Art Basel Miami
Art Basel Miami is the largest contemporary art fair in the US. Navigating the main fair, along with the multiple satellite fairs, museums and gallery openings, can be overwhelming. After visiting Maimi Basel for a decade, I want to share my game plan for maximizing your experience and share some highlights of the 2022 shows and special events.
Art Basel Miami Beach descends on Miami in early December each year, and hundreds of thousands of people come into town for the art and parties that revolve around Art Basel that happens in hotel lobbies, clubs, parking lots in the design district and pop-up events on the beach. To avoid being overwhelmed - the traffic to cross to South Beach from Miami can be 1 - 2 hours - it’s essential to have a strategy, and I’ll share how I plan my time after visiting the show for the past 10 years.
Art Basel Miami refers to the ‘main show’ at the Miami Convention center and mostly blue-chip, well-known galleries representing artists from around the globe. I always break up the main show into two visits over two days as there is just so much to see and it can be too much visual stimuli to process (also referred to as Stendhal Syndrome). The show is broken down into four sections, which are conveniently color-coded so you don’t lose your way in the maze of alleys and exhibits. While much of the art is pre-sold to VVVVIPs, I go to the main fair primarily to see new styles of art, which mediums are being used, and what overall themes I can decipher. It’s not all Picassos and multimillion-dollar art (although there’s plenty of that), as there is one section of the show, Nova, that is dedicated to galleries showing artists in the first few years of their careers. To give you a sense of the breadth and variety of the art, here are a few of my favorite pieces from this year’s show (tags noted under the images below).
William T. Williams - While “Big Red from NC” was painted 50+ years ago, it feels fresh, energetic and quite current. The hard-edged abstraction in the “diamond in a box” motif provides some structure to the energy of the piece, which feels like it’s going to explode off the canvas. At over 9’ x 9’, this massive, wall-sized work is just stunning.
Kehinde Wiley - His “Portrait of Taharka Welcome, 2022” employs a similar vocabulary to his wildly popular portrait of President Obama - a heroic portrait of black and brown men and women, with fascinating detail in the hands, faces and clothing, posed in the style of Old Master paintings in a lush, vegetative background. Wiley was represented in three different galleries, so there was ample opportunity to see some of his work up close and personal.
MSCHF - this Brooklyn collective created the ‘buzziest’ piece of art of the entire show. Their “Leaderboard ATM” invited people to make a withdrawal, and the machine would display their account balance and photos - creating a ranked tally of who had the highest cash on hand. Diplo, the well-known DJ, was at the top of the list with over $3M in his account, and the display would scroll through the list of the top-ranked people for everyone to see. Art and money have never been more successfully satirized.
Satellite Fairs - NADA, New Art Dealers Alliance
Several satellite fairs have sprung up around Art Basel in the last decade that offer opportunities for smaller - and often much more interesting - galleries and artists to show during Art Basel week. NADA celebrated its 20th year and had a terrific fair this year showcasing up-and-coming artists from 150+ galleries in a really exciting space of the Ice Palace Studios. Some images below give you a sense of the different art styles at NADA. Since traffic can be a nightmare during Basel week, I always combine my visit to NADA with the Perez Museum of Art - well worth a visit as it has one of the largest collections of Latin American work worldwide. Very close to NADA and Perez is the Wynnewood Walls - with its world-famous murals - and the Rubell Family museum, which is top of its class as a single-family art enterprise.
Satellite Fairs - Untitled and SCOPE
Both Untitled and SCOPE are literally on Miami Beach between 11th and 8th streets and offer the most bang for the buck in terms of ease of access, affordable art and overall experience. Untitled is by far my favorite show, and in 2021, I found a terrific piece at the Eli Ridgeway gallery of a work by Amy Ellingson that I added to my collection. Her work uses a common background theme that looks like a neural network that informs this series. She then paints the lines connecting the nodes and adds a really cool encaustic wax to the surface. I am still thrilled with this work and love living with it on a daily basis. This year, the piece that I would have bought (if $ were no object) was this wall-sized work of color drips by Markus Linnenbrink. The epoxy resin on wood has a rich, glossy surface and the colors are bright and vibrant. I’m a big fan and hope to one day have a Linnenbrink in my collection. Shoutout to my art companions on this trip - Matt & Kris - it was awesome to explore all the art with you and hope we can do it again next year!
Special Exhibition - Retrospective of Didier William at MOCA, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami
The highlight of my Art Basel Miami experience this year was seeing my friend Didier William’s major retrospective at MOCA. I knew Didier from his time in Philadelphia, where he ran the graduate division of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA), where I serve on their Board of Governors. Didier’s work is amazing - painstaking brushstrokes create images that celebrate his Haitian, queer, immigrant and familial narratives. Powerful works consisting of numerous eyes, tesserae tiles, and intensely detailed marks borrow from the western canon of art but transport them to a whole new level of mythmaking and storytelling. The opening was unlike anything I’ve experienced before - full of Haitian music, some voodoo, singing, dancing and a catered buffet for the VIP crowd. It felt more like a carnival party than a stuffy art museum reception. It really was Culture, with a capital C. Unforgettable!
Versace Mansion - because, Miami
After a morning of going through the galleries on our final day, I thought there would be no more quintessential Miami experience than dining at the Versace Mansion. Gianni’s is the poolside restaurant that turns into a TOTAL SCENE during Miami Basel. The people watching - aka models - was almost as good as the fine Italian fare. Matt, Kris and I were able to score a table perched along the wall, giving us pole position to survey the beautiful people. Surprisingly easy to book a rezzie - they’re on Opentable - and with a $34 set menu lunch, the velvet rope was not that hard to break thru. A few bottles of rosé later, this made for a really nice soft landing to our Miami Basel week. Check this place out!
As promised, here’s my 3-day itinerary for Miami Basel
Day 1: Fly to MIA and Check into hotel. I prefer to say on Miami Beach side and make one trip over to ‘mainland’ on this day
Head to Perez Museum, Wynnewood Wall, Design District and one of the many family museums nearby like De La Cruz and Rubell. Expect 1 1/2 hours to cross back to Miami Beach due to traffic (hence the 1 time crossing to avoid a lot of wasted time in transit)
Dinner in Design District
Day 2: Miami Basel Convention Center for 1/2 day visit
Head to the beach for Untitled and Scope
Dinner at SLS is my favorite - get the frozen Caipirinha served tableside
Day 3: Miami Basel Convention Center for 2nd 1/2 day visit - get champagne from the cart
Other pop-up spaces, outdoor art, Bass museum and hotel lobby art.
Lunch or dinner at Versace Mansion
Drinks at Faena to soak up the scene
Time Out Miami is a great reference
Pro Tip: get a VIP card through your favorite gallery or museum - it gets you free access to the main fair, some satellite fairs and all the museums. it’s invaluable and saves so much time and $$$.
