
Coconut Grove: Sadelle’s
Pura Vida – 19 locations throughout South Florida
MOTEK – 5 locations throughout Miami
THE ART OF HIP HOP
Alan Ket & Allison Freidin, Founders of The Museum of Graffiti, proudly present Art of Hip Hop, an immersive exhibition, opening in Wynwood, spotlighting the visual unsung heroes of Hip Hop culture, including photographers, album cover artists, graffiti visionaries, and logo designers. Following successful showings at SXSW and UrbanBreak in Seoul, this showcase lands in Miami on December 5, 2023, offering a unique exploration of Hip Hop’s history and Miami’s own cultural contributions to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of Hip Hop. The inaugural exhibition, entitled From the Bronx to the Beach, will showcase rare vintage ephemera from Hip Hop’s first NYC DJ, Kool Herc, to Miami’s own pioneer Uncle Luke. Visitors can expect to see the works of famed Hip Hop photographers Janette Beckman, Mike Miller, Henry Chalfant, Matt Doyle, Lisa Leone, Joe Conzo, and Daniel Hastings, alongside Hip Hop album covers designed by Cey Adams, Eric Haze, Slick, Kaws, and more. The exhibition will also shine a special spotlight on Miami’s own Hip Hop history, capturing it through the lenses of local historian and photographer Derick G. and photographer Esdras T. Thelusma. The exhibition will be open to the public daily 11 am – 6 pm beginning December 5, 2023. For more information, please visit www.artofhiphop.com and @artofhiphop50.
Location: 299 NW 25th St., Miami, FL 33127
Dates: Permanent
GUCCI’S NEW MEN’S BOUTIQUE
Gucci is pleased to announce the debut of a dedicated men’s boutique in the Miami Design District. The opening marks Gucci’s fourth dedicated men’s boutique in the U.S. and the second Gucci boutique in the neighborhood. Spanning across two floors, the boutique includes a private VIP shopping are, and carries an expanded offering of men’s products including shoes, ready-to-wear, luggage, small leather goods, and eyewear. Customers can also discover Gucci’s signature travel offering, Gucci Valigeria, along with lines presented alongside the Cruise collection.
Location: 89 NE 41st St, Miami, FL 33137
ATIBA JEFFERSON SKATE PHOTOGRAPHY RETROSPECTIVE
With a career spanning over 25 years, Atiba Jefferson is one of the most significant photographers of our time. His unique style and generation-bridging presence in the world of sport, and specifically skateboarding, has made him not only a witness to moments in skate history but an active participant in the making, sharing, and advancement of the culture. Organized by Architecture, the creative studio founded by the late Virgil Abloh, this exhibition is the most comprehensive survey of Jefferson’s skate photography to date —from his most iconic images of legendary athletes to archival gems. Combined with insightful panel discussions with Atiba and some of his most frequent subjects and collaborators, this retrospective positions Atiba as both a documentarian and an artist whose beautifully composed images and singular style resonate with the skate community and the uninitiated.
Location: 50 NE 40th St, Miami, FL 33137
Dates: December 6 – 10, 12-6 pm daily
ANDRES REISINGER “TAKE OVER MIAMI”
Renowned digital artist and designer Andrés Reisinger presents “Take Over Miami,” a spectacular public art installation showcased at the Miami Design District. Radiating the city with a pink-hued creative energy, Reisinger transcends the boundaries between the digital and the physical, and debuts a physical version of his viral digital series of ‘Take Overs’. Reisinger presents the world’s first public art installation that seamlessly transitioned from the digital canvas to the physical world. The creative talent reinterprets the architecture of major capitals around the globe with pink drapes, integrating hyperrealistic elements into existing buildings. For the first time ever, in ‘Take Over Miami’ Reisinger takes a step forward and brings to physical life the digital series, inviting art enthusiasts to join the transformation of a physical space into a surreal dreamscape of boundless creativity.
