A Books & Books employee will mount his first gallery exhibition, a Coral Gables gallery will mark the centennial of Cuban painter Gina Pellón, and photography from 17 countries will share the evening with live music and museum exhibitions when Gallery Night returns Friday.
The monthly Coral Gables event runs from 6 to 10 p.m., bringing galleries, cultural institutions and other venues into a loose circuit through downtown and along Ponce de Leon Boulevard. Most participating venues offer free admission, and several add wine, music or artist receptions to their regular exhibitions.
The city encourages visitors to use the Coral Gables trolley or Freebee’s on-demand vehicles to travel among stops rather than moving cars from venue to venue.
Much of Friday’s activity is concentrated around Aragon Avenue, Giralda Avenue and Miracle Mile, where several exhibitions offer distinctly different entry points into the evening.
A first gallery show at Books & Books
At Books & Books, 265 Aragon Ave., Brian Sippin will open The Writhing Unknown and Other Abstractions, a month-long exhibition of curving, abstract compositions that use color and form to explore subjects including love, mental health and other experiences difficult to represent literally.
The exhibition also marks a first for Sippin.
He works as a line cook in the Books & Books café and regularly performs at the store’s monthly poetry open mic. Friday’s opening will be his first gallery exhibition, giving the bookstore’s Gallery Night offering a connection not just to a local artist but to someone already part of the Books & Books community.
A few doors away, H. Benitez Fine Art Gallery, 233 Aragon Ave., will unveil US Paradise, a new large-scale work by Cuban American artist Humberto Benitez.
The piece uses sepia pigments and natural textures on raw canvas, continuing an approach Benitez has developed in earlier work. The gallery also plans to offer a limited-edition reproduction alongside the original.
At Garcia Art Gallery, 102 Giralda Ave., visitors will find complimentary wine and a giveaway of $100 lithographs during the evening.
On Miracle Mile, Leica Store Miami, 372 Miracle Mile, continues Wanderlust, a photography exhibition assembled from photographers who have participated in Leica workshops.
The exhibition includes work by 35 photographers made in 17 countries, with images from places including Japan, Norway, Patagonia, Namibia and the Faroe Islands. More than 150 additional submissions are being shown in a digital presentation.
The exhibition remains on view through September.
Music and exhibitions at the Coral Gables Museum
The Coral Gables Museum, 285 Aragon Ave., combines Gallery Night with an evening of free admission, exhibitions and live music.
Vocalist Gabriela Santos is scheduled to perform beginning at 5:45 p.m. Miami new-wave band GlassBlocs follows from 6 to 10 p.m. A cash bar will also be available.
Four exhibitions are on view inside the museum, including Many Voices, One Nation: En Nuestras Palabras, which examines Miami’s diasporic communities as part of a Smithsonian-affiliated project.
Also on view is Local Leadership, National Legacy: Coral Gables Mayors Across a Century, an exhibition looking at the city’s mayors and the role of local leadership during Coral Gables’ first 100 years.
Visitors can also see three sculptures installed permanently at the museum: Minna, by Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa; an untitled work by Ilse de Manzanares; and Rebuilding Motherland, by Beatriz Kohn.
The museum’s location near Books & Books and the other Aragon Avenue venues makes that stretch one of the easiest portions of Gallery Night to explore on foot.
Cuban art anchors the Ponce de Leon stops
Visitors who continue south along Ponce de Leon Boulevard will find two additional Gallery Night destinations.
At Cernuda Arte, 3155 Ponce de Leon Blvd., the gallery is celebrating the centennial of Cuban expressionist painter Gina Pellón, who was born in 1926.
More than 20 paintings, collages and works on paper by Pellón are on view, giving visitors a concentrated look at an artist associated with the generation of Cuban painters who built careers abroad after leaving the island.
Pellón spent much of her career in Paris and became known for expressionistic portraits and figures rendered with broad color and energetic brushwork.
Her work is being shown alongside Cernuda Arte’s broader inventory, which includes pieces by Cuban modernist Wifredo Lam and more than 200 works by 20th- and 21st-century Latin American and international artists.
Farther south, The Americas Collection, 4213 Ponce de Leon Blvd., will hold its first-Friday open house with complimentary drinks and live music.
Together, the Ponce de Leon galleries expand Friday’s circuit beyond the compact downtown cluster, giving visitors a choice between walking among several closely spaced Aragon and Miracle Mile stops or using the city’s transportation services to cover more of the Gallery Night route.
The result is an evening that ranges from an artist showing his work publicly for the first time to established Cuban and international names, with photography, sculpture and live performance in between.
If you go…
Coral Gables Gallery Night, Friday, Sept. 4, 6 to 10 p.m., at participating galleries and cultural venues throughout Coral Gables. Most venues offer free admission. Visitors can use the Coral Gables trolley and Freebee service to travel among stops.
