Art Basel Miami Beach is open to the public for three days, Dec. 4 to 6, at the Miami Beach Convention Center. The free part of Art Week on the island started a week ago and runs until Dec. 19. Twelve hotels from South Beach to North Beach already have commissioned art installations in their public spaces. For eight days around the fair, Collins Park will have playable ping-pong-table sculptures. The Bass is opening its doors free on the fair's final Sunday. If you live here, Art Week is a 38-day season, and the fair is the shortest thing on the calendar.
No Vacancy opened Nov. 12 and stays through Dec. 19
The City of Miami Beach's No Vacancy, Miami Beach is in its seventh edition. This year 12 artists are showing site-specific works at 12 hotels from Nov. 12 through Dec. 19, 2026. The call to artists drew 228 applications, a record for the program. Each artist chosen receives a $10,000 honorarium to build the installation. The city's official map calls the hotel installations free art exhibits.
The program is run as a competition, which gives the 38 days some stakes. The Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau is presenting a $10,000 public prize, and a panel of art professionals will pick the winner of a separate $25,000 juried prize.
| Hotel | Artist | What's installed |
|---|---|---|
| Avalon Hotel | Morel Doucet | South Florida's tropical flora reimagined as a nocturnal meditation |
| Balfour Hotel Miami Beach | Luján Candria | Translucent photo-based textiles of native vegetation on the hotel windows |
| The Betsy Hotel | Ricardo E. Zulueta | Video installation mapped onto the glowing surface of The Betsy Orb |
| Casa Faena | Kevin Arrow | Immersive installation built from decades of 35mm collected around South Florida |
| Eden Roc Miami Beach | Emmett Moore | Knotted stainless steel exhaust pipe sculpture |
| Hotel Croydon Miami Beach | Justin H. Long | Fictional undersea relics in an Art Deco display cabinet |
| International Inn | Lulu Sanchez | Luminous sculptural arboretum of hand-built palms |
| Kimpton Surfcomber Hotel | Alex Nuñez | Printed palms and an iridescent portal |
| Marriott Stanton South Beach | Marlon Portales | Two monumental paintings set in an imagined Cuban landscape |
| The Royal Palm South Beach Miami | Diana Eusebio | Textiles, photography and natural dyes |
| The Shelborne by Proper | Yanira Collado | Layered installation of upcycled paper, wood and textiles |
| Sherry Frontenac OceanFront Resort | Gonzalo Hernández | Seven jacquard-woven banners spelling A-M-E-R-I-C-A |
The hotels stretch from the Stanton near the island's southern end to the Sherry Frontenac in North Beach, so it's easiest to see them a few at a time on errands and evenings out. The calendar matters most here. For the two and a half weeks before Art Week traffic arrives and the 13 days after it leaves, these lobbies hold the same work with far fewer visitors. The Betsy's orb and the Croydon's cabinet are the same on a quiet Tuesday in mid-December as they are on fair weekend.
Collins Park turns into a ping-pong park from Nov. 29 to Dec. 6
The second program to open is the most hands-on one. Public Art Fund's Between Tides sets up six artist-designed ping-pong tables in Collins Park as playable sculptures. The artists are Moko Fukuyama, Ilana Harris-Babou, Las Hermanas Iglesias, Carlos H. Matos, Amalia Pica and the collective SUPERFLEX. The tables were first commissioned for Beach 67 at Rockaway Beach in Queens, where they were on view from June 27 to Sept. 13, 2026. In Miami Beach they move off the sand and into an urban park, which Public Art Fund says invites visitors to play the game in unexpected ways. Gabriela López Dena, Public Art Fund's associate curator of public practice, curated the show, which is presented in association with The Bass.
The practical details:
- Kiosk hours: Sunday, Nov. 29 through Sunday, Dec. 6, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with paddles and balls to borrow.
- Off-hours play: Public Art Fund says to bring your own paddles and balls to play anytime.
- Run: The Collins Park presentation ends Dec. 6, the last day of the fair.
The tables get their biggest afternoon on Monday, Nov. 30. From 4 to 6 p.m., Public Art Fund and The Bass are hosting the Paddle in the Park Classic, with artists, museum directors, curators, gallerists and collectors playing matches on the sculptures. Visitors of all ages and skill levels can join in, and there will be a DJ and food vendors. The event is free and open to all. It falls on the Monday before the fair opens and before the enhanced trolley schedule begins. Of the high-profile Art Week events this year, it is one of the few you can reach without fair-week traffic.
The fair week, sorted by what costs nothing
The paid fairs and the free programs share the same six days, Dec. 1 through Dec. 6, and many of the free events are scheduled early in the morning or away from the Convention Center.
