Everything about the Artist Known as Wyland — from his singular name to his bio, which touts him as “artist of the sea” and “the most influential marine life artist of our time” — shouts BIG! USA Today once called him “a Marine Michelangelo,” the U.N. named him official artist…

After learning that the Coral Springs Museum of Art was hosting its third Clyde Butcher exhibition, I wondered what was left to say about the “Ansel Adams of the Everglades.” After all, it was only eight months ago that ArtServe served up a retrospective of the photographer’s four-decade career. And…

A word of warning: It is inadvisable to have a heavy lunch immediately before taking in an art exhibition featuring an abundance of food. Or at least, that was my experience when I visited “Naturaleza Muerta: Latin American Still Life from South Florida Collections,” now at the Boca Raton Museum…

About three years ago, the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood’s then-new curator, Samantha Salzinger, organized an exhilarating exhibition called “Fat Painting,” focusing on four contemporary heirs of abstract expressionism. The paintings, as the inspired title suggests, were big and bold, bursting with imagery. Now, Salzinger has put together a…

If you think furniture can’t or shouldn’t be thought of as art, a visit to E Coleccion might persuade you to reconsider. This latest addition to the southernmost reaches of Wilton Drive in Wilton Manors features nothing but handmade (hence one-of-a-kind) imports, and some of what you’ll find there is…

Late summer in South Florida is hardly the most hospitable time for art. Heat, humidity, and hurricanes conspire to keep people at home or perhaps in cool, dark theaters to take in Hollywood’s latest exercise in mindless mass entertainment. So those of us with a craving for culture have to…

“Beauty’s where you find it,” as that great pop philosopher Madonna observed in her dance classic “Vogue.” So, too, with art. And if that means venturing into a dance bar to find it, so be it. Visit the new Wilton Manors bar Circuit, for instance, and you’ll find the work…

Call it a noble experiment. Call it seeing how the other half lives. Call it a lesson in humility. Call it whatever you want, but when I was invited to share curatorial responsibilities for an art exhibition earlier this year, I jumped at the chance. The invitation came courtesy of…

Over the years, I’ve come to approach group exhibitions, especially juried group exhibitions, with a wary mixture of excitement and dread. On the one hand, there’s always the possibility that such a show will yield unexpected treasures — new artists just beginning to stake out their territory, more established artists…

What makes a Highwaymen painting a Highwaymen painting? That’s one of several questions posed by the provocative if prosaically titled “2005 Florida Highwaymen Exhibition” at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center in Fort Lauderdale. Like the Haitian art that preceded it, this show is full of art, some of…

As Rick and Ilsa moonily agreed at the end of Casablanca, “We’ll always have Paris.” The rest of us will as well, as long as there are exhibitions like “Brassaï’s Paris” and “Robert Doisneau’s Paris,” a pair of evocative photography shows running concurrently at the Boca Raton Museum of Art…

Sometimes art turns up in the most unexpected places. Take, for example, “Into the Light: A Group Showing.” This miniature exhibit of sorts — the word exhibition seems too grand — features works by a baker’s dozen photographers, and it’s on display at a photo lab in Oakland Park. A…

“A Salute to America,” now at ArtServe, is the aesthetic equivalent of a television ad for a Fourth of July sale. Imagine some hammy huckster — say, a used-car or furniture salesman — surrounded by balloons and other paraphernalia emblazoned with American flags as he bellows out his rapid-fire spiel…

There are teapots and there are teapots. There are the sleek stainless steel teapots designed for Italian manufacturer Alessi by architect Michael Graves and popularized by Target — teapots that are both beautiful and functional. Then there are porcelain teapots that inspire the devotion of collectors, ranging from classic British…

The best reason to visit Art Expressions right now is a small but powerful one-woman show, “Selene Vasquez: In No Strange Land.” About two dozen acrylic paintings by the Hollywood-based Vasquez take up nearly half of this tiny Fort Lauderdale gallery, which has been open in an easy-to-miss strip mall…

If Artbeat were handing out an award for Unsung Exhibition of the Season, it would surely go to “Painters of Cap Hatien: Haiti’s First 200 Years,” now at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center in Fort Lauderdale. This magnificent collection of more than 80 oil and acrylic paintings is…

What do you get when you cross the flora and fauna of Florida with a room full of paper? If the person doing the crossing is an artist, you might get something along the lines of “FLorigami: Folded Images of Florida’s Hidden Nature by Michael LaFosse,” now at the Morikami…

It’s so much easier to forgive someone for having a family fortune when the money is put to good use, as Artbeat discovered on a recent visit to the Rubell Family Collection. This contemporary collection is now world-class, although its origins are humble. About four decades ago, newlyweds Don and…

There’s nothing like a feisty group exhibition to usher in another long, hot South Florida summer, and so the “Hollywood All-Media Juried Biennial” is as welcome as a tall, tart glass of ice-cold lemonade. The competition was established just two years ago by the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood’s…

On a recent Sunday-afternoon visit to the Boca Raton Museum of Art, I discovered quite a few people competing for viewing space at “Seeing People: Paintings from the National Academy Museum,” an exhibition of 45 works from one of the oldest arts organizations in the country. It made for a…

When is an art exhibition not an art exhibition? Don’t look to Broward Community College for the answer. The school’s downtown Fort Lauderdale campus is currently displaying what may or may not fit the bill, depending on your specifications. The invitation to the opening of “Identity: Correspondences & Complexities” bills…

The spacious galleries of the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, recently home to the haunting inhabitants of “Louise Bourgeois: Stitches in Time,” have a new set of tenants. And like Bourgeois’ fabric-based sculptures, the creatures in “Anne Chu” are simultaneously alien and familiar, fascinating and repellent. Chu, who…