The Art of Thursday

From The End, Ragnar Kjartansson's five-channel video installation at MOCA in North Miami

Museum of Contemporary Art

Joan Lehman Building, 770 NE 125th Street, North Miami, 305-893-6211, Mocanomi.org

Ragnar Kjartansson: Song, the first solo U.S. museum exhibition of Icelandic artist and musician Ragnar Kjartansson, will include six videos that, according to the museum, “reflect an interest in music and theater and the personae of its performers, often coupled with extreme environments.” Videos will include Satan is Real, featuring a shirtless Kjartansson buried up to his waist in a public park, where he's strumming a guitar and singing “Satan is real/and he’s working for me” over and over again while children playing in the park stroll in and out of view in what MOCA bills as "a humorous mantra on the absurd and, more importantly, the ineffable joy of experiencing that absurdity with a welcoming, innocent audience."

Also included is The End, a five-channel video installation that "pits Kjartansson’s rock-musician bombast against the sublime landscape of the Canadian Rockies" is a work that "shows Kjartansson and his musical collaborator wrapped in winter coats and fur hats and dwarfed by the insurmountable mountains, playing warped Neil Young–like music on grand piano, banjo, and guitar" in what MOCA calls "a beautiful exaggeration of the clichéd rock ’n’ roll story, 'It’s you and me against the world.'”

The exhibition, curated by Dan Byers, associate curator is for Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, will will open 7-9 p.m. May 17 with a live performance by Kjartansson featuring his recent work, Du Holde Kunst (2012), and run through Sept 2, with an artist talk (free with museum admission) at 3 p.m. May 19. Opening night admission is $10 for non-members.

Sirenia Solaris is this month's Dr. Sketchy model.

Stage 84
9118 W. State Road 84, Davie, 954-474-5040, Stage84fl.com

Dr. Sketchy is a monthly evening of drinking, eating and drawing a model that poses for periods ranging from 5 to 20 minutes. This month's model is Sirenia Solaris, founder of Mermaids of Lunar Light and a certified Weeki Wachee "Siren of the Deep." She offers local classes for mermaids and is organizing broadened nationwide mermaid system.

Bring a sketch book, a hard drawing surface (if you have one) and your pencils, pens or crayons. No easels. Artistic skills are not a prerequisite. If you can doodle an image on a cocktail napkin, you will be welcome here. The next session runs 7-10 p.m. May 17. Tickets are $10 in advance (Drsketchysofla.com) or $12 at the door.

Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino
Grand Ballroom One
Seminole Way, Hollywood

15th Annual Cuisine For Art kicks off with cocktails and a silent auction from 6-7 p.m. May 17 and continues with dinner, entertainment, awards and a live auction..In conjunction with its fundraiser, the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood conducedt an online auction of hotel getaways, spa treatments, jewelry and more that continues at the May 17 event where former Miami Dolphin Jason Taylor will be honored for his contributions to South Florida and elected government officials and community leaders will serve guests. Tickets are $120 and can be purchased at Artandculturecenter.org/cuisine-for-art-2012.