- Dec. 1 to 6, Faena District. Faena Art lists free public installations all week, including Christopher Joshua Benton's A Lore Supreme on Faena Beach, on view noon to 9 p.m., and Marinella Senatore's An Expanded Baroque Crown in Faena Cathedral, the hotel lobby. Kevin Arrow's No Vacancy installation is a short walk away at Casa Faena, so you can see all three on one Mid-Beach trip.
- Dec. 2, 3 and 4, The Bass. Bass Dialogues are complimentary with RSVP. Doors open at 10 a.m. and talks start at 10:30. Pedro y Juana speak on Dec. 2, Johnston Marklee and Tom Healy on Dec. 3, and Amalia Pica on Dec. 4. Pica also designed one of the Between Tides tables just outside, so on Dec. 4 you can hear the artist speak at 10:30 and play her table that afternoon.
- Dec. 2 to 6, on the sand. Untitled Art sets up at Ocean Drive and 12th Street, with a VIP and press preview on Dec. 1. InScope, a new beachside fair from the team behind SCOPE, is at Ocean Drive and 8th Street, with gallery hours of 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily from Dec. 2 to 6.
- Dec. 4 to 6, Miami Beach Convention Center. Art Basel's public days run 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., after invitation-only days on Dec. 2 and 3.
- Dec. 6, The Bass. Free Community Day opens the museum at no charge from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It's also the final day of the ping-pong kiosk next door.
After Dec. 6, the hotel installations are still up for 13 more days.
When a ticket is worth it, residents pay less
Two of the paid fairs have resident pricing. Art Basel sells a reduced ticket for $68, good for one entry on Dec. 4, 5 or 6. It's available to Miami Beach residents with proof of residency, as well as to students, visitors 13 to 18, seniors and veterans. Entry starts at noon at the earliest, depending on the time slot you buy.
The fair you'd walk into this year is smaller than in past years. Art Basel says the 2026 edition takes about 12% less floor space, has about 10% fewer exhibitors in its main Galleries sector, and has four hospitality plazas instead of five. The redesign spreads blue-chip galleries across the floor rather than grouping them in one area. There are 272 exhibitors in all, and more than 30 galleries are taking part for the first time.
InScope's resident pricing runs on a shorter clock. A one-day Miami Beach resident ticket is $35 at the early-bird rate, and the fair says early-bird pricing ends Nov. 20. If you're reading this on Thursday, Nov. 19, that's tomorrow.
Getting around your own city that week
The City of Miami Beach has posted its Art Week transportation plan, and most of it runs on the Nov. 30 to Dec. 6 schedule rather than the fair's three public days.
Water taxi. Free boats run every 7 to 9 minutes between Maurice Gibb Memorial Park at 1790 Purdy Avenue and the Venetian Marina & Yacht Club in Miami. Service runs 10 a.m. to midnight from Monday, Nov. 30 through Saturday, Dec. 5, and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 6.
Shuttles. Free dedicated shuttles run every 10 to 15 minutes, on the same hours as the water taxis. Routes connect the Convention Center with Collins Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets, with Mid-Beach stops at Collins and 22nd, 32nd and 46th Streets plus Royal Palm Avenue between 41st and 42nd Streets, and with the Miami Design District. City pickup points are next to the 42 Street Garage, the Sunset Harbour Garage, and the 17 Street, Pennsylvania Avenue and City Hall garages near the Convention Center.
Trolley. The free Miami Beach Trolley runs more often, from 8 a.m. to midnight, Wednesday, Dec. 2 through Saturday, Dec. 5, and keeps regular hours on the other days.
Roads and bridges. The city says traffic is usually heaviest on weekday afternoons and builds toward the weekend. FDOT lane reductions near the Biscayne Boulevard off-ramp in downtown Miami are expected to slow westbound traffic on the MacArthur Causeway. A citywide construction moratorium bans non-city road, sidewalk and lane closures all week. The East Venetian Causeway drawbridge will stay closed to boats from 3 to 9 p.m. daily, Nov. 30 through Dec. 6, except for emergency vessels and vessels in distress. To get the city's traffic alerts by text, send MBAlert to 888777.
Put together, the schedule allows for a morning Bass Dialogue, an afternoon at the Collins Park tables and a ride home on the trolley, all without paying for a ticket or moving the car.
If seeing Art Week from the inside has you thinking about where you live on the island, whether that's near Collins Park, Sunset Harbour or Mid-Beach, Gilman Group is happy to talk it through with you, from one neighbor to another. If you're curious what your home is worth this season, start with a free home valuation.
