South Beach Redux

Chris and I spent a delightful afternoon exploring South Beach, a once-trendy place that has been supplanted by Wynwood in my cultural affections since moving to the Folly.  

The density of well-preserved Art Deco architecture remains unparalleled.

Chris was about to embark on a month-long trip to South America, including a cruise to Antarctica.  Ocean Drive has been closed off to vehicles and dozens of bars and restaurants have expanded their seating into the streets.  Spring break must be an absolute nightmare.

We took in "Jack Pierson:  The Miami Years" at the Bass Museum.  Most of the works were on loan from a California gallery.  IMHO, museums shouldn't be places where you can buy the art except in reproduction.  But I'm also a sucker for a guy as photogenic as British model John Todd.  Pierson shot him on Captiva Island in 2015 for the Spring/Summer 2015 issue of Vogues Hommes, which seems a more appropriate place for his work.

Inquiring minds want to know: would the Bass exhibit a straight guy's collages if pretty women were their dominant motif? 

"Array (Miami)" 2025

Not that there's anything wrong with photographing eye candy, but what exactly makes it art?  

Some photos weren't even identified.

Pierson's other work, while diverting, was more half-baked than persuasive although it does suggest that self-confidence can sometimes be even more important than talent.

2023

"The Boat That I Row" (1995)

"Bedsprings" (partial, 2023)

"24 Hours (1-7)" (partial, 2025)

Museum slippers were required to enter "XI," an installation by assume vivid astro focus that took Art Basel Miami by storm in 2004 and landed at the Bass two decades later.

If Peter Max had been a Brazilian drag queen, his work might have looked a little like avaf's (lower case required!) whose mantra is "COLOR IS DEPTH, COLOR IS ENERGY."

The work, anchored by 93 short videos, views queerness as much as a destabilizing force as a sexual orientation.

The Kaleidoscope:  Writing Histories Through The Collection offers a pretentious curatorial meditation on other artworks in the permanent collection

"2-C-19" by Robert Thiele (2007)

. . . including "The Nudist Museum" (2010-12) which consolidates all the naked people depicted by various artists. Ellen Harvey painted the images in oil, added thrift shop frames and then placed them against a backdrop of human flesh drawn from contemporary sources such as porn, fitness and fashion magazines.

Lucy, sculpted by Nam June Paik in 1992, shares a name with one of our earliest human ancestors, Australopithecus afarensis.  She's a lot more charming than artificial intelligence.

I neglected to identify this pearly work.

After waiting out a brief shower, we walked more than two miles along the beach where bathing gulls were more plentiful

. . . than tanning gays.

South Pointe Park Pier reopened in 2014, after being condemned for a decade.

It affords a good view of Miami Beach to the north.  One day in the not-too-distant future, I'll bet those high rises will only be useful as water depth markers.  Polymarket should start taking bets on when and how high.

With traffic backed up to get on the causeway that crosses Biscayne Bay ("where the Cuban gentleman sleep all day"), it took more than an hour to drive to Versailles,  just 12 miles away in Little Havana.

You can't beat the prices at "the world's most famous Cuban restaurant," that's for sure.  A substantial, tasty dinner for two with drinks and dessert, impeccably served, was just under $100.  And there's plenty of parking, always a plus.

We shared a ceviche appetizer.  My classic Mojito with a stalk of sugar cane went down very smoothly.

I liked the outdoor mosaics, too. 

More South Beach

South Beach Redux (2026)

Recreating the Pines Experience in January (2019)
FLASHBACK: Miami White Party (Thanksgiving 2003)
FLASHBACK: Alligator Alley (1996)

FLASHBACK: Bye Bye Kurt (1994)

FLASHBACK: France (1963)

My memory really kicks in around age nine.  And why wouldn't it?  Mary and I joined Ken in France shortly after he collided with a horse-drawn honey wagon and totaled his beloved Corvair. Even as a young child, I knew not to get him started on Ralph Nader.

Our arrival had been delayed by the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis, when military families were prohibited from going overseas.  In the meantime, Mary bought me a cocker spaniel we named Taffy and Ken found a used car and a rental home "on the economy."  

Taffy (El Paso, 1962)

My world went from brown and dry to green and rainy as quickly as it took to get from El Paso to Orleans.

Reunited (Orleans, 1962)

We were within walking distance of the Loire River.  Unlike the Rio Grande, it was always full of water.

An itinerant artist knocked on our door one morning.  In return for permission to harvest the snails in the garden, he offered to draw my likeness in colored pencil.  I recently had it reframed and put it on display in my bedroom at the Florida Folly.

American soldiers irreverently nicknamed two city statues: "Joanie on the Pony" (Jeanne d'Arc)

. . . and "Dotty on the Potty."

There were weekend trips to Paris, less than two hours north.  Mary was an avid Francophile.

We also visited the Palace of Versailles.

And Mont St. Michel made a big impression despite the dreary weather.

Ken promised a White Plains neighbor that he would find the grave of her son, William Shampnois, in the Brittany American Cemetery. He was killed two months after D-Day.

Mary's deteriorating health required a transfer to Germany, where the Army had superior medical facilities.  I didn't want to leave, especially when I learned that Taffy couldn't go with us.  Ken took me to feed the ducks one last time, something we did after visiting Mary in the hospital on a Sunday afternoon.