Best Miami Exhibitions: Asif Hoque, Celia Vasquez Yui, The Reefline, and More
Exploring the city’s fantastical side through exhibitions that merge art, ecology, and childlike wonder.
By Victoria Pokovba
As Art Basel unfolds, galleries across Miami are presenting captivating exhibitions that celebrate the city’s natural world and surreal imagination. At Nina Johnson, “Acid Bath House” explores the collision of psychedelia and sensuality, leaving visitors spellbound. Over at Locust Projects, Tara Long transforms childhood dreams into reality with a whimsical corner shop of sweets and souvenirs—a place to wander aimlessly and feel like a cartoon character come to life. Meanwhile, The ReefLine invites exploration beneath the surface, an underwater sculpture park and living reef that doubles as both a museum for marine life and a sanctuary for biodiversity.
This curated list of exhibitions offers the perfect post–Art Basel escape—slower in pace, yet rich in wonder.
Nina Johnson
Little Haiti, Miami
Emmett Moore: “Neon Sun”
Nina Johnson presents “Neon Sun,” a solo exhibition by Miami-based artist and designer Emmett Moore. Installed in the Sculpture Garden, the show features new functional outdoor works—chairs, tables, lighting, and vessels—that merge design, architecture, and sculpture within a tropical vernacular. Cast from industrial remnants and natural textures, the pieces are finished in vivid neon pink, a color Moore calls “pure and primal—the color of flesh, flowers, and flamingos.” Balancing sensuality and satire, the works reflect on Miami’s layered landscape of beauty, construction, and ecological fragility. Faux coral lamps, aluminum I-beam seating, and 3D-printed shell forms transform waste into wonder, embodying Moore’s signature synthesis of material rigor, humor, and experimentation.
What we love: An immersive outdoor installation that celebrates Miami’s vibrant aesthetics while connecting us to nature, blending humor, beauty, and thoughtful design.
Emmett Moore at Nina Johnson
December 1, 2025–February 14, 2026
Dara Friedman: “Star People”
Nina Johnson presents “Star People,” a solo exhibition by Miami- and New York–based artist Dara Friedman. Known for her emotive approach to film and movement, Friedman expands her cinematic language into sculpture, installation, and photography, connecting the body to the cosmos. Drawing from Indigenous astronomy, Classical Chinese medicine, and the poetics of rock lyrics, the works explore “light bodies and vibration”—the interplay of shadow, feeling, and form. Highlights include Star People (Seven Sisters), a constellation of aluminum figures and gongs inspired by the Pleiades, and Neptune Rising, a gleaming brass sculpture condensing sound and gesture. In Star People, Friedman transforms the Upstairs Gallery into a meditative space where light and darkness, cosmos and body, pulse in harmony.
What we love: The Upstairs Gallery is a perfect space for reflection, inviting us to connect with the cosmos, a reminder of the night sky’s quiet majesty.
Dara Friedman at Nina Johnson
December 1, 2025–February 14, 2026
“Acid Bath House”
Nina Johnson presents “Acid Bath House,” a kaleidoscopic group exhibition curated by writer and critic Jarrett Earnest. Against the backdrop of rising authoritarianism, the show conjures a space of erotic liberation and ecstatic color—a “glittering orgy,” as Earnest describes it, where psychedelia and sensuality collide. Featuring over sixty works by twenty-five artists, including Steven Arnold, Sadao Hasegawa, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Anna Betbeze, Reuben Paterson, Juliana Huxtable, and Carrie Yamaoka, the exhibition fuses archival queer icons with contemporary voices. Velvet, glitter, pearls, and holograms meet in a maximalist tableau that celebrates desire, resistance, and radical imagination. On view in the Front Gallery, “Acid Bath House” transforms Nina Johnson into a sanctuary of color, body, and transcendence.
What we love:Watching how different artists interpret psychedelia, Reuben Paterson reaches for the cosmos, while Dean Sameshima reflects on human-made structures through his silkscreen and painting compositions.
“Acid Bath House” at Nina Johnson
December 1, 2025–February 14, 2026
