HIGHLIGHTS FROM ART BASEL MIAMI BY SHALINI PASSI
The much awaited Art Basel, took place in December in Miami after a pandemic-pause. As the travel restrictions eased and vaccination programmes smoothened their course, we witnessed reinstatement of global art events. After Art Basel in Hong Kong in May, and Art Basel – Basel in September , this is the third Basel edition of the year (2021). Basel followed general safety protocols in place like masks, sanitisation, vaccination and a negative rt-pcr. Starting on November 30 and ending on December 4, the fair is located at Miami Beach. Every year, Basel is a hub for frontier galleries, art collectors, artists and creatively inclined people globally. The horizon is widening this year with the Art Basel OVR which enables digital audiences.
The long pause in the art world certainly worked up an appetite for art collectors across continents. While the horizon for art seemed infinite at Art Basel, I have tried to narrow it down with a few booths that particularly stood out to me.
1) JACK SHAINMAN AT BOTH J3
The gallery showcased a new Soundsuit by the well known artist Nick Cave as a prelude of Cave’s major retrospective. Other artists presenting at Jack Shainman include Toyin Oijh Odutola, Richard Mosse, Becky Suss, Hank Willis Thomas, Yoan Capote, Barkley L. Hendricks, Meleko Mokgosi, Radcliffe Bailey, El Anatsui, Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu, Paul Anthony Smith, Hayv Kahraman, Gordon Parks and Odili Donald Odita.
2) VICTORIA MIRO LOCATED AT BOOTH H4
Victoria Miro exhibited works by Doug Aitken, Secundino Hernández, Idris Khan, Yayoi Kusama, John Kørner, Maria Nepomuceno, Milton Avery, Ali Banisadr, María Berrío, Chris Ofili, Grayson Perry, Howardena Pindell and Flora Yukhnovich.
Victoria Miro represented works by these artists varying from figuration to abstraction.
Where artists like Milton Avery had skillful larger than life portraits exhibited, Doug Aitken redefined textile art and Idris Khan’s meditative Ultramarine blue paintings had the audience gripped.
3) WHITE CUBE
For this year’s Miami edition of Art Basel, White Cube presented 25 artists which were inclusive of paintings, sculptures and art installations. Artist Danh Vo was featured with a multi part installation covering large booth walls. David Hockney, Tracey Emin and Georg Bselitz were amongst other prominent artists.
The gallery showcased Georg Baselitz’s masterwork Hirtenkopf (1986). The other showcased artworks were by artists : Ibrahim Mahama, Christian Marclay, David Altmejd, Bram Bogart, Mark Bradford, Carroll Dunham, Cerith Wyn Evans, Theaster Gates, Antony Gormley, Andreas Gursky, David Hammons, Mona Hatoum, Al Held, Damien Hirst, David Hockney, Julie Mehretu, Sarah Morris, Isamu Noguchi, Doris Salcedo, Takis, Fred Tomaselli, Danh Vo, Jeff Wall.
“Places like Lagos or Times Square on a Saturday night are completely intriguing to me in their supreme dazzling capacity. I want my paintings to convey and reflect this type of speed, dynamism, struggle, and potential.”
– Julie Mehretu
THADDAEUS ROPAC at Booth G7
This year they presented new works by Mandy El-Sayegh, Anselm Kiefer, Martha Jungwirth, and Alex Katz along with amazing works by Georg Baselitz, Robert Rauschenberg, Daniel Richter, David Salle, Robert Longo, and Sturtevant amongst others.
Roci Mexico, a silkscreen print, is one of Robert Rauchenburg’s former works from the period with a very lively Mexican color palette and composition.
“Neutrality is a myth, but you cannot give up the fight. You have to fight the conventions of the genre and the subject itself in order to make something new. The point of portraiture is to leave the portrait behind so that you can go forward.”
– Georg Baselitz
5) Richard Saltoun Gallery at Booth S09
Richard Saltoun Gallery celebrated two prominent female artists this year at Art Basel Miami Beach.
For her first ever showing in the United States, the gallery presented at Art Basel Miami Beach one of the most important East African artists working today: Tanzanian-born Everlyn Nicodemus.
A pioneering ‘modernist’ painter, Nicodemus was born in Kilimanjaro in 1954 but left as a teenager in 1973. Part of the moving diaspora, she lived in Sweden, Belgium, and France before finally settling in Scotland, where she lives and works today.
The gallery showcased exceptionally early paintings made in Tanzania and dating from 1980, the first year she began to make work. This is the first time these important historical works have been made available for sale and they illustrate her innovative practice, exploring the ‘other’, culturally, sexually, and racially.
Details are enclosed along with a presentation of available works by Colombian textile and fiber sculptor Olga de Amaral.
Text by Shalini Passi
Image Credits: White Cube, Victoria Miro, Richard Saltoun Gallery and Thaddaeus Ropac
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