No Vacancy, Miami Beach

No Vacancy, Miami Beach returns from November 14 to December 12, transforming Miami Beach hotels into showcases of contemporary art. This annual juried competition, in its fifth year, brings together 12 local artists and collectives whose site-specific installations highlight Miami Beach’s hotels as destinations for cultural engagement. Each artist will receive $10,000 to create their work, with two artists awarded a combined total of $35,000 in prizes: a $10,000 public choice award and a $25,000 juried prize.

Here’s a look at the participating hotels and their exhibits:

• Avalon Hotel: Julia Zurilla’s multimedia project, "*-- .. .- .-- -..-* (MIA WX)," uses Morse code in visual form to address climate urgency through nostalgic and contemporary imagery.
• The Betsy Hotel: Artist [dNASAb] presents Faux Ecologies + Augmented Visions of the Micro-verse, an AI-assisted film depicting an intricate ecosystem of microplastics and microorganisms within a water droplet.
• Cadillac Hotel & Beach Club: Marielle Plaisir’s Rhapsody for a Beloved World reflects resilience, cultural connections, and inner worlds through colorful collages blending botanical elements and vintage photography.
• The Catalina Hotel & Beach Club: Joshua Aronson’s Florida Boys installation captures a serene moment in a Florida spring, engaging with themes of masculinity and unity through translucent, light-shifting fabric.
• Esmé Miami Beach: The collaborative Nice’n Easy presents Soft Squeeze, a playful work merging natural and cultural shapes to reflect Miami’s environmental and cultural fluidity.
• Faena Hotel: Magnus Sodamin’s Reflections of our Environment combines vibrant gestures inspired by nature’s beauty, reflecting on global environmental narratives.
• Hotel Croydon: Dennis Scholl’s Untitled (Dodecagon Drawing Grid), 2024 uses a twelve-sided dodecagon to explore the passage of time through meticulously arranged drawings.
• Kimpton Surfcomber: Adler Guerrier’s Untitled (objects, landscape, and things) creates a network of abstract and botanical imagery, exploring public space and shared experiences.
• Kimpton Palomar Hotel: GeoVanna Gonzalez’s Moving Interlude considers how urban design can influence social behavior and restrict movement, inspired by Henri Lefebvre’s theories on spatial justice.
• Royal Palm South Beach: Philip Lique’s YOU ARE HERE reimagines the hotel lobby as an interactive map, inviting guests to engage with their surroundings on a larger spatial scale.
• Sherry Frontenac Hotel: Patricia Cooke’s Anodyne pays homage to South Florida’s mangroves, recreating their intricate root systems in calming pastel quilts that celebrate the landscape’s healing power.

This program, funded by the City of Miami Beach Cultural Arts Council, the Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority, and the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, invites art lovers to experience Miami Beach’s iconic hotels through a unique lens of cultural exploration.