Zoo Lights

This holiday season Zoo Miami is hosting a myriad of exciting and fun activities for the entire family. Guests can enjoy beautiful animal-shaped lights as they stroll zoo walkways during the 8 nights of Zoo Lights, have Dinner with Santa, and watch the animals open their specially-prepared gifts during Holiday Gifts for the Animals.

The zoo’s glorious grounds come to light for 8 brilliant nights during Zoo Lights, December 16 – 23 from 7 – 10 p.m. (ticket booths close at 9:30 p.m.). Guests can enjoy dozens of bright animal-shaped lights along our walkways, listen to wonderful holiday music, sip hot chocolate, “ice-skate”, and take a ride on a camel, the wildlife carousel or the hippo slide (the world’s largest inflatable slide).  Included with admission is a pair of 3D glasses, which will make the Zoo Lights experience even more engaging and amusing. General admission is only $5 per personvplus tax. Food, beverages, “iceskating”, camel rides, carousel and hippo slide are all available at additional costs.

Dinner with Santa will take place on December 17, from 7:30 – 9:30 p.m. Bring the kids to meet him before he has to rush back to the North Pole! Eat a delicious holiday dinner complete with roasted turkey and baked ham and enjoy Zoo Lights. Each child will receive a holiday plush and they’ll also get to make their own holiday ornaments!

Adults are $39.95 and children are $33.95. Zoo Members save $3 each. To make a reservation or for more details, please call 305-251-0400 and ask for Group Sales.

Another fun family activity is Holiday Gifts for the Animals! Every weekend in December, including Christmas Day, watch the animals joyfully open holiday gifts prepared by zookeepers and volunteers. The animals enjoy opening up their enriching gifts and you’ll be entertained watching them.

Zoo Miami is located at 12400 SW 152 Street, Miami, FL 33177. General zoo admission is $15.95/adult and $11.95/child (3 -12) plus tax. Children under three, Zoo members and parking are free. Zoo Lights and Dinner with Santa have separate admission prices. Save time – buy your tickets online at www.zoomiami. org. Zoo Miami’s regular hours are 9:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.; ticket booths close at 4:00 p.m.

Art Basel 2011

Art Basel Miami Beach 2011:

Celebrating the 10^th Edition

December 1-4

Miami Beach Convention Center

artbaselmiamibeach.com

Miami Beach will host the 10^th edition of Art Basel Miami Beach, sister event of Switzerland’s Art Basel and the most prestigious are show in the Americas.  Art Basel Miami Beach combines an international selection of over 260 top national and international galleries exhibiting 20^th and 21^st century artworks by over 2,000 artists.  An exciting program of special exhibitions, parties, crossover EVENTS featuring music, film, architecture and design will provide a vital source for art lovers, allowing them to both discover new developments in contemporary art and experience rare museum-caliber artworks.  Exhibition sites are located in the city’s beautiful Art Deco District, within walking distance of the beach and many hotels.

To mark its 10^th edition, Art Basel Miami Beach will inaugurate a new collaboration with the Bass Museum of Art on the Art Public sector, transforming Collins Park with unique artworks and performances by renowned artists and emerging talents.  For the first time, Art Video will be presented on the large-scale outdoor projection wall of the New World Center designed by frank Gehry.  The free public viewings will be part of a number of special events and performances taking place across Miami Beach for the duration of the show.

Rembrandt's Erotic Secrets

20 OF THE ARTIST ETCHINGS NEVER BEFORE SEEN TOGETHER

TO HIGHLIGHT ART BASEL SEASON, OPENING NOV. 29 FOR EXTENDED EXHIBIT THROUGH MARCH 31ST. AT NAOMI WILZIG'S WORLD EROTIC ART MUSEUM

In an extraordinary exhibit that will showcase what historians, curators and collectors have for centuries declared the iconic Dutch artist’s “dirty little secrets,” twenty etchings by Rembrandt van Rijn (1609-69) will be unveiled all together for the first time at a reception, Tuesday, November 29, at 8 P.M. at Naomi Wilzig’s World Erotic Art Museum.  Curated by The Baron of Fulwood & Dirleton and Naomi Wilzig, assisted by David Tamargo, the etchings will be on view at the museum’s new Rembrandt Gallery through Saturday, March 31, 2011. 

An Assemblage of the only existing erotic etchings illustrating Rembrandt’s masterful technique, the exhibit will offer a provocative new perspective on the artist deemed by many as “one of the greatest prophets of civilization.” Titles of the etching such as “Adam and Eve,” “A Man Making Water” (1631) and “Woman Sitting Half Dressed Besides a Stove” (1658), meld the earthly with the spiritual, and are among the nudes, biblical, and Greek mythological studies which will be on display in an exhibit anticipated to be among the most hard sought museum tickets of the season.

