Once an ambitious upstart and now a reliable highlight of the art world’s calendar, Art Basel Miami Beach returns for its 22nd in-person edition from Friday to Sunday with 286 galleries from around the world.
For most collectors, curators, advisers and dealers, it marks the last major event of the year before the holidays arrive. For a seller or a buyer looking to make a big deal, the time is now.
Housed as always in the Miami Beach Convention Center, the event is also the last major art fair in a year full of them, including previous Art Basel editions in Hong Kong in March; Basel, Switzerland, in June; and Paris in October. Not to mention four far-flung Frieze fairs and a couple put on by the European Fine Art Foundation.
The Miami Beach fair is both large and popular — last year, 79,000 people attended. So here are some ways to navigate the big event.
A Fresh Infusion
This year’s theme could be new blood, both in leadership and exhibitors. This edition will be the first organized by the new director of Art Basel Miami Beach, Bridget Finn, who exhibited at the fair as a dealer when she was the co-director of the gallery Reyes Finn in Detroit, which closed its doors last year.
“She’s been in our business in many capacities, and that’s a huge strength,” said Vincenzo de Bellis, Art Basel’s director of fairs, overseeing all of the events. “She knows the fair from the other side, and the needs of the dealers.”
Thirty-four dealers who have never exhibited at the fair before will also be on hand, the largest number of newcomers in a decade. First-timers include Pearl Lam Galleries of Hong Kong and Shanghai; Gallery Wendi Norris of San Francisco; and Eden Assanti of London.
“We want to diversify our offerings as much as possible,” de Bellis said. “We need new and different voices.”
Prime Meridians
The Meridians section, for large-scale artworks, marks its fifth anniversary this year with two new elements. It has a new curator, Yasmil Raymond, who was a curator at the Museum of Modern Art and the Walker Art Center. The section has also been reconfigured and moved to the south end of the show floor, flanking the Nova and Positions sections.
“It’s better for the flow of the fair and it’s more consequential as far as what people are seeing in the booths,” de Bellis said, given that its former location was near galleries specializing in modern art, which did not relate as well to the contemporary-minded Meridians projects. “It just makes more sense.”
The 17 projects include “Goya” (2024), a ribbonlike sculpture in aluminum from the veteran New York artist Alice Aycock that stands 10 feet tall, presented by Berlin’s Galerie Thomas Schulte, and “Pathway” (2024), by Chinese-born German artist Zhu Jinshi. Presented by Pearl Lam Galleries, “Pathway” is made of 16,000 sheets of paper overhanging an armature of bamboo and cotton that can be entered by viewers.
Brazilian Flavor
A key strength of the fair has always been its ability to take advantage of Miami’s geographic position and diverse population to highlight Latin-American galleries, artists and institutions. “It’s the nexus between North and South America,” de Bellis said.
Brazil has a strong presence this year. The São Paulo gallery Carmo Johnson Projects offers a philanthropic spin on the market by showing the works of the Indigenous artist collective Huni Kuin Artist Movement (MAHKU) led by the artist and activist Ibâ Huni Kuin and located in the Brazilian state of Acre, in the far western reaches of the country. Sales proceeds of the works on view — which include “Dau Shawa Pêturi” (2024), a colorful acrylic painting — go toward local causes.
The São Paulo gallery Gomide & Co. has shown at the Miami Beach fair for 10 years, and its founder, Thiago Gomide, is now on the gallery selection committee for the event.
Gomide will be exhibiting a variety of works in the main Galleries section, including Beatriz Milhazes’s “Sinfonia Nordestina” (2008), a brightly colored abstraction.
He also has a separate booth-within-a-booth that is part of the fair’s Kabinett sector, for focused presentations, with work by Miriam Inez da Silva (1937-96), including the painting “Amor de sereia com pescador” (1983).
“It’s an exciting introduction of someone not known to the American public,” Gomide said of da Silva, who frequently painted scenes of leisure pursuits. “She had a slightly surreal approach and a light, humorous touch.”
Retail Therapy
Not everyone can spend millions of dollars on art, or even thousands for that matter. So the Art Basel Shop makes its debut at the Miami Beach fair this week, after being rolled out at the Basel and Paris events earlier this year. The concept is modeled after the retail shops at museums; the special-edition collectibles were selected by Sarah Andelman, the co-founder of the store Colette in Paris.
“The items are at a lower price point, and it invites people to be in the collecting frame of mind,” said de Bellis.
Among the merchandise being offered are three colorful, artist-designed scarves — by Janaina Tschäpe and Thalita Hamaoui, both Brazilian, and the American Sam Falls — sold by the environmental group Parley for the Oceans. Made of silk and upcycled ocean plastic, each scarf is $450, with proceeds going to the nonprofit organization.
There’s Always Money in the Banana Stand
Even casual art lovers may remember coverage of the fruit-forward hullabaloo that occurred at the 2019 edition of the Miami Beach fair. Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian,” an artwork consisting of a banana duct-taped to a wall, caused something of a frenzy among onlookers who gathered to check it out. Then, just last month, an edition of the work caused more excitement when it sold for $6.2 million at Sotheby’s New York.
Now the fruit producer and distributor Chiquita will be running two banana-sampling carts — one in the North Lobby of the Miami Beach Convention Center and one in the Miami Beach Botanical Gardens next door — where fairgoers can receive a free banana. A limited number of samplers can redeem the Chiquita Art Basel Miami Beach sticker on their banana for a prize.
De Bellis said that although Cattelan’s work was thoughtful and resonant, the playful nod to its notoriety shows that Art Basel did not take itself too seriously: “We’re in on the joke.”
Tickets, Please
A basic adult admission to the fair is $85 for one day, and tickets for children under 12 are $10. A series of premium tickets priced from $650 to $4,300 include escalating extras, from early admission to guided local itineraries.
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