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MIAMI ART WEEK 2011

Recession? What recession? The global art world is about to descend upon Miami for what might be called Miami Art Week. It's insanely large and packed with events -- we count 17 art fairs, a billboard project, an art-market conference, an auction preview, a new auction-house launch and dozens of museum and gallery events. If you want to stay home and pull the covers over your head, we don't blame you. But check back here for daily reports once the big show gets under way.

* Art Basel Miami Beach, Dec. 1-4, 2011 (with the media and VIP receptions on Nov. 30), the blazing sun that started it all ten years ago -- and in its anniversary celebration, ABMB doesn't hesitate to take (justified) credit for the local art renaissance - once again brings more than 260 galleries to the halls of the spacious Miami Beach Convention Center. More than half of the exhibitors in the main fair are from outside the U.S., including 26 from Latin America, nine from Asia and two from Africa. The fair's Art Nova section features 42 galleries with "new works" by 105 artists, while Art Kabinett boasts more than 30 curated exhibitions within individual exhibitors' booths. A one-day ticket is $40.

Art Positions, once housed in containers at the beach but since moved into the main hall, presents 16 galleries from ten countries hosting "cutting-edge" projects, including performance artist Emily Sundblad at Algus Greenspon from New York and Theaster Gates at Chicago’s Kavi Gupta. A section called Art Public, organized by Los Angeles County Museum of Art curator Christine Y. Kim in collaboration with the Bass Museum of Art, puts more than 20 public artworks in Collins Park, the swath of green between the Bass and the beach.

The construction site down from the Convention Center on 17th Street has turned into the New World Center, a $160-million, six-story-tall concert hall designed by Frank Gehry for Michael Tilson Thomas' New World Symphony, and ABMB is using the building's outdoor projection wall to present its Art Video section. Also on tap: Art Film, Art Salon and Art Basel Conversations.

* Design Miami/11, Nov. 30-Dec. 4, 2011, now in its 7th edition, brings a dollop of international design chic to the tropical doings. Sited in a custom structure in the parking lot behind the Miami Beach Convention Center, Design Miami/ has grown, promising a 50 percent increase in participating galleries. We see the return of veteran dealers Galerie Patrick Seguin (Paris), Carpenters Workshop Gallery (London and Paris), Demisch Danant (NY) as well as first-time exhibitors Didier Ltd (London), Galerie Pierre Marie Giraud (Brussels) and Novalis Fine Art (Turin).

Design Miami’s Design Talks series is once again moderated by W Magazine editor-in-chief Stefano Tonchi, and the fair features a site-specific installation by architect David Adjaye as well as a “design performance” titled Craft Alchemy by fashion house Fendi, which involves the transformation of antique furniture with discarded bits of Fendi leacher by designer Elisa Strozyk and artist Sebastian Neeb. General admission is $25.

* NADA Art Fair, Dec. 1-4, 2011, now in its eighth year, sets up as usual a few miles north in the spacious Art Deco Deauville Beach Resort, with 90 hip and youthful exhibitors, ranging from 179 Canal in New York and Altman Siegel in San Francisco to Warhus Rittershaus in Cologne and Workplace in Gateshead. NADA partners this year with Paddle8 to put the fair online; Paddle8 members can preview the offerings beginning on Nov. 25, 2011. Admission is free.

* Art Miami, Nov. 30-Dec. 4, 2011, now in its 22nd edition, brings 100 galleries to the 125,000 square-foot Art Miami Pavilion across the causeway in Miami's Wynwood district, this year featuring “European style cafes” and a number of VIP walkthroughs with collectors. Participating dealers include Magnan Metz and Barry Friedman (New York), JGM. Galerie (Paris), and Munich’s Galerie Von Braunbehrens. The Nov. 29th cocktail reception benefits the Lotus Houser Woman’s Shelter; tickets to the benefit are $25 at the door. General admission is $15.

* Scope Miami, Nov. 29-Dec. 4, 2011, now in its 11th year, returns to its 80,000 square-foot Wynwood location, across the street from Art Miami and under the direction of president and founder Alexis Hubshman. About 80 galleries are taking part. Programming highlights include “Stuck Up,” a history of “sticker culture” curated by DB Burkeman and spotlighting artists including Damien Hirst, Banksy and Jenny Holzer; a mash-up of more than 5,000 video diaries from MySpace, YouTube, etc. by Christopher Baker; a "multisensory performance" by multilingual rap artist CHOKRA; and a documentary screening and exhibition detailing photographer William John Kennedy’s friendships with Robert Indiana and Andy Warhol. Admission is $20.

