Miami Art Week Stretches Far Beyond Art Basel Miami Beach

It’s party time.

Art Basel in Switzerland effectively pioneered the art fair model so aggressively proliferated today, but it’s the Miami offshoot, launched in 2002, that solidified it. Today, the 21-year old satellite remains l’enfant terrible, the spring breaker of art fairs. But don’t be fooled by the playful iridescent miniskirts and Latin American dance music…because Miami still means serious business, stretching far beyond the big main fair with everything from emerging art to bank-sponsored behemoths.

Pack your bags and buckle up for the best of 2023 Miami Art Week.

Hitch A Ride

Uber who? If you’re in the market for a luxury car service, two neck-and-neck competitors are eager to assist. Blacklane offers on-demand service in Miami allows users to book rides for immediate pick-up, as well as longer-distance holiday travel. Meanwhile, Alto boasts that their drivers are full-time employees, not contractors, and includes HEPA air filtration and Do Not Disturb buttons in each vehicle. Alto has coupons for first-time users, perfect for the Miami newbie!

Especially during the pandemic, art world elites were known to fly private or take black cars from New York to Palm Beach to escape the plague. Why not join them in decadence?

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Demand Justice

The last few years have seen a massive shift in the way blue-chip art responds to inequity. Untitled Art Miami Beach has partnered with For Freedoms to debut a series of panels. On December 1 from 4 to 5 p.m., the former director of the Brooklyn Museum of Art will be in conversation with artists and educators at The Square West Palm in a public panel called Challenged: Art and The Freedom of Expression. From 11 to 12 p.m. at UOVO West Palm, What is Creative Expression Now? Exploring the Role of Art in Today’s Society will include legendary Project Empty Space founder Jasmine Wahi.

Limited edition prints will complete the panels, available December 5. Untitled will be open to the public December 6 through 10, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

At the NADA art fair, Art For Change partners with the Prospect Park Alliance to celebrate Brooklyn, with limited edition prints already available at artforchange.com.

Celebrate Local Diversity

The Rubell family is famous for having its pulse on art from New York and Miami for decades. The launch of their eponymous museum in 2019 has ensured the permanence of their family’s enduring collection. They are known for collecting works by Yayoi Kusama and Kerry James Marshall, who will be on view as well. But the mainstay on December 4 is work from the artists-in-residence program. St. Louis-born Basil Kincaid and Havana-born Alejandro Piñeiro Bello open solo exhibitions chronicling their year at the museum. Kincaid explores African themes and origins with quilting, found materials, collage and photography, while Piñeiro Bello looks at Caribbean diaspora from his home base in Miami, painting with vibrant colors on raw linen or burlap. This is a local place for local people, worth looking at in the middle of a global frenzy.

The same night (December 4 from 6 to 8 p.m.), Opera Gallery Miami opens 18 paintings and 9 sculptures by Fernando Botero (1932-2023.) His full-figured images are famous and highly collectable the world over, but distinctly Latin American.

And for true grit, the Museum of Graffiti celebrates a book launch on December 9 from 5 to 7 p.m. This is an essential destination to understand the heritage of street art and aesthetic in Miami, Brooklyn, and beyond. For more information, please visitmuseumofgraffiti.com or email hey@museumofgraffiti.com.

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Take Tea Time

Scope Art Show may not be the fan favorite during its 20+ years at Miami Art Week, but its 2023 programming is going the extra mile from December 5 through 10. One hundred and ten participants from 23 countries feature 70 new galleries and experiences.

Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova will be on site, but my personal favorite is a true hidden gem: Japanese-born experiential installation tea room, which includes both hosts and guests in a ritual of sharing a bowl of tea to revere the symbiosis between craft and calm, aesthetic and environment. In a world of nightclubs and rat racing, why not take a pause with Japan before hitting the streets again?

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Save The Ocean With Technology

From December 5 to 1o, Faena Art and the Reefline will showcase installations focused on discussing the realities of climate change. After all, Miami Beach is at the epicenter of its reality, threatened every day by changing tides. Works by Beeple, Alissa Alfonso, Guido Elgueta and +X. feature. The Reefline also plans to launch a seven-mile underwater sculpture park, snorkel trail and artificial reef 600 feet off the Miami Beach shoreline later next month. Chase Sapphire supported Faena’s art initiatives.

Undeniably, Beeple’s S.2122 is the breakout work in the showcase. The artist made history when he sold a digital work of art as an NFT at Christie’s for $69 million in 2021, and has since been collected by top museums such as Crystal Bridges in Arkansas. NFTs and crypto are huge in Miami, and many digital art collectors will be there to usher in a new generation.

At NADA, artist Oona’s performance of “Look, Touch, Own” is an NFT, in which every touch of her former silicone implants triggers the creation of a new NFT visual, as a statement about the commodification of women at the Annka Kultys Gallery, from December 5 to 9, 2023.

But a more subdued showcase at Faena Beach by Sebastian Errazuriz (b. 1977, Santiago, Chile), “Maze: Journey Through the Algorithmic Self,” was designed using artificial intelligence (AI) platforms Midjourney and DALLE2. This installation is actually life-sized, inviting viewers to literally navigate the maze of confusion to solving the planet’s problems through technology.

Another important discussion is over the work “Lost at Sea” by Gustavo Oviedo at the Balfour Hotel on December 6 at 7 p.m., featuring “responsibly-made” leather handbags by Piper & Skye and live music. I don’t know how much you will hear over the DJ, but hopefully the bags are saving the planet.

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Mingle With Hollywood

Art Basel and Tribeca Festival will open talks to the public at Miami Botanical Garden on December 6 through 9, featuring new father Robert De Niro and John Stamos. Their events promise the creme de la creme of Hollywood elites, citing David Duchovny and Ben Stiller as prior guests.

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Instagram It

If Hollywood is not calling your name, perhaps ARTECHOUSE will get you the Instagrammable photos you crave. Computer-driven installations celebrate innovation for the bargain price of $25 at 736 Collins Ave, Miami Beach.

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Keep It Weird

Who needs a love shack when you can have an ape shack? Forget the bored apes of crypto. From December 6 through 10, Spectrum Miami hosts a series of acrylic “Wild Planet” paintings. They are named from the B-52s of “Love Shack” song fame’s second album, and feature their new partners, 16 chimpanzees from the Save the Chimps Floridian refuge. Priced at $5,000 and under, each painting is named for a B-52 song or lyric and signed by the band. Limited-edition posters for $50 during the fair are available on site at the fair. The B-52s will be playing at the Venetion in Vegas through 2024.

And there you have it. From nudes to apes, oceans to computers, Miami is anything but boring. Best of luck to those brave souls who dare to do it all. You’re probably gong to need that Japanese tea room.

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