Art Basel Miami Beach opens to the public on Friday, Dec. 4, and closes Sunday, Dec. 6. The city's own art calendar starts this week. Beginning Thursday, Nov. 12, twelve Miami Beach hotels each show a new work by a mostly local artist. Those works stay up until Dec. 19, nearly two weeks after the Convention Center empties.
That is the shape of the season this year. The fair is getting smaller. The free program around it is spread across more of the city and lasts more than five weeks. Residents who skip the ticket line can still see most of it.
The hotels come first
The program is called No Vacancy, and 2026 is its seventh edition. The City of Miami Beach runs it with the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority. A jury picks artists from an open call, and each artist gets a $10,000 stipend to make a site-specific work for one hotel. The city's No Vacancy page lists $35,000 in prizes. That includes a $25,000 Juried Prize and a $10,000 Public Prize from the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau. The city's printed map labels the hotel exhibits free.
| Hotel | Artist | Work |
|---|---|---|
| Casa Faena | Kevin Arrow | The Magic Is You! |
| Balfour Hotel Miami Beach | Luján Candria | Living Archive |
| The Shelborne By Proper | Yanira Collado | Converging Timelines/Woven Silhouettes |
| Avalon Hotel | Morel Doucet | To Bloom Under the Midnight Stars |
| The Royal Palm South Beach Miami | Diana Eusebio | Home, Safe |
| Sherry Frontenac OceanFront Resort | Gonzalo Hernández | AMERICA |
| Hotel Croydon Miami Beach | Justin H. Long | Abyssal Wunderkammer |
| Eden Roc Miami Beach | Emmett Moore | Riviera |
| Kimpton Surfcomber Hotel | Alex Nuñez | You Cannot Step into the Same Ocean Twice |
| Marriott Stanton South Beach | Marlon Portales | Busco en El Monte Amparo |
| International Inn | Lulu Sanchez | Palm Court Ship: The Jury is Out at the International Inn |
| The Betsy Hotel | Ricardo E. Zulueta | RISING GLITCH LEVELS |
The calendar matters as much as the list. Two of the twelve hotels, Casa Faena and the Shelborne, are a short walk from the free installations at Faena and in Collins Park. But for most of the run, these hotels have the art to themselves. Between Nov. 12 and the Sunday after Thanksgiving, nothing else on the program competes for the same evenings. Between Dec. 7 and Dec. 19, the fair is gone and the hotels still have the work on view.
The weekend before the fair, Collins Park fills in
The next layer opens Sunday, Nov. 29, five days before the fair's first public day. Public Art Fund, working with The Bass, is installing Between Tides in Collins Park. It is six sculptural ping-pong tables you can actually play on, designed by Moko Fukuyama, Ilana Harris-Babou, Las Hermanas Iglesias, Carlos H. Matos, Amalia Pica and SUPERFLEX. Public Art Fund first commissioned the tables for Rockaway Beach in New York in summer 2026. A kiosk on site lends paddles and balls for free every day through Dec. 6. The Bass also lists a free Paddle in the Park Classic on Monday, Nov. 30, from 4 to 6 p.m., with a DJ and food vendors.
Across the park, The Bass at 2100 Collins Avenue will be open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day from Nov. 29 through Dec. 6. It also has three free morning talks with RSVP, all at 10:30 a.m.:
- Dec. 2: the artist duo Pedro y Juana, whose exhibition Aquí is on view at the museum
- Dec. 3: the architecture firm Johnston Marklee
- Dec. 4: Amalia Pica, whose solo show Lecturas Posibles opens alongside her table in the park
The talk on the morning of Dec. 4 starts before the fair's first public hour.
Up Collins, two free installations at Faena
Faena Art runs its program from Dec. 1 through Dec. 6, noon to 9 p.m., and all of it is free and open to the public. On Faena Beach, Christopher Joshua Benton's A Lore Supreme is a mirrored sphere 27 feet tall and 44 feet wide, with more than 7,000 facets that move in the wind. Speakers built into it play music and stories recorded in Miami's creative communities. In the Cathedral off the lobby of the Faena Miami Beach Hotel, Marinella Senatore's An Expanded Baroque Crown is a walk-in illuminated structure based on the festival crowns of Southern Italy. Programming with O, Miami runs inside it all week.
Taken together, the free program covers a lot of ground. It includes a park at 21st Street, a museum, a beach and a hotel cathedral at 32nd Street, plus twelve hotels spread across the city. None of it needs a fair ticket.
