The beginning of Art Basel Miami Beach each winter heralds the end of the year's demanding art fair calendar.
And in a simple ceremony, the Art Basel Miami Beach was officially inaugurated in a very special edition, which celebrates its 20 years on the American side of the Atlantic.
It is, moreover, a very important event. special for Marc Spiegler, who made this fair what it is today, and who leaves his place as executive director to Noah Horowitz. The outgoing CEO recalled how unlikely the venture seemed when it was a project, and honoring what it is today:
“In 2002 I came here as a journalist, the first time, and seen from a distance, I was very skeptical about what I wrote about Miami and the beaches”, he recalled.
The inauguration of Art Basel Miami Beach it was packed with people, with galleries reporting several sales over the course of the day.
Although last year's fair was marked by a multitude of NFT-related projects, digital art initiatives like these were conspicuously absent from this fair. Nonetheless, other NFT-related releases are still happening in other places around the world. Miami y Miami Beach this week, and the invites for them have been piling up in people's inboxes.
As with any fair, particularly one run by Art Basel, pieces of top level trophies, as well as small groups of works associated with the movements Poor art y Op art.
This edition is of particular interest, as the fair is celebrating its XNUMXth anniversary in the south of the Florida, and the merchants seemed to toast the occasion by presenting works of great weight.
With this in mind, below we take a look at three unmissable stands of this 2022 edition that will run until December 3.
Jessie Henson in Anthony Meier Fine Art
Jessie Henson, a recent artist-in-residence at Dieu Donne Papermill en NY, she creates her own paper, which she then runs through an industrial sewing machine, embedding it with vibrantly colored threads and 18k or 24k gold.
Doing so causes the paper to curl and wrinkle, making it appear almost sculptural.
Your use of an industrial sewing machine (as opposed to a domestic one) is important to the job. She is thinking about what happens through the repetition of the work and how that gradually degrades the objects, which is symbolized here by the wear and tear of the paper.
Henson is also a collector of antique textiles, which he transforms into art objects by casting them in bronze.
Arghavan Khosravi and Suchitra Mattai in Kavi Gupta
Two of the strongest presentations at the fair were put on by Kavi Gupta.
Arghavan Khosravi shows a striking new painting in which a woman with long hair passes through a guillotine, the shape of which is reflected in the work's carved wooden frame. Made this year, the work directly comments on the ongoing protests over the death of mahsa aminin a Iran, where Khosravi was born and where he lived until a decade ago.
Although Khosravi's work has long pondered the status of Iranian women, often filtered through the aesthetics of Persian historical art, this new piece, titled Our Hair Has Always Been the Problem, poignantly brings up this important political situation. to the front, begging the spectators not to move away.
Nearby there are three works of suchitra mattai, which incorporate bundled and stitched sarees. The works bring together the confluence of influences that the artist has experienced: she is of Indian descent and grew up in Guyana. To these works, he often adds various objects, from found tapestries he embroiders on analog film reels containing film from Bollywood to the glass shards left behind after someone tried to break into his studio.
Nikita Gale in Kings Finn
For a presentation in the section Positions, the artist Nikita Gale, based in Los Angeles, turned his attention to one of the most abundant minerals in the world: calcium, which can be easily found both in the earth and in our bodies.
In the center of the cabin is a sculpture consisting of two large pieces of red calcite crystal that sit on top of a synth that emits a low hum.
His work has a calming effect that somehow manages to transcend the bustle of the crowd at the fair. Nearby is a set of aluminum panels showing computer drawings of teeth arranged as if they were smiling.
