A big, collective “don’t bother” to these three fairs of emerging and unrepresented artists. Not to be Debbie Downer, but if you’re going to skip something, this is it.
I will give a shout out to Steven Gagnon, whose border cruiser projection vehicle plays a video interview with an illegal immigrant in its backseat window as [...]

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This fair takes place in the Design District just north of Wynwood in a lovely building called the Moore, which houses many small design and creative services offices. By Sunday I was tempted to skip it, but C. Emerson Fine Arts’ Lori Johns recommended stopping by. Very glad I did.
I’ll just say, London’s Albion Gallery [...]

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If you love contemporary art, you’ve hit the jackpot at both of these fairs. Pulse is the one on everybody’s radar; all the cool kids (read, galleries) are here, and the crowd knows it. In contrast, visitors could practically hear a pin drop at Aqua Wywood even though—in my opinion—the work was as good. Pulse [...]

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Art Miami, which for the past 17 years has been held in January, joined the Basel fray this week by setting up shop in Wynwood. Their 100,000 square-foot tent, with roughly 100 exhibiting galleries arranged inside, brought a little of Basel’s class—and commercialism—to the gritty arts district.

Personally, I felt the work at Art Miami was [...]

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In my humble opinion, Photo Miami propagates an unfortunate misconception about contemporary photography, which is that if an image is printed as a glossy Lambda print, mounted on aluminum, or coated with resin, it must be art. Oh, and it’s gotta be big, too.
That dismissive comment aside, there were some interesting pictures lurking amid the [...]

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I have to admit that I’ve reached my art saturation point. Now I’m skating through things and coming to a full stop only if something really grabs my attention.
That happened with Erik von Lieshout’s really obnoxious but totally wonderful video document of his personal journey (at age 37) to emotional maturity. (Not sure he actually [...]

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Kurt is going to kill me, but honestly, there’s not much worth seeing at Pool Art Fair except for him. So let’s dwell on him…

Here’s Tampa-based artist Kurt Piazza looking fabulous as ever in front of his wonderful graphite “organic compression” drawings. Kurt also showed a pair of hypnotic abstract videos with great soundtracks and [...]

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Now this is what I drove down for! Aqua rocks.
Aqua Art Miami takes place in the approx. 30 rooms of the Aqua Hotel, which is arranged around a central courtyard and pool. (This year, there’s also an Aqua Wynwood, which I haven’t been to yet.) Tons of good stuff here. I thought the best [...]

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Local collector Stan Storer suggested that I go to Miami Ink to see a series of woodcuts about the Iraq war by LA artist Sandow Birk. Boy, am I glad I did.
Birk is well-known for his paintings based on historical works that deal with contemporary issues. This series of prints, The Depravities of War– inspired [...]

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These two satellite fairs are next door to each other in boutique hotels on Collins Ave. Flow is much smaller than Bridge, but both have an interesting array of work by emerging and established artists shown by younger and/or smaller galleries. Hotel rooms are temporarily transformed into white-box gallery spaces, and hallways can get crowded, [...]

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That’s right. Art Basel Miami Beach—the main event, the big banana, el grande enchilada, the triple Venti mochaccino of art—is pretty much a giant snore. Aside from the feeling that you can’t not go to ABMB because it’s the hub of everything going on here this week, I see no real reason for spending significant [...]

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I think a simple rating system is in order to help sift through the many options at Miami Basel. (Adding to the confusion, many of the fairs go by short names and acronyms that are similarly cryptic: Aqua, NADA, AIPAD, RAM, Flow, Zones, Scope, Ink, Pool, M*A*S*H.) In the headline, I’ll let you know whether [...]

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