The weekend just before the onset of Art Week was a great time for leisurely art watching. On Friday, Constant Companion and I set out to find more of this year’s No Vacancy entries and to walk off the Thanksgiving feast. We got to all but the three. Along the way, we came upon lots of other art.

Driving southward toward the Art Deco District our first stop was the Kimpton Palomar Hotel. We were directed to the roof to see “Moving Interlude” by GeoVanna Gonzalez.*

*Editorial comment. I won’t excerpt the descriptions of artwork found on the No Vacancy website (https://www.mbartsandculture.org/no-vacancy/). I find here, in galleries, and many exhibitions that the rhetorical explanations of art does not coincide with what I see or conclude. For example, how does thes structure above “investigate the intersection of urban design, cultural values, and spatial justice.” In fact, what does this arrangement of words mean? Who assembled them, the artist or some art writer? Do the really represent the intention of the artist? Well, with that editorial comment, let’s continue on our Friday Art Week Prelude.

Next stop was the Avalon Hotel. One of the joyful moments when we return to past sites of  No Vacancy is seeing previous entries that are now part of the venues. This is true for Jessy Nite’s “In Your Eyes, I come Alive” perched along the roofline of the Avalon. I think few visitors know to look up to find this piece; I always do and smile.

Venezuelan artist, now living in Miami, Julia Zurilla’s work, “.. .- .– -..- (MIA WX),” line the hotel’s lobby. This multimedia project combines experimental videos and photographs, juxtaposing images from local past and present that explore nostalgia and contemporary environmental realities. 

Another visual pleasure in the Avalon was an unexpected 3-D painting by the late Scull sisters (https://secure.cernudaarte.com/artists/hermanas-scull/) two enigmatic Cuban-American painters whose works captured the life they left behind in Havana and in Miami Beach in this case.

Espanola Way, the historic Spanish Village, and several artworks was our next destination. Nice ‘n Easy’s work at the Esme Hotel and this year’s Elevating Espanola installation was our first stop.

In a recent renovation, the hotel owner’s reclaimed the back of house space behind the shops facing the pedestrian mall to create a Mediterranean paseo. Here, Miami artist collaborative Nice’n Easy installed “Soft Squeeze,” their site-specific artwork. This work captures the playful spirit of Miami Beach and illustrates how cultural artifacts and natural habitats can coexist and influence one another. Images representative of our vacation and natural habitats – flamingo, dolphin, alligator, sea tortoise, and ever present palm tree are intertwined together.

One of my favorite works by Nice’n Easy, Alison Matherly and Jeffrey Noble,  had been part of the Wynwood’s everchanging landscape. Their provocative murals reminiscent of scenes from Rear Window filled the windows of CUBE Wynwood, the first boutique office-over-retail building in district (https://arquitectonica.com/architecture/project/blockchain-com-building/) designed by Arquetectonica . On my most recent walking tour there I was disappointed to find them replaced by other images.

This is the fifth year that the City of Miami Beach presented Elevate Espanola, a site-specific installation over Espanola Way. Local artist Jen Stark brings to life this short stretch of Espanola with “Sundial Spectrum,” thirteen panels imbued with Stark’s signature bold colors. As sunlight shows through them, rainbow shadows fill the murals on the adjacent walls and the street.

Philip Lique’s “YOU ARE HERE” at the Royal Palm South Beach is labeled “an interactive installation that serves as an homage to the commonly seen wayfinding maps in public spaces.” The artist’s goal was to bring attention to the hotel’s floor and engage guests: all I saw them do was walk across not realizing it was an artwork.

As we returned to the car, I spied this image of Picasso by UniveralHumanity or French-Luxembourgish artist Thomas Iser. His project, UniversalHumanity, includes other personalities and artists like Pharrell Williams, Willem Dafoe, David Lachapelle, and Gigi Hadid. Iser’s art is widely inspired by graffiti. “Learn the rules like a pro; [so you can] break them like an artist,” Pablo Picasso

Two No Vacancy stops and more followed. “Florida Boys,” featuring the photograph “Spring “(2023–2024), the photographic work of Josh Aronson held sway over the Catalina Hotel’s lobby. The translucent fabric allows daylight to pass through the photograph of young men floating in a Florida spring.

Across the street we were drawn off-course to the SLS Hotel and their new “Truth Eye” mural by local street artist Mira that embraces the hotel entrance. The hotel concierge recommended that we go to the pool area to see Mira’s duck as well.

And there was a great surprise, the columns along the pool are covered by the work of Retna, an L.A. based graffiti writer. His work is characterized by an alphabet that he developed influenced by L.A. Chicano gang writing, calligraphic traditions from Egyptian to Mayan, and others. Retna’s distinctive 2006 mural in Wynwood is one of the largest in the district.

After our stop at the SLS, our No Vacancy quest continued next door at the Kimpton Surfcomber Hotel. There, Adler Guerrier’s “Untitled (objects, landscape, and things. At the still point of mottled formations and a scruple of compassion)” filled a corner of the lobby.

Our annual pursuit of No Vacancy artworks continued Saturday afternoon at the Hotel Croydon. First was a slight detour to see our friend Karen Starosta-Gilinsky’s installation. Karen is a multi-media artist whose playful work creatively and thoughtfully uses found objects.

Dennis Scholl‘s “Untitled (Dodecagon Drawing Grid), 2024” also at the Croydon uses the dodecagon or 12-sided figure as an organizing principle. The dodecagon is like the twelve hours on a clock, the twelve months in a year, and the twelve signs of the zodiac, all representative of the passage of time. Up to 100 unique dodecagon drawings are shown in the grid below.

Our final destination of the two days of No Vacancy and other previews was the Cadillac Hotel and Marielle Plaisir’s “Rhapsody for a Beloved World,” a color-drenched collage. Her work brings together separate elements such as images of lush foliage and vintage black and white photographs as well as elements of landscape paintings. 

Time and the ubiquitous Miami traffic prevented us from seeing the final and to be repetitive twelfth art work in No Vacancy 2024. Saturday’s traffic was further impacted by the huge number of visitors coming to see the Great Elephant Migration which has overtaken the nearby beach (see 24 November 2024 post).

Perhaps we’ll be able to seek out the last one after the hubbub of Art Week subsides. And now, Sunday for regaining our strength for all the week holds for us (and housework!) !