Today I would like to tell you about one of the most awaited events in the world of art in my favorite city, where I always long to come back and which I never like to leave, Miami, that has already become a symbol of a yearly art festival where art meets design, fashion, cinema, music and other spheres of human creativity. The opening of Art Miami has become the traditional destination for influential collectors, connoisseurs and art professionals. The fun and festive atmosphere encourages many to seize the opportunity to purchase captivating works before the fair opens to the public.
This year the most important contemporary and modern art fair of America – ART MIAMI – has celebrated its 26th edition and as every year, there was a lot of interesting projects and art initiatives.
Art Week Miami has started with a VIP Private Preview on Tuesday, December 1, presented by Merrill Lynch benefiting the Pérez Art Museum Miami. Art Miami remains committed to showcasing the most important artworks from the 20th and 21st centuries for acquisition in collaboration with a highly vetted selection of international galleries, and will continue to preserve its well-known reputation as Miami’s premier anchor fair in 2015.
This year’s fair combined with CONTEXT Art Miami and Aqua Art Miami has had a showcase of 2,327 artists, from 83 countries, as represented by international galleries from 29 countries. Art Miami, together with its adjacent sister fair CONTEXT Art Miami, and Miami Beach fair Aqua Art Miami collectively presented an array of dynamic projects and exhibitions as the anchor event of Art Week in the City of Miami.
Some noteworthy highlights of this year’s fair included works by:
The eclectic scene of Art Miami provides a unique backdrop Galerie Forsblom’s presentation of Ron Gorchov’s peaceful yet intense curved surface paintings, which are free from the shackles of absolutism. Peter Halley’s new paintings appear as bright as the inside of paint cans. New to Galerie Forsblom is Not Vital, whose conceptual works blur the boundaries of reality and the surreal. Galerie Forsblom is also excited to present Finnish young artists at Art Miami 2015. In his mixedmedia works, Reima Nevalainen, Finland’s Young Artist of the Year 2016, explores the very foundations of existence, whereas Sami Lukkarinen creates an intermediate space with his large pixelated paintings in which two opposite methods of presentation meet.
Yossi Milo Gallery presents FAÇADES, an exhibition of photographic works by German artist Markus Brunetti. Markus Brunetti’s FAÇADES series is the result of his travels through Europe from 2005 to the present day, capturing the façades of historic cathedrals, churches and cloisters in minute detail. In the tradition of Bernd and Hilla Becher’s serial documentation of German industrialization, the front surface of each structure is recorded in a precise and regulated style allowing for typologies and comparisons. The subjects are conceived as idealized designs, or as what might be called photographic drawings on paper, similar to the architects’ or builders’ original drawings and the engravings of Old Masters.
Cuban art are prevalent at this year’s fair with four galleries showing works from 12 Cuban artists. Notable names include Enrique Gomez De Molina, known for his taxidermic surrealism, and Alexandre Arrechea, whose work speaks to social concepts.
Queue Projects presented six of Andy Warhol’s siconic silkscreen ink on canvas works from the mid 1980s, including Rebel without a Cause, Van Heusen, Onion (Campbell’s Soup Box), Poinsettia (red and green) and Dollar Sign (one of the Pop artist’s most recognizable images). In addition, Queue Projects offers several works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Pyramid(1989), a large anodized aluminum sculpture by Keith Haring, and a blockbuster 14 ft. prompted steel motorized sculpture by Alexander Caldertitled Spiral weighing over 6,000 lbs with an asking price of $12.8m US.
Although Ai Weiwei may not be able to leave China to attend Art Miami, Owl Houses, his fascinating installation presented by Haines Gallery, certainly has left a spirited imprint on the fair. The artist is known for incorporating Chinese history into his art, and this beautiful assemblage inspired by traditional porcelain garden stools becomes an elegant and safe living environment for birds. Covered in the blue and white designs associated with Ming Dynasty ceramics, these sophisticated ornamental habitats evoke a range of associations regarding the notion of home.
Galerie Terminus from Munich displayed Moby Dick,a superior sculptural construction from Frank Stella’s celebrated Moby Dick Series, an engaging, eye popping, mixed media assemblage of bright colors and eccentric shapes on aluminum that ranks among his best similar works currently represented in his historic exhibition at the new Whitney Museum of American Art. In addition, the gallery will show classic works by John Chamberlain and Robert Rauschenberg.
Mayoral Gallery has a classic line up of rare works by Joan Miróand The Red Baseby Alexander
Calder, a small wire standing mobile dated 1969. The gallery also exhibited six vintage works by Salvador Dali; all museum quality and quite rare. Archeus has presented Antony Gormley’s Domain XV, (2000, stainless steel) that first appears to be an ambulatory “pick up stick” figure about 75 in. tall, which could have come right out of an animated science fiction movie. The imaginative construction on this work is simply magical, with barely a hint of how it was fabricated. Another work guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser is a notable life-size figurative polyvinyl work by John DeAndrea, who often is associated with the life-like human body imagery of Duane Hanson and George Segal. Presented by Meisel Gallery, De Andrea is now considered one of history’s great, living, photorealist/ hyper-realist sculptors.
The late Antoni Tapies had a life long interest in matter: earth, dust, atoms and particles. Overtime, he created a unique abstract expressionist assemblage approach to painting that combined organic objects, plaster and fabric, often cemented together with tied rope and placed on a platform that became part of the art. His dynamic work titled Composición con ropa y cuerda(1975), shown by Cordeiros Galeria, is an intriguing showstopper. Another iconic artist who got his jump start in Miami is Kenny Scharf, who is best known for his work in the East Village art scene of the 1980s, where he developed a distinctive street art style by painting pop culture icons in a science fiction setting, such as the Flintstones and the Jetsons.
James Goodman Gallery is presenting a sculpture grouping of six bronzes from 1996, which like Scharf’s work are guaranteed to bring a smile. C. Grimaldis Gallery returns with a work by Chul Hyun Ahntitled Void Platform(2012), that puts illusion supported by LED lights and mirrors into a mind-boggling deception of walking above a bottomless geometrical cavern.
Presented by KM Fine Art and Mark Borghi Fine Art, Bernie Taupin has been an artist for most of his nearly 60 years. His talents were refined as a teenager and by his early 20s and 30s, his genius was acknowledged. While traveling limited his studio time, visual arts became his primary passion and creative outlet starting over 20 years ago. He’s pursued this passion as he did in his early career without seeking the lime light, where the content of his messages was his priority and his personal satisfaction. As his lyrics and messages and in life have matured, his paintings and constructions, with an unrelenting commitment to finish and quality, share that refinement and maturity in his unique visual language and expression.
SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS
Solo exhibitions
Special projects
Diana Avgusta Stauer