16 Things Not to Miss During Design Miami and Art Basel This Year – Architectural Digest

Sterling Ruby at the ICA

Experimental American/Dutch artist Sterling Ruby works across many mediums to investigate a darker side of American culture. Taking over two floors of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (co-organized with the ICA/Boston), this exhibition—the largest Ruby survey to date—offers an in-depth look at his career over the last two decades, including early and rarely seen drawings and collages. The notion of craft is pervasive in Ruby’s works, which span numerous forms and materials. Ceramics, spray-painted canvases, fiberfill-stuffed figures, and towering urethane sculptures are all part of his oeuvre.

61 NE 41st Street; through February 2

Leandro Erlich’s Order of Importance

Spurred by the climate-change crisis, Argentinean conceptual artist Leandro Erlich illuminates the vexing traffic jam in Order of Importance. Commissioned by the City of Miami Beach, and curated by Miami arts maven Ximena Caminos, the installation recasts 66 life-size sculptures of cars and trucks in sand. Clustered along the beachfront at Lincoln Road, these “automobiles,” seemingly at a standstill, possess a poetic, haunting air.

South Beach at Lincoln Road; December 1–15

Jean-Charles de Castelbajac’s Emotional Puzzle Murals at Ralph Pucci

He designed clothes for Farrah Fawcett in Charlie’s Angels, integrated Kermit the Frog into a runway show, and has collaborated with the likes of Keith Haring and Robert Mapplethorpe. Over the decades, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, currently the artistic director at Benetton, has surprised with his zany creations. Some of the Moroccan-French designer’s archetypal prints will now take center stage at the Ralph Pucci showroom in Wynwood as jubilant, bright murals that wrap the façade of the old box factory.

343 NW 25th Street; opens December 3

Yayoi Kusama’s All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins

It’s been drawing in guests since October and will continue to do so through January, but it’s a sure bet that Yayoi Kusama’s signature Infinity Mirror Room, seen in Miami for the first time, will be one of the week’s most popular excursions. Presented by the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, this off-site exhibition starring black polka-dotted acrylic yellow gourds examines, in typical trippy Kusama fashion, the notions of reflection and repetition.

112 NE 41st Street, Suite 106; through January 31

Thom Browne’s Palm Tree I

Naturally, New York fashion designer Thom Browne’s first large-scale public artwork, a soaring 21-foot-tall palm tree, is created from a slew of elegant fabrics that evoke balmy American summers—gingham oxford, pincord, and yellow, green, and pink seersucker. Palm Tree I, which makes its debut at the Moore Building, is at first glance eye-catching tropical pop art. But on a deeper level, the installation, which weaves in a black mirror and sandpit, reflects on the blurred lines between work and vacation, paradise and performance.

191 NE 40th Street; opens December 5

Virgil Abloh’s Sculpture in Jade Alley

Last year, Virgil Abloh proved his talents are vast with the unveiling of “PAY PER VIEW,” his solo exhibition addressing the impact of media on society at the Kaikai Kiki Gallery in Tokyo. Now the artistic director of menswear at Louis Vuitton and founder of the Milan label Off-White, chosen as one of the artists for the Miami Design District’s public art program, revisits the topic. Abloh’s outdoor sculpture (a new iteration of one that was seen in Japan) in Jade Alley depicts a sinking Sunoco gas station sign and asks viewers to question the relationship between commerce and communication.

Paseo Ponti, Between NE 40th & 41st Streets