By Coral Gables Gazette staff
The spotlight at this month’s Gables Gallery Night falls on two pioneering women whose artistic legacies stretch across Latin America. On Friday, September 5, the Coral Gables Museum opens Women Trailblazers: Olga Dueñas and Magaly Barnola-Otaola, a groundbreaking exhibition that will serve as the anchor for the city’s monthly evening of art, music, and community.
From 5 to 7 p.m., visitors can attend the grand opening of the exhibit, curated by art historian Dr. Carol Damian, and explore the practices of two artists whose work shaped the region’s contemporary visual language.
Olga Dueñas, a native of Ecuador, has spent more than 70 years at the forefront of kinetic and abstract art. Her explorations of light, movement, and geometry fuse modernist experimentation with a technological sensibility, placing her among the region’s most innovative voices. Magaly Barnola-Otaola, a Venezuelan artist with an extensive international career, brings to the museum drawings, mixed-media works, and illuminated installations that merge architecture, engineering, and the human figure into poetic visual narratives.
Together, their work forms a dialogue across generations and geographies, offering visitors the rare chance to consider how two women artists have advanced the conversation on form, material, and cultural memory in Latin America. A conversation led by Dr. Damian, along with live music from the Miami-based band Mama Fuma, will set the tone for the evening. The museum also hosts a cash bar with happy-hour specials, a mini artisan market, and after-hours access to its new centennial exhibition Blueprints for Beauty: 100 Years of Coral Gables Streetscapes.
Citywide night of art and music
Gables Gallery Night transforms the city’s cultural corridor on the first Friday of each month. From 6 to 10 p.m., galleries and cultural spaces open their doors, offering free admission, live performances, and refreshments. Visitors are encouraged to use the city’s trolleys or Freebee on-demand vehicles to move easily between stops.
The event’s appeal lies not only in the breadth of art on display but also in its atmosphere—a chance for neighbors, collectors, and visitors alike to stroll through the City Beautiful while engaging with its creative energy.
Cernuda Arte: Final viewings of exhibitions
On Ponce de Leon Boulevard, Cernuda Arte offers a final opportunity to view a series of five major exhibitions. A Surrealist Century surveys the contributions of artists such as Wifredo Lam and Jorge Camacho to a movement that blurred dream and reality. The Art of Today brings together contemporary voices like Carlos Alfonzo and José Bedia, while 25 Artworks from the 19th Century situates the region’s artistic heritage in a longer arc of cultural production.
The gallery also presents Agustín Fernández: Choices, a focused look at the work of one of Cuba’s most original modernists, alongside a burst of color in the paintings of Jorge Luis Santos. With its breadth of historical and contemporary works, Cernuda Arte provides an encyclopedic perspective on Cuban and Latin American art at a pivotal moment.
Tomás Carranza at The Americas Collection
At The Americas Collection, Salvadoran artist Tomás Carranza unveils Textures in Time, a new exhibition that continues his exploration of memory and material. Running from September 5 through October 31, the show invites viewers into landscapes without horizons, surfaces that suggest life as an unfinished process.
Building on his 2023 exhibition The Threads of Time, Carranza again uses color, fabric-like textures, and tactile layering to weave together themes of heritage, continuity, and personal reflection. During Gallery Night, visitors can meet the artist in person, enjoy live music, and sample complimentary refreshments.
Across the Mile and Aragon
The evening also includes a group exhibition at Pedrido Arte on Miracle Mile titled Antología, as well as offerings at H. Benitez Fine Art Gallery on Aragon Avenue. At 255 Alhambra Circle, photographer David Gary Lloyd presents a pop-up exhibition, Garden Shadows of the Sun, highlighting his sensitive eye for light and atmosphere in urban gardens and natural settings.
A night out in the City Beautiful
With exhibitions ranging from abstract geometry to surrealist canvases and contemporary photography, Gallery Night on September 5 offers a panoramic view of artistic practice across the Americas. Anchored by the Coral Gables Museum’s Women Trailblazers, the event underscores the city’s role as both a cultural crossroads and a stage for international dialogue.
For longtime residents and first-time visitors alike, the evening promises an immersive experience—art, music, conversation, and community—woven into the urban fabric of Coral Gables.
