Art Basel announces further show highlights for its largest edition yet in Miami Beach

Since its launch in 2002, Art Basel Miami Beach has served as a dynamic platform uniquely bridging the art scenes of North and South America, Europe, and beyond. The edition marking its 20th anniversary will be the largest to date, featuring 282 exhibitors from 38 countries and territories – more than half of which hail from the Americas. In addition to its Galleries, Positions, Nova, Survey, and Edition sectors, the fair will host 20 large-scale projects as part of the Meridians sector, 29 curated installations within exhibitors’ booths in the Kabinett sector, as well as nine panels with leading art world voices in its renowned Conversations series.

Meridians

The Meridians sector invites exhibitors to showcase monumental works which extend beyond the standard art fair format. Magalí Arriola, Director of Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, will curate the sector for the third consecutive year.

Highlights from Meridians include:

• An immersive visual environment by Cauleen Smith including the film ‘Sojourner’ (2018-2022), whose title pays homage to the feminist abolitionist. Presented by Morán Morán and Corbett vs. Dempsey.
• ‘Let The Mermaids Flirt with Me’ (2022), a presentation of a new suite of stained-glass paintings in lightboxes by Christopher Myers, installed within a freestanding octagonal structure evoking a chapel. Exploring the relationships between Black bodies, diaspora, and the ocean, this deeply poetic work will be activated by a performance, animating the figures depicted in the glass. Presented by James Cohan Gallery.
• Devan Shimoyama’s ‘The Grove’ (2021), which monumentalizes the common sight of shoes joined at the laces and dangling from utility wires to evidence both presumed gang territory or violence and moments of celebration and play. Presented by Kavi Gupta.
• ‘Columbus Day’ (2019-2020) Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds, which consists of 24 primary ink mono prints and 24 ‘ghost prints’, which are the secondary pull of the print plates and represent how Indigenous communities are often viewed– namely, as "not there," faded and having disappeared. The text of the prints highlights the destruction of these communities and their lands by Columbus and consequences through the present day. Presented by K Art.
• ‘Birth’ (1984), a monumentally scaled, hand-crocheted wall-hanging by pioneering feminist artist Judy Chicago and the largest of her seminal Birth Project (1980-1985) works. ‘Birth Project’ was an international collaboration of female needleworkers and responded to the absence ofimagery related to birthing as one of the most foundational female experiences. Presented by Jessica Silverman.
• An installation of chairs suspended from the ceiling and 6-hour daily performance work by Colombian artist María José Arjona, ‘Silla’ (2011), on matter, object hood, experience and the body’s critical role in movement as a form of political choreography. Presented by Rolf Art.
• A sculptural work by Simon Denny adapted from a delivery drone – ‘Amazon delivery drone patent drawing as virtual Rio Tinto mineral globe’ (2021) – employing augmented reality to facilitate a series of performative group experiences activated by viewers’ devices. Presented by Petzel and Altman Siegel.
• A performance titled ‘Corpo Ranfla 2.0’ (2022) by rafa esparza, in which the artist will impersonate a lowrider cyborg turned into a 25-cent ride-machine. Consisting of a one-time occurrence, with the remnants of the performance – the retrofitted, 25-cent pony ride structure – on display over the course of the week, the work is a reflection on the social and political landscapes that lowrider car culture has existed and evolved in for decades into the present. Presented by Commonwealth and Council.
• Visual activist, humanitarian, and photographer Zanele Muholi’s ‘Muholi V’ (2022)a new bronze sculpture that marks a new chapter of self-expression and self-assertion for the artist. Presented by Stevenson and Yancey Richardson Gallery.

Magalí Arriola, Art Basel's curator for Meridians, says: ‘Sculpted bodies, sexualized bodies, performing and singing bodies –brown, black, and white bodies– have made themselves present in this new edition of Meridians, challenging art historical canons and their relationship with the representation of power, opening new perspectives for art’s activism around gender and race, and infusing optimism and hope to how we might envision our future.’

Kabinett

Offering galleries, the opportunity to present concisely curated installations within their booths, the Kabinett sector will feature 29 participants.

Highlights from the sector include:

• A presentation of new works by Alberta Whittle specifically made for the fair, following Whittle’s representation of Scotland at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale de Venezia. Presented by The Modern Institute.
• New works by Izumi Kato, whose animated paintings and sculptures allow subjects to exist between the physical and the spiritual realms. Presented by Stephen Friedman Gallery.
• Rare and seminal works by Ascânio MMM, whose sculptures and reliefs are rooted in mathematics – presenting a complex game of logic. Presented by Casa Triângulo.
• Margot Bergman’s never-before-seen flower paintings that are part of her ‘collaborative paintings’ (2013), which merge Bergman’s approach with original authorship of thrifted works. Presented by Anton Kern Gallery.
• ‘Bayou Fever’ (1979) by Romare Bearden, comprising of 21 collages that provide a storyline and set design for modern dance with the purpose of being choreographed by Alvin Ailey. Presented by DC Moore Gallery.
• A salon of both historic and new intimately scaled, never-before-seen works by Dewey Crumpler. Presented by Derek Eller Gallery.

Conversations

Conversation is a platform for the exchange of ideas on topics concerning the global contemporary art scene. Featuring 35 speakers across nine panels, it will bring together leading artists, gallerists, collectors, curators, museum directors, and critics. Participants in this edition will include artist Agnieszka Kurant, cultural strategy advisor András Szántó, collectors Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz, collector and CEO and Co-Founder of Design Miami/ Craig Robins, art historian and curator Drew Sawyer, artists João Enxuto and Erica Love, curator and Co-Director of the Serpentine Galleries Hans Ulrich Obrist, artist Joshua Citarella, collector and real-estate developer Martin Margulies, and writer and Artnet News art business editor Tim Schneider. Topics range from representing and collecting artists from Africa and the African diaspora, and the carbon footprint of technology to counterintuitive approaches to the art market.

Highlights include:

• A conversation celebrating the pioneering photographic practice of Ming Smith.
• A sonic lecture by artist, musician, and poet Chino Amobi.
• A panel featuring major collectors Carlos & Rosa de la Cruz, Craig Robins, and Martin Margulies who have helped establish the Miami ecosystem, to mark 20 years of Art Basel Miami Beach.

Running from November 30 to December 2, the program is curated by Emily Butler, Art Basel's Conversations Curator, and is free to the public. All panels will be livestreamed on Art Basel's Facebook channel. Recordings will be available on Art Basel’s website following the event.

The Legacy Purchase Program

For its third edition, the City of Miami Beach will acquire through its Legacy Purchase Program up to two artworks from the Nova or Positions sectors to enter the City’s public art collection via a public vote. The new acquisitions will be on view at a dedicated publicly accessible area of the MBCC.

The Étant Donnés Prize

The CPGA (French Professional Committee of Art Galleries) and Villa Albertine are joining forces for the first time to launch the Etant Donnés 2022 Prize, awarded to a living artist active in the French art scene and exhibited at Art Basel Miami Beach 2022. The winner of the Etant Donnés Prize will be selected by an appointed jury and will receive a $15,000 cash prize funded by CPGA, to be shared between the artist and the gallery. The winner will be announced on November 29.

On the cover: Nengi Omuku, Reclining Figures (detail), 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London

Source: Atbasel.com