Location: 178 NE 39th St, Miami, FL 33137
Dates: December 4-10
JAYARAM: MAKING MIAMI
Jayaram Law is pleased to announce Making Miami, a public art exhibition, book, and permanent digital archive presenting work by extraordinary Miami artists who lived and worked in the city between 1996-2012. The exhibition will feature work from nearly 50 artists throughout four specifically curated indoor galleries that are connected by a courtyard Sculpture Garden, and accompanied by dynamic on-site programming. Capturing the essence of the Miami Beach art scene from the early 2000s, this cultural event is a love letter to the dawn of Miami’s art scene. The gallery spaces are four of the most influential spaces that emerged in the Design District in the early 2000s, which continue to thrive and support artists today. The gallery spaces are connected by a Sculpture Garden curated by Katerina Llanes featuring works by Miami artists including a sculpture by artist Daniel Arsham’s Snarkitecture; a large-scale mural by street artist and painter Jan Stark; and a massive inflatable by FriendsWithYou. The Sculpture Garden will also showcase works by artists Loni Johnson, Naomi Fisher, Carlos Betancourt, Antonia Wright + Ruben Millares.
Location: 75 NE 39th St, Miami, FL 33137
Dates: December 6-26; Monday to Saturday, 11 am-8 pm; Sunday, 12-6 pm
LVMH “CULTURE HOUSE”
LVMH is proud to present Culture House, a 5-day experiential art gallery pop-up located in the Miami Design District. A vibrant showcase of profound narratives and exquisite craftsmanship, the diverse curation highlights a deliberate focus on artists of color, women, and those with disabilities. Where art, culture, and luxury converge, the LVMH Culture House is an immersive experience designed to amplify voices, build community, and foster meaningful networks. As a salon for dialogue, Culture House offers a series of curated conversations that facilitate important cultural discourse that champions all dimensions of diversity.
Location: 56 NE 40th St, Miami, FL 33137
Dates: December 6-10; 10 am-6 pm daily
SAMUEL ROSS BENCHES
MDD recently unveiled a permanent installation by British Artist and Designer Samuel Ross. Under the umbrella of his industrial design studio SR_A, three different bench designs are placed throughout the dynamic landscape of MDD’s public spaces and pedestrian walkways, each a testament to Ross’ profound exploration of functionality and service in communal areas. Displaying anamorphic, chalk forms made of CNC Steel with a powder coating, the sculptures are made specifically for MDD.
Location: Miami Design District
DESIGN COMMISSION 2023 “UTOPIA” BY LARA BOHINC
MDD has awarded designer Lara Bohinc the 2023 Miami Design District Annual Design Commission. ‘Utopia’ spans four installations featuring irregular, bulbous forms reminiscent of growing cellular organisms. The sculptures are suggestive of living objects, mushrooming across the district. Collectively, they imagine a city where nature thrives peacefully and in harmony with our human presence. Pieces include outdoor seating, tables, and oversized light sculptures, as well as a giant centerpiece egg-form, and 900 egg-shaped birdhouses dispersed throughout the trees. Bohinc’s pieces are made from cork and painted by hand in vibrant hues paying homage to Miami’s architectural color palette. Curated in collaboration with Design Miami/ Curatorial Lab, Utopia’s dynamic sculptures will also welcome visitors with a special installation at the entrance of the Design Miami/ fair.
Location: Miami Design District
Dates: November 2023 – March 2024
CRAIG ROBINS COLLECTION “A TRAIN OF THOUGHTS”
The Craig Robins Collection in Miami comprises over 1,300 pieces of contemporary art and innovative design and is exhibited within the Dacra headquarters in the Miami Design District. This year’s rehanging of the collection is titled “A Train of Thoughts”, focusing on two core subgroups of the collection’s holdings: figuration and conceptualism. The exhibition highlights a collecting history that has favored a taste for the abject and hyperbolic figurative image, in tandem with the self-reflexive, institutional critique of art based on ideas– a seemingly incompatible pair that yields unexpected dialogues.
Location: DACRA Headquarters, 3841 NE 2nd Ave., Miami, FL 33137
Dates: December 6-8
GAGOSIAN & JEFFREY DEITCH PRESENT ‘FORMS’
Forms will be the eighth annual group exhibition presented jointly by Jeffrey Deitch and Gagosian during Miami Art Week and on view in the city’s Design District. The dominant narrative of modern art has largely focused on stylistic shifts between binary oppositions: from figuration to abstraction and back again. Playing on this history, the works included in Forms highlight, acknowledge, and challenge the pathway between abstraction and figuration with surrogates for and references to the representational world.
