A look at some of the incredible art you can see at the fairs during Miami Art Week
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Miami Art Week is in full swing through Sunday and now that we have had a chance to visit several of the fairs, here are some of the works of art that we are most excited about.
Who’s the fairest of them all? You choose. Here’s where to find the Miami Art Week fairs
Art Basel
1901 Convention Center Dr., Miami Beach
Future shock?
German artist Cosima von Bonin created the shark sculpture, complete with a scud missile in fashionable black-and-white plaid. The missile is a direct hit into the open jaws of a great white that appears to be leaping from the frothy sea. At Petzel Gallery booth, C25.
German artist Cosima von Bonin’s “What If They Bark 07” at Art Basel.
Back to Back
Miami artist Reginal O’Neal has two monumental sculptures in this year’s fairs. This one, at Art Basel Miami Beach, has its back to the show floor -- a reference to the times when Black performers were hired to play on Miami Beach but not allowed to stay there. The other, at Hampton House, a Green Book hotel where performers stayed, shows a front-facing musician in all his glory. Meridians sector. (You might also see it some day at El Espacio 23 - local collector Jorge Perez reportedly bought it for the space.)
Go Lego
Legos may not be a classic artistic medium, but famed Chinese artist Ai WeiWei has taken to using them to recreate famous paintings with a technological reference. You’ll find two at the fair: a recreation of Emanuel Leutze’s “Washington Crossing the Delaware” at Neugerriemschneider (booth C42) and Venus, the goddess of love, sleeping along a mountainside (with a coat-hanger reference to Roe v. Wade) at Continua (C12).
Hometown Hero
The late Purvis Young was one of Miami’s original hometown art heroes. His genius was often undervalued during his lifetime; two decades ago, you could pick up paintings on reclaimed boards for a pittance on the Overtown sidewalk. No more. A rare painting melding themes of the Vietnam war with Cuba’s struggle for freedom is priced at $375,000. Boosting the value was a recent record auction price of $350,000 for an intricate crying saint painting. See it at the Hirschl & Adler booth, D26.
Preview of coming attractions
Brooklyn-based painter / sculptor Jeffrey Gibson will represent the U.S. in the 2024 Venice Biennale, the bi-annual equivalent of the World’s Fair for art. Even he doesn’t know exactly what the final installation will look like - “I won’t see the whole thing come together until it’s in place,” he said. You can get a look at his work at two of his works at the Skikkema Jenkins booth, A14.
At the delta
Frank Stella changed the face of art with his first black painting, “Delta.” The 1958 work created a new visual language that arguably led to the development of Color Field Painting (don’t miss the Color Field exhibition now at the NSU Art Museum) and Minimalism. Most of the black paintings already belong to museums and wealthy collectors; the 87-year-old artist has kept this one in his personal collection but is now offering it for sale. Not ready to drop $45 million for it? You can still take a look at the Yares gallery booth, A50.
Composition for Face and Hands (ASMR)
There is an incessant slapping sound echoed through the gallery space. It’s not a fight in the middle of Art Basel. It’s a video installation by British artist Oliver Beer. “Composition for Face and Hands (ASMR)“ shows two women, each featured on their own LED screen, repeatedly slap each other’s faces until their cheeks turn bright pink. They suddenly stop and just stare at each other in silence. Located in Meridians.
Fantasy World
A happy tune plays as visitors try their hand at “Fantasy World,” a functioning claw machine game and artwork by New York-based artist Anthony Akinbola. It’s on display at “The Poetics of Dimensions,” a collaboration with UBS and ARTNOIR. “Fantasy World” is all about the thrill of almost winning something. At a fair where guests are asked not to touch anything, ARTNOIR wanted to provide an interactive experience. Find it in Meridians.
ART MIAMI
1 Herald Plaza, Miami
Art of the Stars
It stands to reason that creativity would span more than one art form. You can see the results at Art Miami, where several different booths are showcasing the works of well-known actors including Pierce Brosnan (Markowicz, AM409), Johnny Depp (Chase Contemporary, AM 218) and Billy Zane (The Wall, AM314). As the still-handsome Brosnan explained at a Wednesday night talk, the same energy he uses to look inside himself to relate to James Bond and other film characters is imbued in the art he’s been making since his youth.
Additionally a painting by Spanish actor Jordi Molla (“Bad Boys II,” “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote”) will be on display Thursday only at 591 NW 29th Street; it is being auctioned to benefit the Perry J. Cohen Foundation online at 32auctions.com.
