MAD Arts

MAD Arts sits at 481 South Federal Highway in Dania Beach, in the same stretch of US-1 that has long been known locally as Antique Row. Where that block was once dominated by estate dealers and vintage furniture showrooms, MAD Arts opened here in 2020 inside a roughly 50,000 square foot building and turned it into what it calls an immersive art museum, built around digital technology and interactive installation work rather than paintings on a wall in the traditional sense.

The museum traces its roots back to 2016, when founder Marc Aptakin started a project called Bad Space, a warehouse that offered local artists free studio access. That effort grew into MAD Arts, now organized around more than twenty installations from artists working internationally in fields that blend art and technology. The facility includes a motion capture studio and 3D scanning technology used both in exhibitions and in artist collaborations, and it markets itself as a family friendly stop, with guided tours and behind the scenes tours available for groups of ten or more.

Outside the main exhibition building, MAD Arts runs an outdoor community space called YARD Bodega, which serves food and beverages during extended evening hours, giving visitors a place to sit down between gallery rooms. The venue also books private events and offers annual memberships in several tiers, from an individual membership up through a family plan and a higher priced champion tier, for visitors who want to return more than once.

As of the hours posted for the current schedule beginning September 2, MAD Arts is open Sunday and Monday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., closed on Tuesday, open Wednesday and Thursday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and open Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. General admission is listed at $24.99 per person for visitors 13 and older, with a reduced rate of $19.99 for Florida residents, children ages 3 to 12, families of four or more, groups of eight or more, seniors 65 and older, students, and active military, veterans, and healthcare workers. Standard guided tours run $17.99 per person and behind the scenes tours run $22.99 per person, both requiring advance booking for larger groups.

For a small coastal city, having a museum of this scale on its main commercial corridor is somewhat unusual, and MAD Arts has become a point of interest for visitors exploring Dania Beach’s design and antique district on foot. The museum can be reached by email at art@yeswearemad.com, and it maintains active accounts on Instagram and Facebook under the handle madarts_space, where it posts about current installations and upcoming events. No public phone line is listed on the museum’s own website, so anyone planning a visit around a specific need should confirm current hours and ticket availability directly through the website or social channels before arriving, since the museum has adjusted its schedule as recently as this fall.