Account Login
Exhibitions at the Library
Art Services & Exhibitions Division
About
The Library System has a long history of cultural and educational exhibitions, and makes a special call to artists on a rolling basis for temporary exhibitions that correspond to selected annual themes and/or that highlight the library’s permanent art collection and services.
Additionally, the Vasari Project is an archive that documents the development of the visual arts in Miami‑Dade County since 1945.
For more information about the art collection, exhibition programs, call 305‑375‑5599 or e‑mail art@mdpls.org.
Art at the Library
Permanent Art Collection
A collection of over 7,000 works with focus on African American, Latino, and Miami artists. The Vasari Project
Dedicated to documenting, collecting and preserving Miami‑Dade County's art history from 1945 to the present. Virtual Art Exhibitions
Virtual exhibitions highlighting works from the library's art collection. Each exhibit features high-resolution scans of the artwork and is searchable.
A collection of over 7,000 works with focus on African American, Latino, and Miami artists. The Vasari Project
Dedicated to documenting, collecting and preserving Miami‑Dade County's art history from 1945 to the present. Virtual Art Exhibitions
Virtual exhibitions highlighting works from the library's art collection. Each exhibit features high-resolution scans of the artwork and is searchable.
A Visual Narrative
Miami-Dade Public Library System's Permanent Art Collection and Exhibitions
A Closer Look at the Artwork of Emilio Sanchez
Library Artist-in-Residence Program
Interview with Jacob Brillhart, Rocco Ceo, Victor Deupi
Library Exhibitions
Pedestrian 1985 & 2015
Street Photography In Downtown with Liam Crotty and David Spitzer
Exhibitions & Programs
Miami Stories on Screen
"Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado"
Saturday, October 24 • 1 p.m.
Join us for a screening of Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado, a celebration of the life of renowned and iconic Latin American astrologist. The screening will be followed by a live Q&A and conversation with Kareem Tabsch.
The Miami-Dade Public Library System, in partnership with acclaimed fi lmmaker Kareem Tabsch, proudly presents Miami Stories on Screen — a traveling fi lm and conversation series celebrating the soul, style and evolving identity of Miami through documentary storytelling.
Beyond the Rectangle: An Artist's Book as Vessel
By Marilyn Valiente, Curated by Shirley Moreira
October 23 – December 10, 2026
Opening Reception
Saturday, November 7, 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.
For centuries, the book has been a space for preserving, organizing, and transmitting knowledge. The artist’s book emerges from this tradition while transforming its codes: it no longer simply contains a work, but becomes the work itself. Page, image, texture, gesture, fold, emptiness, and material structure participate equally in the construction of meaning, turning reading into an act of looking, touching, navigating, and discovering.
Beyond the Rectangle: An Artist's Book as Vessel creates a dialogue between the familiar book as a repository of knowledge and the artist’s book as a perceptual and conceptual experience. In Marilyn Valiente’s practice, this expanded form becomes a territory for exploring memory, identity, belonging, and the fragile ways in which personal and family histories are preserved and reconstructed.
The Magic of Miami Beach
By Lea Nickless
August 7 – November 5, 2026
Before celebrities, nightclubs, and luxury resorts, Miami Beach was a shifting world of mangroves, coral, water, and extraordinary biodiversity. On this narrow barrier island, sand and limestone formed a dynamic ecosystem that would later be transformed through the labor of countless workers whose names rarely appear in official histories. The works in this exhibition invite visitors to look beneath Miami Beach's familiar surface and reconsider the forces that shaped it. Here, the island's enduring magic is found not in the mythology of tourism, but in the convergence of geology, ecology, labor, memory, and imagination.
Less is More
By Atomik
July 24 – October 1, 2026
For nearly fifteen years, Miami artist ATOMIK focused on painting and refining his graffiti tag, embracing repetition as a means of creative growth. In 2008, following the demolition of the Orange Bowl, his attention shifted to the smiling orange character that has since become one of Miami's most recognizable artistic icons.
What began as a tribute to a beloved local landmark evolved into a personal symbol representing the artist's connection to his city, community, and creative practice. Through subtle variations in color, scale, composition, and expression, ATOMIK continually reinvents the same familiar image, demonstrating how simplicity can generate endless possibilities. Repetition promotes growth. Simplicity is sophistication. Less is more.
Art as a Compass Through Alzheimer's
Presented by Fundación Artistas Unidos
July 10 – September 24, 2026
Art as a Compass through Alzheimer's explores the progression of Alzheimer’s disease through a series of paintings created over time, revealing how artistic expression endured even as memory began to fade.
As perception shifted and time felt fractured, art evolved into more than just a creative endeavor — it became a refuge: a source of calm, focus, orientation, dignity, and connection. Through painting, moments of presence, communication, emotional recognition, and inner clarity continued to emerge, even as memory and language changed.