Location: 35 NE 40th St., Miami, FL 33137
Dates: December 5 – 10
ERICK & ELLIOT JIMENEZ: RECLINING MERMAID
‘Reclining Mermaid’ is a site-specific billboard by Elliot & Erick Jiménez, first-generation Cuban American twin photo duo. The work is a portrait of Yemaya, the deity syncretized with our Lady of Regla in Cuba, and ruler of the seas — her shimmering dress resembling the refraction of the ocean’s surface. The figure is mostly obscured with the exception of her eyes; a customary feature within Elliot & Erick’s artwork, the eyes remaining present in the image serve as posterity to the history of Cuba’s colonialism and blending of Spanish and West African traditions. Reclining Mermaid is part of “Southern Histories”, a series of large-scale works at culturally significant sites to commemorate under-recognized historical narratives connected to Miami’s roots in the American South, Latin America, and the Caribbean. This public work underscores the history of migration from the Caribbean and Latin America to Miami and the myriad ways in which these cultures transformed the city’s urban fabric over the decades. Produced in collaboration with Spinello Projects and commissioned by Fringe Projects with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Location: Corner of NE 2nd Ave. & 40 St., Miami, FL 33137
— WHERE TO DINE —
LA MÁRTOLA
OPENING JANUARY 2024
Debuting in January 2024 in the Buena Vista neighborhood, La Màrtola draws inspiration from the culinary treasures of the Riviera of Italy, France, and Spain. Founded by esteemed partners, internationally recognized La Filiale owned by Martino de Rosa and celebrity chef Franco Pepe, alongside food and beverage impresario Paolo Domeneghetti, La Màrtola’s menu is characterized by simplicity and anchored by the highest quality local ingredients combined with delicacies imported from the coastal regions of the “old world.” Dishes feature a variety of new and classic favorites including an array of Neapolitan pizzas by La Filiale which will be made using a Stefano Ferrara wood-fired pizza oven, as well as a variety of wood-fired and grilled farm-raised meats, local fish, and locally grown vegetables, prepared in the restaurant’s custom-made wood grill by Grillworks. The space is inspired by the charm of Adriatic coastal towns and features custom-made ceramic artworks by Greek artist Daphne Leon.
Location: 4702 NE 2nd Ave, Miami, FL 33137
CARBONE MIAMI
Founded by Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi, and Jeff Zalaznick, Carbone is one of the most celebrated Italian restaurants of the last decade. CARBONE draws on the great tradition of the midcentury, New York-style Italian restaurant, balancing modern ideas with a reverence for the past to create an experience that’s both familiar and thrilling. The original Carbone opened in 2012 in the heart of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. Carbone has since opened locations in Hong Kong, Las Vegas, Miami Beach, Dallas, Doha, and, most recently, Riyadh.
Website: https://www.carbonemiami.com/
Location: 49 Collins Ave, Miami Beach, FL 33139
ZZ’S CLUB
Located in the heart of the Miami Design District, ZZ’s Club is a two-story Japanese restaurant and membership club, helmed by critically acclaimed global restaurant company, Major Food Group (MFG). Within the heart of the first-floor dining area lies two dining rooms, a new sports bar, a lush outdoor courtyard, and a 14-seat marble sushi counter, where guests can indulge in a curated omakase sushi experience, with fresh seafood sourced from Tokyo and a large selection of Wagyu and Kobe beef. Upstairs, a second level of uninhibited decadence boasts exclusive amenities with an outdoor cigar lounge, backgammon terrace, and subterranean cocktail bar, featuring curated cocktails by longtime MFG master mixologist, Thomas Waugh. A true architectural wonder, opulently designed by the renowned Ken Fulk, ZZ’s Club reflects a playful yet glamorous environment, offering the highest caliber of cuisine, personalized hospitality, and unmatched amenities, all under one roof.
Website: https://zzsclub.com/
Location: 151 NE 41st St Suite 117, Miami, FL 33137
CONTESSA MIAMI
Inspired by the old-world sophistication of Northern Italy’s iconic villas and estates, Contessa is a classic yet thoroughly contemporary dining destination by MFG Co-Founders Mario Carbone, Jeff Zalaznick, and Rich Torrisi. This statement-making concept nods to centuries of Italian tradition and cuisine. Contessa is a two-story crown jewel situated at the intersection of art, culture & fashion, and presents an intoxicatingly elegant ambience. Authentic to Northern Italian fare, the menu offers the finest meats, antipasti, signature pizzas–a first for Major Food Group–and an extensive in-house gelato program.