The fair chose a smaller footprint for 2026
Art Basel's 2026 exhibitor announcement lists 272 exhibitors from more than 40 countries and territories. The show will take up about 12% less floor space, and Galleries, its main sector, will have about 10% fewer exhibitors. The layout is organized around four hospitality plazas instead of five, and blue-chip galleries that used to be grouped together are spread across the floor. Bridget Finn, Director of Art Basel Miami Beach, explained the cut in that announcement:
"Our exhibitors have reinforced the value of a more focused environment, and the smaller footprint is a deliberate choice in service of that."
Inside the Convention Center at 1901 Convention Center Drive, the public days are Friday through Sunday, Dec. 4 to 6, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Dec. 2 and 3 are invitation-only preview days. Zero 10, Art Basel's program for digital art, returns as Generation. With 19 projects by artists including Jon Rafman, Refik Anadol and Sarah Meyohas, it is the largest Zero 10 presentation so far. South Florida galleries are well represented. Fredric Snitzer Gallery, David Castillo, Gavlak and Nina Johnson are back, and Spinello Projects moves up to the main Galleries sector.
The satellite fairs on the island are close together, and the city's 2026 Art Week map puts them in walking distance of one another:
- Design Miami, Pride Park, 1809 Meridian Avenue, with public hours starting Dec. 2
- Untitled Art, 1200 Ocean Drive, Dec. 2 to 6
- Aqua Art Miami, 1530 Collins Avenue, public hours Dec. 3 to 6
- INK Miami Art Fair, 1850 Collins Avenue, Dec. 2 to 6
- InScope, a new fair from the SCOPE team, at Ocean Drive and 8th Street, Dec. 1 to 6
- Art Gaysel at the Gaythering, 1409 Lincoln Road, Dec. 3 to 5, 5 p.m. to midnight
How the city is managing traffic that week
The city's Art Week transportation plan uses the same parks and garages residents already use, and it covers Nov. 30 through Dec. 6.
- The free water taxi runs every 7 to 9 minutes between Maurice Gibb Memorial Park, 1790 Purdy Avenue, and Venetian Marina & Yacht Club, 1635 North Bayshore Drive. Hours are 10 a.m. to midnight from Nov. 30 through Dec. 5 and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Dec. 6. The Sunset Harbour Garage at 1900 Bay Road serves the Purdy Avenue stop.
- Free shuttles run every 10 to 15 minutes during the same hours as the water taxi. One route links Purdy Avenue to the Convention Center. A South Beach route runs to Collins Avenue between 10th and 11th streets. A Mid Beach route stops at Collins and 22nd, 32nd and 46th streets and on Royal Palm Avenue between 41st and 42nd streets. A Design District route can use the inside shoulders of the Julia Tuttle Causeway.
- Park-and-ride pickups serve the 42 Street Garage, the 17 Street Garage, the Pennsylvania Avenue Garage, the City Hall Garage and the Sunset Harbour Garage.
- The Miami Beach Trolley runs more often from 8 a.m. to midnight, Wednesday, Dec. 2 through Saturday, Dec. 5. Outside those days it keeps its regular hours.
The same city page lists the friction points. Traffic is heaviest on weekday afternoons and builds toward the weekend. FDOT lane reductions near the Biscayne Boulevard off-ramp are expected to slow westbound traffic on the MacArthur Causeway. From Nov. 30 to Dec. 6, the East Venetian Causeway drawbridge will not open for boats between 3 and 9 p.m., except for emergencies. A citywide construction moratorium bans non-city road, sidewalk and lane closures in the city's right of way all week. Texting MBAlert to 888777 signs you up for the city's traffic alerts.
The water taxi lands at Purdy Avenue, about a 20 to 25 minute walk from the Convention Center. On foot, that is close enough to reach Collins Park without driving into the Convention Center traffic.
Sunday, Dec. 6, and the two weeks after
The fair's last public day is also the most generous free day on the calendar. The Bass holds its free Community Day on Dec. 6 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Collins Park tables and the Faena installations are up through that same date. On Monday, Dec. 7, the construction moratorium ends, the trolley returns to its normal schedule, and the twelve No Vacancy works stay on view through Dec. 19.
The Eden Roc, the Betsy and the International Inn will have new site-specific art on view for close to two weeks after the fair's last public day.
At Boschetti Realty Group, we pay close attention to how Miami Beach uses its public spaces during its biggest week. Those parks, lobbies and streets are part of the everyday experience of owning a home here. If you'd like to talk about a property on the island, Art Week or any other time of year, we would welcome the conversation. Work With Us.