* Pulse Art, Dec. 1-4, 2011, hosted at Miami’s Ice Palace and directed for the second year by Cornell DeWitt,  presents 90 galleries from around the globe, a series of large-scale installations, a PULSE Play video lounge created by Lucie Fontaine in the image of the The Simpsons' famous living room, and featuring her curated program of videos relating to "domesticity," a series of performances and the presentation of PULSE Prize to one artist in its IMPULSE section, which features two solo artist exhibitions of work made in the last two years. General admission is $20.

*Art Asia Miami, Nov. 30-Dec. 4, 2011, now in its fourth iteration, brings galleries from the Near East, Middle East and Southeast Asia to a pavilion in Miami's Wynwood neighborhood. Participants range from New York’s Sundaram Tagore Gallery to Hong Kong dealer Karin Weber and HAT ART FRUIT in Istanbul. Special projects have been commissioned from “Cynical Realist” Fang Li Jun, Tunisian artist Abdallah Akar and a group of artists from Iran. General admission is $20.

* Fountain Art Fair, Dec. 1-4, 2011, back for its sixth year in the 25th St. Miami Avenue Warehouse, presents 16 “avant-garde” artists and dealers from New York, L.A., Paris, Newark and Tallahassee, Fla., with a series of musical events planned for the opening night reception on Dec. 2 and a forthcoming app from Kollective Mobile.

* SEVEN, Nov. 29-Dec. 4, 2011, a collective project organized by the BravinLee, Hales Gallery, Pierogi, Postmasters, P.P.O.W., Ronald Feldman Fine Arts and Winkleman Gallery, returns to Miami for its second year, now hosted in a 15,000 square-foot warehouse at 2637 North Miami Avenue in Wynwood. This year’s highlights include a large interactive floor projection by Harvard Medical School artist-in-residence Brian Knep, British artist Boo Ritson’s signature painted people, large-scale acrylic paintings by Guyanaese artist Frank Bowling, and paintings and drawings by art-world satirist William Powhida.

* Red Dot Miami, Nov. 29-Dec. 4, 2011, goes down at 3011 NE 1st Avenue at NE 31st Street in the Wynwood district, with exhibitors including Osaka’s Gallery Edel, Seoul’s GAGA Gallery, AleatoricArt Gallery (Houston), Artion Gallery (Athens) and Coral Canyon Publishing from L.A.

* Sculpt Miami, Nov. 29-Dec. 4, organized by Miami’s own Kavachnina Contemporary, is an invitational show of solo artist’s projects that showcases large-scale sculptures by Maria Cristina Carlini, Ronald A. Westehuis, Carolina Rojas and Fabia Nitti, among others. All works are installed in the indoor/outdoor sculpture garden in the Red Dot Miami tent, as well as in an outdoor sculpture garden in the Wynwood Art District at 46 NC 36th Street.

* Burst Project Art Fair, Nov. 30-Dec. 4, 2011, a new event founded "especially for emerging contemporary artists and galleries" by artists Gabriele Sanches-Vegas and Rudolf Kohn, focuses on surreal pop art, sculpture, video and street art. The fair kicks off in the newly refurbished Art Deco Center on Ocean Drive and 10th Street in Miami Beach, with satellite events at the contemporary sculpture garden in neighboring Lummus Park and public art installations and street art throughout the Wynwood Art District. This year’s highlight is a new public art installation called BURST On Wheels: two double-decker buses completely “wrapped” with art from light-master Carlos Cruz-Diez, that shuttle visitors between BURST sites.

*ArtNow, Dec. 1-4, 2011, Red Dot’s new sister fair directed by Matthew Garson and held at the Catalina Hotel in Miami Beach, presents 35 international galleries including Mumford Fine Art of London, Gallery Den of Berlin, Aktinos Gallery of Paris, New York’s MC Gallery and Kathleen Cullen, and Chicago’s ZIA Gallery.

*Aqua 11, Dec. 1-4, 2011, founded in 2005 by producing partners Jaq Chartier and Dirk Park as an experimental project to introduce West Coast artists and galleries to Miami, this year brings 45 young and emerging exhibitors to the Aqua Hotel in Miami Beach. Exhibitors include veteran dealers Gallery 339, Eleanor Harwood, Narwhal, Traywick Contemporary and Walter Maciel, as well as first-time exhibitors RHV Fine Art from Brooklyn, Porter Contemporary and Lyons Wier Gallery from New York, Prole Drift and SEASON from Seattle, Froelick Gallery from Portland and Whitespace from Atlanta, among others. The fair also hosts nonprofits like Seattle's SOIL Gallery and Toronto's Blunt Collective, as well as the debut of Chicago's What It Is Projects. General admission is $10.

