It has been nearly two months since the latest edition of Art Basel Paris graced the freshly revamped Grand Palais and now the fair is ready to land in the hippest destination of Florida for a new iteration of Art Basel Miami.
Launching with an exclusive vernissage on Thursday, December 5, and officially open to the public December 6-8, Art Basel Miami 2024 will see 286 acclaimed galleries descend to the Sunshine State's Convention Center from 38 different countries (planning on attending? Book your stay at the best Miami hotels before it's too late). Divided into seven thematic sectors — including Meridians, a showcase dedicated to large-scale, immersive artworks, Nova, a fresh look at artworks created within the last three years, and Positions, Art Basel Miami 2024's platform for young galleries and their emerging talents — along with a public program, it will cast light on the latest artistic innovations, the trends, and preoccupations that are currently redefining the creative scene, and right on time for the New Year.
Part of the wider Miami Art Week 2024 calendar, a city-wide, interdisciplinary collection of some 20 satellite fairs, all either already in full swing or opening their doors in the coming days, Art Basel Miami 2024 plays the lead in the city's December cultural extravaganza. To ensure you don't miss out on any of the collateral events or free displays happening around the city, we've curated a selection of must-see installations on show in Miami right now, whether at the boundary-pushing Design Miami, at local museums, or beyond.
1. Josh Aronson's "Florida Boys" at The Catalina Hotel & Beach Club
1732 Collins Ave, Miami Beach, FL 33139, United States
A hotel isn't your usual Art Basel Miami 2024 destination, not when it comes to unearthing the best installations in town, anyway. Still, Canadian-born, Floridian-based photographer Josh Aronson's first large-scale public art installation, on view at the city's historical Catalina Hotel & Beach Club through December 12, deserves to be added to your Miami Art Week 2024 itinerary.
Part of his recent series Florida Boys, Spring is a translucent fabric print depicting a group of friends bathing at sea. Now floating in front of two-story windows of the iconic hotel, it captures the vibrancy of the Sunshine State like no other artwork, portraying the lightheartedness, warmth, and 'limbo' essence of youth. Also worth a stop is the artist's concurrent group show, Unveiling Power: Examining Influence, open at Green Space Miami through March 2025.
2. Alcova Miami at Miami River Inn
437 SW 2nd St, Miami, FL 33130, United States
As one of the most disruptive, burgeoning realities on the contemporary design scene, nomadic platform Alcova's Milan and Miami appearances are some of the most anticipated events on the art- and interior-savant's agenda. Taking over the Miami River Inn, the city's longest-standing hotel, during Miami Art Week 2024, the Valentina Ciuffi and Joseph Grima-founded curatorial project grants you the opportunity to familiarize yourself with some of its platformed talents, including emerging and established names. With over 40 exhibitors, the event is hands-down one of the most characteristic initiatives scheduled in tandem with Art Basel Miami 2024, also thanks to the stuck-in-time, tropical location that serves as its host.
Among my personal favorites from the latest Alcova iteration are the ethereally soothing Something Last, a survey of works from artists and designers Cindy Hsu Zell, Devin Wilde, Jialun Xiong, Mary Ratcliffe Studio, Vy Voi Studio, and Xiaoyan Wei, whose emotional creations marry functionality and storytelling; and Ladies and Gentlemen Studio & Daniela Friedman's collaborative Invento Spirit: Collective Experiments in Adaptive Creativity, a physical, playful manifestation of "the Cuban spirit", as embodied by quirky, layered colorful works obtained from repurposed found materials.
Buy your tickets for Alcova Miami.
3. The Future Perfect at Design Miami
Design Miami, Booth Number G16 at 1901 Convention Ctr Dr, Miami Beach, FL 33139, United States
If there's one thing that The Future Perfect's presentation at Design Miami shows, it is that, when it comes to creativity, there truly aren't any limits. Inspired by the fair's overarching Blue Sky theme, the David Alhadeff-founded, bicoastal contemporary design gallery invites visitors to step inside a two-part, golden-hued tapestry of creations that bears the signature of over 20 artists and designers, between rising and globally acclaimed talents.
Standing out for their uplifting, imaginative atmosphere, the pieces on display in the first half of the showcase, including Chris Wolston's creature-like, amusing Silos TouchMe armchairs, covered in his signature 'Nalgona' hands, and a vibrantly decorated coffee table from the same series, bespoke sculptural lighting by Lindsey Adelman, and Sophie Lou Jacobsen's timelessly elegant glasswork, probe the breadth of expression of today's design landscape. Meanwhile, the second side of the booth platforms the extraordinary artisanry of New Delhi-based artist Vikram Goyal. In his Design Miami US debut, the trained engineer presents his intricately decorated furniture and decorative pieces, informed by ancient Indian and Persian heritage and nature, with the epic Garden of Life as his standout.
Book your tickets for Design Miami.
4. The Art of Matchmaking at Art Basel Miami, Jungle Plaza
3801 NE 1st Ave, Miami, FL 33137, United States
Ever since I first came across them, I have been obsessing over Milan-based visual artist Alex Valentina's surreal digital artworks, which appear to belong to a dimension of their own. On the occasion of Art Basel Miami 2024, he is taking his moving, striking visions to the Sunshine State's design capital for The Art of Matchmaking, an immersive art installation co-organized by Highsnobiety and Bumble.