Website: https://contessaristorante.com/miami/
Location: 111 NE 4st St.Miami, FL 33137
SADELLE’S AT KITH MIAMI DESIGN DISTRICT
Major Food Group and Kith have partnered once again for the first-ever U.S. – based outpost of Kith for Sadelle’s in Miami Design District. Sadelle’s, Major Food Group’s enduringly popular all-day dining institution that originated in New York, is situated on the second floor of Kith’s new Miami Design District flagship. Kith for Sadelle’s Miami offers the restaurant’s signature menu items including its infamous brunch. Guests can look forward to Sadelle’s classics: bagels, sliced-to-order House Salmon, chopped salads, and world-famous French Toast and Blueberry Pancakes; but it also offers a variety of exclusive specialty breakfast sandwiches that pay homage to popular NYC ‘deli-style’ sandwiches culture. The sandwich menu is available only at the bar counter. Other notable menu highlights include a variety of cocktails, wine and beer, coffee, and more.
Website: https://www.sadelles.com/location/kith-miami-design-district/
Location: 69 NE 41st St, Miami, FL 33137
SADELLE’S COCONUT GROVE
The enduringly popular New York institution, Sadelle’s is situated at the coveted intersection of Tigertail and Mary Streets, in the heart of Coconut Grove. With ample outdoor space surrounded by lush greenery, the Coconut Grove outpost is one of Miami’s best indoor-outdoor brunch spots, equipped with show-stopping bagel towers, meticulously chopped salads, sliced-to-order salmon, triple-decker sandwiches, and lively, refined style of all-day dining the brand is famous for. The concept, which first opened in downtown Manhattan in 2016, is a lifestyle as much as a restaurant: a breakfast-centric haven, power-lunch hotspot, and energetic dinner destination all in one.
Website: https://www.sadelles.com/location/coconut-grove/
Location: 3321 Mary St, Miami, FL 33133
DIRTY FRENCH STEAKHOUSE
Major Food Group’s Dirty French Steakhouse has brought the finest meat and fish, sourced from the world’s most esteemed purveyors, with French influences and an irresistible flair for bold flavors to Brickell. Dirty French Steakhouse offers abundant raw bar selections, elegant seafood entrées, indulgent aged steaks, and an array of amazing sides—all executed to perfection. Its opulent, playfully irreverent, and entirely transportive space consists of numerous dining rooms, each boasting its own dazzling aesthetic.
Website: https://www.dirtyfrench.com/location/dirty-french-steakhouse/
Location: 1200 Brickell Ave, Miami, FL 33131
HASALON MIAMI
Website: https://www.hasalonmiami.com/
Location: 404 Washington Ave, Miami, FL 33139
PURA VIDA
Pura Vida is South Florida’s iconic all-day cafe founded by husband-wife team, Omer and Jennifer Horev. The health-focused eatery provides an extensive menu featuring a range of fresh salads, wraps, bowls, raw, organic acai bowls, freshly squeezed juices, superfood smoothies, artisanal coffees, cold-press juices, and more. Since its inception in 2012, Pura Vida has evolved to include nineteen outposts throughout South Florida.
Website: https://www.puravidamiami.com/
Locations: South Beach, West Ave, Edgewater, Miami Design District, West Palm Beach, Aventura, Bay Harbor, Las Olas, Brickell, Sunset Harbour, Reserve Padel, Miracle Mile, South Miami, Doral, Miami Shores, West Boca, Wellington, Flamingo, and most recently 701 Brickell Ave.
MOTEK BRICKELL CITY CENTRE OPENING
MOTEK, the locally acclaimed and family-owned Mediterranean-inspired bistro is proud to announce the opening of their latest outpost: a 10,000 sq. ft. space at Brickell City Centre, West Block, 701 S Miami Ave 412A 4th Floor, Miami, FL 33131. Opening on November 28th and marking their fifth outpost, MOTEK Brickell City Centre will feature the brand’s first in-house bakery, a 255-seat indoor and outdoor dining area, a full 24-seat bar, and an all-new beverage program by locally acclaimed mixologist and recently appointed Beverage Director, Randy Perez. MOTEK’s menu includes ‘All Day Brunch,’ a variety of fresh daily-made Hummus options, an extensive selection of Cold and hot Mezzes, Salads, Kebabs, Homemade Flat-Pitas, Sandwiches, Burgers, and more, available daily for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and weekend brunch.
Website: https://motekcafe.com/
Locations: Downtown Miami, Aventura, Aventura Mall’s Treats Food Hall, Coral Gables, Brickell City Centre