* INK Miami Art Fair, Nov. 30-Dec. 4, 2011, sponsored by the Fine Print Dealers Association and now in its 5th edition at the Suites of Dorchester in Miami Beach, features a select group of 14 print specialists. Exhibitors include Marlborough Graphics, Mixografia and Stoney Road Press from Dublin. The fair opens with the famous PULP PARTY!, a complimentary cocktail reception with free hors d’oeuvres, music by DJ King Eulas and a cash bar. Admission to INK is free.

* PooL Art Fair, Dec. 2-4, 2011, entrepreneur Thierry Alet's enterprise devoted to unaffiliated artists, takes place this year at the Sadigo Court Hotel on 20th Street near the Miami Beach Convention Center -- a last minute change, as the website still has the event at the Carlton Hotel.

* VERGE Art Miami Beach, Dec. 1-4, 2011, owned by Chicago fair organizer Michael Workman and held for the first time at Miami’s Greenview Hotel, features some 13 exhibitors, from Brooklyn’s ANTIDOTE to Berlin’s Visual Cocaine, London’s McGowan Projects and the Maldives’ Vortex Enters Void, as well as more than fifty artists chosen by a juried panel for inclusion in exhibitions “The Drawing Show” and “Tomorrow’s Stars.” Opening night preview tickets are $15 at the door.

* Zones Art Fair Miami, Nov. 30-Dec. 3, 2011, curated by Miami-based artist Charo Oquet, is Miami Art Week’s most local event, and features a food-tasting session and a focus on Caribbean art, as well as a “daily speed date” section -- whatever that means -- with curators and artists.

* The Deloitte Art & Finance Conference takes place at the Ritz-Carlton in South Beach, all day on Dec. 2, 2011. Speakers include Artvest co-founder Michael Plummer, ArtTactic managing director Anders Petterson, Mei-Moses Index founder Michael Moses, and Artnet's own Thomas Galbraith, director of artnet®analytics. Former Guggenheim Museum director Thomas Krens -- who now heads something called the Global Cultural Asset Management Group -- gives the wrap-up address.

* Christie’s presents its first Miami Art Week exhibition of post-war and contemporary art, Nov. 30-Dec. 3, 2011, at the JW Marriott Marquis Miami, showcasing highlights from its February 2012 auction in London.

* Miami Dealer Gary Nader has launched Miami’s first-ever full auction house, the Gary Nader Art Center at 62 NE 27th Street in Wynwood, with offerings from wine to furniture, art, cars, antiques and jewelry. After its first small auction on Oct. 20, 2011, it hosts its first major auction on Dec. 1, 2011, with 150-200 lots of Modern and Contemporary fine art on the block.

* Head to the Miami Art Museum to check out artist Enrique Martínez Celaya’s multimedia installation Schneebett (2004),which transports the viewer into the final hours of Ludwig van Beethoven’s life. Also on view is a video of the Miami Symphony Orchestra performing Beethoven’s late quartets, and a live performance scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011.

* Collectors Adam and Lenore Sender present their first public exhibition, "Home Alone," Nov. 29-Dec. 4, 2011, in their former Miami home, which is now empty. Featuring more than 50 artworks from their private collection, "Home Alone"occupies unexpected areas of the house and its surrounding grounds, and includes works by Diana Al-Hadid, Matthew Barney, Urs Fischer, Keith Haring, Barbara Kruger and Banks Violette, among others.

* Locust Projects, the well-known local nonprofit, has commissioned Argentina-born, Miami-based artist Agustina Woodgate for its second annual Billboard Project, which places artworks on billboards and bus shelters in Miami Beach and the Miami Design District.

* OHWOW Gallery presents “It Ain’t Fair: Materialism,” Dec. 1-4, 2011, the fourth installment of an annual group show. Participants include Ashley Bickerton, Angel Otero, José Parlá, Aurel Schmidt and Agathe Snow. A live performance by New York-based artist Michael David Quattlebaum, Jr. is slated for the opening reception.

* Steinway Piano Gallery of Miami presents the premiere of Pop-Up Pianos Miami 2011 (PUPM), Dec. 1-3, 2011, a public art project made possible by The Black Key Group. Steinway has donated ten pianos to be customized by prominent local artists -- including Lebo, Arnaud Pages and Brian Butler -- and strategically placed throughout Miami and Miami Beach. At the end of Miami Art Week, the pianos go to local public schools.

* Pop-surrealist artist Aleloop (aka Alejandra Liebovich, formerly senior art director for Nickelodeon) presents “Did you See Those MINIs?” Dec. 1-4, 2011, an interactive mobile art installation featuring a caravan of 10 MINI Coopers wrapped with her playful, psychedelic art, travelling through Miami and making stops at the art fairs, parties, galleries and restaurants. At each stop, 40 performers pop out of the colorful cars and create a “multisensory Flash Mob” around the MINIs, with music, juggling, fire spinning, magic, hooping and dancing.

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