Having had his work exhibited on Times Square's iconic neon banners earlier this year, Valentina is now bringing his whimsical artistry to the Miami Design District's Jungle Plaza, where it will be on view through December 8. Curious, engaging, and hypnotizing, his jelly-like, fantastical worlds are the perfect antidote to the hardness of everyday life.
5. Objective Gallery at Design Miami
Design Miami, Booth Number G19 at 1901 Convention Ctr Dr, Miami Beach, FL 33139, United States
My admiration for Sam Klemick's exaggeratedly voluminous, comforting furniture is tangible in the profile I wrote on her work as part of our emerging designers series in August, but her participation at this year's Design Miami only confirms that she is a name every industry insider and interior aficionado should have on their radars. Part of Objective Gallery's collective group show at the fair, All design is contemporary, if it's alive, new iterations of her grounded Bell Chair, obtained from upcycled lumber she sourced from local construction sites in LA, offer a glimpse into her one-of-a-kind practice of "carved wood upholstery", and her peace-aiding understanding of functional design.
Klemick's fanciful pieces share the spotlight with contributions by Jeff Martin, Charlotte Kingsnorth, Luke Malane, Jack Simonds, Tor Rothschild Neria, James Shaw, Justin Cao, Michael Oates, and Liu Xi: rising international artists who, despite working with different mediums, share an interest in responsible production practices, and a desire to infuse their meticulously crafted masterpieces with a life of their own.
6. Meridians Sector at Art Basel Miami 2024
Art Basel Miami 2024, Meridians Sector at 1901 Convention Ctr Dr, Miami Beach, FL 33139, United States
One of my favorite sectors at Art Basel Miami 2024, the Yasmil Raymond-curated Meridians takes contemporary art to unprecedented heights by redirecting the focus onto artists working at larger-than-life scale.
Weaving together some truly impressive sculptural, textile, painting, and installation pieces by 18 international personalities, including legendary American sculptor Alice Aycock, Peruvian photographer Roberto Huarcaya, and Chinese artist Jinshi Zhu, for a total of 20 represented galleries, this section of the fair is one to get lost into. Colossal tapestries, floor-to-ceiling, towering paper lanterns, wall-large murals, and much more will absorb viewers in reflections on identity, heritage, and the climate crisis, while celebrating the boundless power of creative expression.
7. Cecilia Vicuña's "Quipu Gut" at Pérez Art Museum Miami
1103 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL 33132, United States
After enchanting the public of London's Tate Modern with her Turbine Hall installation in the fall of 2022, Chilean poet and artist Cecilia Vicuña has installed her poignant large-scale knotted structures at Pérez Art Museum Miami for Quipu Gut, her ongoing solo exhibition (through August 10). Drawing from the ancient Andean communication technology known as quipu ("knot" in Quechua), a practice that relies on knotted strings to archive information, made illegal by the Spanish during the colonization of South America, the celebrated artist has given life to 50, thirty-three-foot-long strands of blood-red unspun wool, which she charged with reflections on the forgotten histories of persecuted people, Indigenous weaving practices, ritual, and environmental activism. The result is a poetical, floating masterpiece that encourages us to scratch beneath the surface of things — be that society's power structures, the climate crisis, or forgotten traditions.
Book your tickets for Quipu Gut.
8. Memphis Miami at Miami Design District
88 NE 39th St, Miami, FL 33137, USA
If you've stumbled upon my roundup of the best Miami concept stores, you probably know how much of a Memphis Milano fan I am at this point. Luckily for those who share my appreciation for the bold 1980s design movement, and who happen to be in town this week, Milan-based magazine and curatorial platform Capsule is rekindling the celebrated phenomenon with an eye-catching new exhibition, Memphis Miami. Produced in collaboration with online design marketplace Basic.Space, the showcase sees the cult Italian brand Memphis Milano and American artist Katherine Bernhardt come together at the Miami Design District for an exclusive event filled with color and joyful, high-end craftsmanship.
For the occasion, Bernhardt is debuting a brand new, limited edition series of rugs, each imbued with the same "pop-surrealist" essence of Memphis Milano's signature pieces. Merging references to the iconic designs of the movement's founder, Italian pioneer Ettore Sottsass, with locally inspired details, such as the "bubblegum" backdrop of the show — an ode to Miami's Arquitectonica-designed Pink House — Memphis Miami is the perfect opportunity to either revive your admiration for the groundbreaking design style or fall in love with it for the first time. Juxtaposed with Bernhardt's subversive artworks and freshly produced rugs are some of Memphis Milano most celebrated pieces, including the Carlton bookshelf and Tahiti lamp by Sottsass, the Flamingo coffee table and Riviera chair by Michele De Lucchi, as well as glass and porcelain objects designed by Marco Zanini, Martine Bedin, and Nathalie Du Pasquier.
With all items available to purchase on-site and online via Basic.Space, Memphis Miami also offers you the occasion to make them your own. Running in tandem with this presentation, a new body of whimsical paintings by Bernhardt, informed by Memphis style, will be unveiled at Art Basel Miami 2024 as part of David Zwirner Gallery's booth at the fair.
If you think art and design inspiration are exclusively confined to the walls of local galleries, museums, and showrooms, our curated edits of the best Miami restaurants and the best Miami cafés are about to prove you wrong. Stop to recharge at any of our featured destinations and indulge in the luxury of a multisensory culinary experience.
Keen to take a piece of the city home with you after your trip comes to an end? Take a pick from our selection of the best furniture stores in Miami, where collector-worthy finds await.
