Buzzy KDR Gallery Celebrates Snow Birds in ‘Florida Room’ Show

Cici McMonigle, “New Shoes New Me,” 2024, acrylic on wood, is part of the KDR gallery exhibition “Florida Room No. 3: Snow Birds” through Aug. 14.  (Photo Courtesy of KDR Gallery)

A dance floor packed with sweating bodies, Robin Williams’ “The Birdcage” projected on the walls, plastic cups that change color from hot pink to purple – this was no ordinary art opening. For one sweltering night on Saturday, July 28, KDR in Allapattah transformed into Miami’s hottest club.

Drawn by the club music stylings of upcoming local DJ Berrakka, who deftly switched between hip-hop, Latin, pop, and other dance music edits, the stylish crowd lingered long past the opening’s stated wrap-up time of 10 p.m. – late for the gallery crowd (the collectors had all gone home by then) but quite early by Miami nightlife standards. Several of the attendees told me they’d never visited the gallery before.

Ryan Metke, “High Tide,” 2024. Enamel on fiberglass. (Photo Courtesy of KDR Gallery)

Inside the gallery, the art was just as unconventional. There was a fiberglass marlin emblazoned with a certain detergent logo (title: “High Tide”) and a gold-plated wasp nest, both by New Yorker Ryan Metke. Chinese-born Cici McMonigle painted a brown pelican wearing flame-print Converse shoes. An artist named Royal Jarmon depicted, with intentional crudeness, a White Ferrari (à la Don Johnson in “Miami Vice”) reflected against itself like a Photoshop effect.

Notice a theme? The name of the show is “Florida Room No. 3: Snow Birds.” It’s the latest in a series of art shows at KDR in which artists are chosen to make and submit art that reflects the unique culture of the Sunshine State. The first edition had focused on Miami artists, while the second used the Biscayne Bay as its theme; produced in collaboration with the Bridge Initiative, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group, the show raised funds to campaign to place the bay on the National Register of Historic Places.

Cynthia Talmadge, “Frank E. Campbell (Snow)”, 2018. Oil on linen, painted wooden frame. (Photo Courtesy of KDR Gallery)

This time, however, the gallery felt the need to shake things up. “Initially, the Florida Room show was kind of a way to have a summer group show,” says Katia David Rosenthal, KDR’s founder. “With this one, I had every intention of shifting the subject matter.”

They would look beyond Florida, inviting artists from out of state (the titular “Snow Birds,” reinterpreting the local pejorative for winter tourists) to send work based on their own interpretations of Florida culture. Some took the theme more literally than others – Ivorian-American artist Monsieur Zohore sent an ice sculpture of a pair of birds, complete with a mini freezer for storage, titled “Snowbirds” that he had on hand. Others focused on the state’s natural bounty: Metke’s marlin and beehive were joined by a lovely sculpture by the artist of a pelican diving, while Panamanian Isabel de Obaldía supplied a glass sculpture of an iguana.

Ryan Metke, “Anatomy of a Feather,” 2024. Polymer Gypsum, Steel. (Photo Courtesy of KDR Gallery)

Rosenthal and Smith got the idea for the show from a series of photos by Andy Sweet, whose images of the dwindling community of Jewish retirees on South Beach in the late 1970s was published recently under the name “Shtetl in the Sun: Andy Sweet’s South Beach 1977-1980.” A handful of photo prints by Sweet were included in the show, depicting sunbathers on the beach, a pair of overly tanned bronze bubbies with big hair, and other scenes.

“This collection of these images really sort of got my mind going about the way that Miami is constantly changing. It’s in flux all the time,” says Smith, who was raised in Florida but only recently returned to the state after living and working in New York. “I thought this idea of the snowbird was really something that has been around for a long time, but feels particularly important now, with this huge influx of mainly New Yorkers coming to Florida in the last four or five years during the pandemic.”

Royal Jarmon, “Vice White,” 2024. Acrylic on canvas. (Photo Courtesy of KDR Gallery)

KDR also came about as a result of the pandemic. Rosenthal had been working for the late Bill Brady at his eponymous gallery and needed an outlet of her own to stave off boredom as work slowed at her main job. She opened KDR305 in a room of her family home in the Shenandoah neighborhood. While she has since dropped the “305” from the brand and moved to the larger Allapattah space, which features a big courtyard perfect for parties, she still activates occasionally for small-scale art shows.

The gallery has quickly gained a name for itself with a roster of bold contemporary artists, including Alejandro Piñeiro Bello, Joel Gaitan, and Susan Kim Alvarez, among others. The gallery has been very successful at getting artists placed in museums, and its booths at NADA Miami have consistently gained attention from press. Earlier this year Miami New Times even declared KDR the Best Art Gallery in Miami. Amid all that buzz, Rosenthal has made sure KDR’s Floridian pride does not go unnoticed.

WHAT:  “Florida Room No. 3: Snow Birds”

 WHERE: KDR, 790 NW 22nd St., Miami

 WHEN: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, through Aug. 14.

 COST: Free

 INFORMATION: (305) 392-0416 or kdr305.com

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