The World Erotic Art Museum is located at 1205 Washington Avenue and is open Monday through Thursday 11am-10pm.  Tickets are $15. No one under 18 admitted.  Further information is available by calling 305-532-9336, or www.weam.com

Charles' Corner: The Wolfsonian

Starting on November 25, 2011, the Wolfsonian/FIU at 1001 Washington Avenue on Miami Beach will offer an ‘opportunitè manifique’ to visit this venerable, local institution. This date kicks off ‘Liberty, Equality and Fraternity,’ an exhibition exploring French cultural identity through design produced from the mid-twentieth century to the present.

Before continuing on to the subject of the exhibition, I would like to suggest that just about

any time of the year is a great time to visit the collection created by Mitchell “Micky” Wolfson, Jr. and the institution that houses it. 

Wolfson started collecting in childhood. Young Wolfson’s keen eye for visual imagery fueled his passion until he totally dedicated himself to the assembly of his collection. As his collection grew, he would send everything to an ornate and impressive fortress called the Washington Storage Company at 1001 Washington Avenue. The “fortress” was an institution of a slowly disappearing era in Miami Beach history, the era when wealthy families would pack up their entire houses at the end of the “season” (usually around Easter) and head back north. The Washington Storage Company would send crews to the departing family’s home and empty them of their contents bringing everything to the storage facility. There, furnishings would be cleaned, repaired, serviced and stored until the family’s return the following season. Mr. Wolfson took fair advantage of this convenient facility and sent a growing stream of his purchases there. As the demographics of Miami Beach changed and fewer and fewer families stored their furnishings, Micky Wolfson’s collection began to take over. By the 1980’s, Wolfson was being encouraged to buy the building. Thus the Wolfsonian/FIU was born. 

The ‘Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’ exhibition runs from November 25, 2011 through March 26, 2012 and is organized by Wolfsonian/FIU from the collection of France’s Centre National des Arts Plastiques (National Center for Visual Arts or CNAP). The opening of the exhibition will coincide with the celebration of Art Basel Miami Beach/Design Miami 2011. The Wolfsonian/FIU took an entirely new approach to curating the exhibition by engaging in a dynamic dialogue with French designers and design historians who collaborated with the museum on the project: matali crasset, Michael Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak of M/M (Paris), and Alexandra Midal. Together they shaped a unique presentation of French design objects from the collection of the Centre National des Arts Pplastiques that express ideas about French national identity.”

Approximately 150 objects will be exhibited, including furniture, industrial design, and craft, created by some of the most celebrated French designers of the past and present, including Pierre Paulin, Roger Tallon, Philippe Starck, and the Bouroullec Brothers, as well as others lesser known in the United States. Presented in nine narrative clusters, the exhibition is displayed within a network of related, yet unique, settings, and joined by viewing rooms for related films. The nine sections focus attention on individual designers, such as Roger Tallon and Philippe Starck; on important episodes in French industrial design history, for example, the seminal work of the research and development division of Thomson electronics in the 1990s; and on the influence of les villes nouvelles (new towns) built during the 1960s and 1970s.

            

Art Masterpieces from Italy make their American Debut

At the Museum of Art

South Florida is the first in the nation to be amazed by an extraordinary exhibition - Offering of the Angels: Old Master Paintings and Tapestries from the Uffizi Gallery, November 19, 2011-Apri 8, 2012, at The Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, Nova Southeastern University. The Uffizi Gallery houses one of the world’s greatest Renaissance and Baroque art collections. Artists include Sandro Botticelli, Parmigianino, Alessandro Allori, Luca Giordano, and Lorenzo Monaco, among many others. The paintings and tapestries in the exhibition portray scenes from the Old Testament, including the Creation of Adam and the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, as well as various events from the life of Christ.

The exhibition is coming to the U.S. through the efforts and encouragement of the Amici degli Uffizi, which was established in 1993 by a group of concerned Florentine citizens following a terrorist bombing which damaged the Gallery and some of its priceless artworks. Museum of Art Executive Director Irvin Lippman says, “Offering of the Angels brings to south Florida a wealth of old master paintings and tapestries that are rarely, if ever, seen in this region. We welcome the generosity of the Uffizi Gallery in allowing these treasures to travel here. The exhibition’s impressive works of art reflect, in their fullest expression, the high points of artistic achievement of Western civilization.”