Design Miami\
Meridian Avenue and 19th Street, Miami Beach
Chairs for Human and Spirit Use
Maria Abramovic explores the relationship between the practical and the metaphysical with her Chairs for Human and Spirit Use. She created a large wooden chair for humans to sit and a smaller one for their spirit. The high-backed human chair has a set of rungs to enable people to climb on, as if it were a highchair for adults. It also features an overhang encrusted with quartz crystals hanging like stalactites in a cave. The four legs of the spirit chair are encased in matching crystalline rock, presenting a fragility that seemingly renders the chair unable to bear any weight. The chairs are sold in pairs, at HAADA, a contemporary nomadic gallery in New York. P/06; PRICE: $195,000 per set.
Exploded Chair
Joyce Lin goes so far as to deconstruct her aptly named Exploded Chair. Each segment – legs, seat, spindles, top rail – is made of white oak and compartmentalized in clear acrylic. In doing so, Lin invites the viewer to reflect upon the discord and harmony between natural objects and those that are manmade. R&Company in New York LOCATION: DESIGN MIAMI G/30.
En Tus Brazos
Reynold Rodriguez embodies the resilience and resourcefulness of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria ravaged the Caribbean island in 2017. His En Tus Brazos (In Your Arms) is carved from a single tree and resembles a scooped seat atop two legs. The highly-polished sculpted seat contrasts with the charred exterior of the tree. Charles Burnand Gallery of London LOCATION: DESIGN MIAMI G/20
Creek Chair
Another exquisite chair is the Creek Chair created by Mexican artist Frieda Escobedo as an homage to Cuban artist Ana Medieta. Based on a stainless steel tube frame, the chair overflows with strand upon strand of nickel ball chains that form the seat and back of the chair and cascade into a puddle of chains to the right and left. The chair plays on the themes of reflection found in Mendieta’s work, according to the Friedman Benda Gallery. LOCATION G/11 PRICE: $32,000 EDITION: 8
UNTITLED
Ocean Drive at 12th Street., Miami Beach
Fiber in many forms weaves its way through UNTITLED. Some of the most beautiful and intricate are by Suchitra Mattai, who weaves vintage saris from her Indo-Caribbean family into wall hangings and creates tapestries adorned with beads and sequins. The results are both intriguing and beautiful. At K Contemporary, booth C-25. (Also catch her installation at Art Basel at Roberts Projects, B9.)
Dutch artist Afra Eisma crafts immersive artwork you can lie on, sit on, play on - or hang on the wall -- as an antidote to the sterility of a technological age. At No Man’s Art Gallery, booth C-17.
Though she’s just graduating from New York’s School of Visual Arts, the artist Kiarita is already taking center stage at the school’s UNTITLED presentation with three works from found objects. “Holding you, holding me” is intended to capture the beauty of a friends’ relationship in which one partner smiles while sleeping. Booth C66.
NADA
Ice Palace, 1400 N. Miami Ave., Miami
Colombian photographer Camila Falquez creates images are imbued with social justice themes, combining raw silk as a symbol of beauty. PAMM bought one of a Colombian trans-gender indigenous leader. At Hannah Traore Gallery, booth B306. From $10,000.
Still a grad student at Yale, Baxter Kaziol already is creating thought provoking works. Two “history blankets” -- fabric screens in the style of a West African hunters vest -- feature found objects such as toy swords and guns, a frying pan and a wearable suit -- that he has wrapped in canvas and hand-stitched in a unique depiction of modern reality. At Storage, booth C104. From $7,600.
Chilean artist Josefina Concha uses a sewing machine and white cotton to create ethereal fabric hangings whose colors are created with bobbin thread. A single work takes more than a month. At Galleria Patricia Ready, booth C215. From $12,000.
At first glance, Mia Ardito’s sculpture look like intricate dollhouses - natural, when you know that both her grandfathers were, in fact, professional dollhouse makers. Ardito creates them as sets for a reality show that she videos featuring Barbies and other dolls as performers. The facades may seem mundane - but look behind, and you’ll astonishingly intricate rooms that beg for exploration. At Bracket Creek Exhibitions, booth C102. From $12,000.
Who’s the fairest of them all? You choose. Here’s where to find the Miami Art Week fairs
HAMPTON HOUSE
4200 NW 27th Ave., Miami
One of the city’s great hidden gems is Hampton House, a Green Book motel that welcomed Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohammed Ali, among its famed guests. (It also was the setting for the film, “One Night in Miami.” This week, the Brownsville cultural center is host to “Gimme Shelter,” an exhibition co-curated by Beth Rudin DeWoody, Zoe Lukov, Maynard Monrow and Laura Dvorkin, that pays tribute to the hotel’s history.
Among the must-sees here are one of Nick Cave’s glittered suits, paintings by Miami’s Jared McGriff, a poignant Lorna Simpson image entitled “You are Not Good Enough.” Naama Tsbar’s installation features a guitar has been broken and refashioned into a new instrument that you can actually lie down and play - a symbol of resilience.