Among the exhibition’s stellar paintings is the vivid Madonna and Child (ca. 1466-67) by Sandro Botticelli (circa 1445-1510) which reveals the graceful spirit and sensitive lyricism for which the artist is best known. One of the earliest works is Lorenzo Monaco’s The Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John and Mary Magdalene (ca. 1395-1400), with its pious figures and stunning gilt background that are a hallmark of the Late Gothic style. Luca Giordano (1634-1705), a leading figure of the Late Baroque period in Italy, is represented by the moving Climb to Calvary (1685-1686), a large canvas that depicts an emotional encounter on Christ’s accent to his crucifixion. A featured work is the recently-restored Madonna with Child and Saint Catherine, a magnificent oil on canvas from the Workshop of Titian (ca. 1550).

For information and tickets, please call 954- 262.0221 or log on to www.moafl.org. Group rates are available. The Museum is home to AutoNation Academy of Art & Design, Books & Books and the Museum Café. Open Tuesdays-Saturdays, 11am- 6 pm with extended hours Thursdays until 8 pm. Sundays 12-5pm. Closed Mondays, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, and July 4th.

8th Annual AIWF BBQ Cook-Off at Flamingo Gardens

Sunday, November 6TH from 5:00pm to 8:00pm

PRESENTED BY THE SOUTH FLORIDA CHAPTER OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF WINE AND FOOD

Amid Flamingo Garden’s 60 acres of lush botanical gardens, six culinary schools from South Florida (Johnson & Wales University, Miami-Dade College Culinary Institute, Le Cordon Bleu, Florida International University, The Art Institute, and Lincoln Culinary Institute) will compete at this year’s Annual BBQ Cook-Off. At stake is the coveted Pig Trophy, awarded to the team that cooks up the “Best Ribs and Sides.” The schools will be judged by a professional panel of media, and local food & wine celebrities. Guests can also enjoy food samplings from area restaurants along with a variety of wine and beer amid the beautiful botanical setting of Flamingo Gardens. Sampling stations will be catered by Smitty’s Grille, Sparky’s Roadside BBQ, Chef George Catering, Susie’s Scrumptious Sweets and Whole Foods. A variety of wine and beer will be provided by International Wine Imports, Peachy Canyon Winery, Chronic Cellars, and Brown Distributing Co. for Fresh Beer and Renewal Water.

 If the food isn’t enough to keep you busy, live entertainment will be provided by The Charlie Steiner Trio and there will be a silent auction with a Big Green Egg BBQ donated by Culinary Concepts, along with several restaurant gift certificates, bottles of wine and more. See a touch of Old Florida in the historic Wray Home in Flamingo Gardens’ 60 acres of lush gardens showcasing rare, exotic and native plants. Tour the groves and the Wray Botanical Collection including 16 Champion Trees. The Wray House is the oldest residence in Broward west of University Drive. The Live Oaks surrounding the home are 150-200 years old and have an approximate life span of 500 years. Explore native wildlife in the Free-flight Aviary and Everglades Wildlife Sanctuary exhibits.

Prices are $40.00 in advance for AIWF and Flamingo Gardens members and students; $50.00 for all others and on the day of the event. Proceeds from the event raise money to support the AIWF’s culinary scholarships and signature Days of Taste programs and help sustain Flamingo Gardens. For reservations email assnmgmt@bellsouth. net or call 305-663-9641 or 954-396-3875. Flamingo Gardens Botanical Collections & Everglades Wildlife Sanctuary is located at 3750 South Flamingo Road in Davie 33330 (Flamingo Rd between Griffin & I-595). For further event information visit www. aiwf.org/south Florida or www.flamingogardens.org.

5th Annual Orchid, Exotic Plant Sale & Gourmet Food Festival at Bonnet House

This unique sale on the Bonnet House Grove has an exciting line up of over thirty orchid and exotic plant vendors. Flora fanatics have the opportunity to see and buy an exclusive selection of bamboo, butterfly garden plant and fruit trees, orchids, fruit and native vegetation seedlings, as well as plants directly from the Bonnet House property.

The two-day event will also feature plant accessories and supplies, garden art and a green market. There will be demonstrations and lectures for the whole family, a silent auction display, not to mention food and wine for guests. Newly added to the event this year are seven gourmet food trucks. Their offerings of edible bites for kids and adults alike are complemented by demonstrations from Whole Foods Market and Market 17. Chefs will give tips on caring for your garden and preparing healthy meals for the entire family. There is also a kids’ corner where Green Market owners will host children’s planting and gardening activities in the fruit grove.

The Bonnet House is located at 900 North Birch Road, Fort Lauderdale and is open for tours Tuesday- Saturday from 10am to 4pm and Sundays from 11am to 4pm. Tickets for this event are $5 for members and $7 for non-members for the fair and grounds. There is an additional fee of $10 for the self-guided tour through the house. Parking is free. For more information, visit www.bonnethouse.org.