ARTISTS
Miami Art Week 2016: Rising Tides of Anxiety and Promise
Well, we鈥檙e here. With 2016 finally coming to a close, the art world has landed in Miami for another Art Basel bacchanal. But along with the carefree glamour of the galas and the private parties, trepidation hangs in the air鈥攚hether it鈥檚 acknowledged or not. With rising tides, both symbolic and real, increasingly threatening the art world鈥檚 private paradise, we are caught between anxiety and blissful disbelief, ruefully letting the champagne flow every December, until, one year, we might be waiting on Collins Avenue for our Ubers in waist-high water. Here is some art to see in Miami that reflects our anxious times, and the promise that we may overcome them.
Natalie Hegert / 黑料不打烊
30 Nov, 2016
Teresita Fernández, Fire (America) 2, 2016. Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.
Well, we’re here. With 2016 finally coming to a close, the art world has landed in Miami for another Art Basel bacchanal. But along with the carefree glamour of the galas and the private parties, trepidation hangs in the air—whether it’s acknowledged or not. This has been a year of shifts, crises, divisions, and disasters, both natural and self-imposed, and it remains to be seen how the art world will fare in the uncertain future, between Brexit and Trump and climate change and everything else. While the recent auctions—and the returns from Art Basel, most likely—seemingly put to rest any fears about whether the art market’s robustness will continue, the rest of the art ecology is left in precarity. After all, the wealthy will always do fine, relatively, regardless of the circumstances. How artists, non-profits, and public institutions will fare in this climate is another matter altogether. It’s fitting, then, that the largest annual gathering of the art world takes place on the precarious peninsula of Florida. With rising tides, both symbolic and real, increasingly threatening the art world’s private paradise, we are caught between anxiety and blissful disbelief, ruefully letting the champagne flow every December, until, one year, we might be waiting on Collins Avenue for our Ubers in waist-high water. Here is some art to see in Miami that reflects our anxious times, and the promise that we may overcome them.
Katja Novitskova, Pattern of Activation (Callithrix Monkey), 2015. Courtesy of the Rubell Family Collection.
Opening on November 30, the Rubell Family Collection is showing a group of new acquisitions from the last two years by young artists exploring the social and political concerns of recent times, grouped under the rubric . Works by Simon Denny, Isa Genzken, Karl Holmqvist, Kathryn Andrews, Katja Novitskova, Jordan Wolfson, Magali Reus, Hito Steyerl, Ryan Trecartin, Lizzie Fitch, and others capture our “shared state of uncertainty, nervousness and pessimism.”
Alexis Gideon, The Comet and the Glacier, installation view, 2016. Photo: Zack Balber with Ginger Photography Inc..
At Miami’s venerated and experimental non-profit Locust Projects, a video opera and immersive installation by Pittsburgh-based artist and composer Alexis Gideon touches upon the existential anxieties of the past and present, in a convoluted and complex conflation of fact and fiction. represent, at once, two disastrous end-times scenarios, and two opposing perspectives on an apocalyptic story that never resolves itself as either truth or fiction. The artist will perform within the installation at various times during Art Basel, from December 1 – 4.
SUPERFLEX, Kwassa Kwassa, 2015, digital color video, with sound, 17 min. Commissioned by Beaufort Beyond Borders 2015 and Marrakech Biennale 6. Supported by Danish Art Council. Courtesy the artists, Nils Staerk, Copenhagen, and 1301PE Gallery, Los Angeles.
On view in the Pérez Art Museum Miami’s Project Gallery, the film , by the Danish artist collective SUPERFLEX, portrays the migration and movement around the Comoro Islands in the Mozambique channel, between independent islands and those still under French colonial rule, via small, hand-built fishing boats. “Kwassa kwassa” translates to “unstable boat,” an apt metaphor for a world marked by the upheavals of mass migration and the precariousness of nations. While at PAMM, don’t miss (as if you could) the phenomenal exhibition of Argentinian kinetic artist Julio Le Parc—his studies into the effects of color, light, and movement are sure to soothe your tensions.
Julio Le Parc, Cloison à lames réfléchissantes (Partition with Reflective Strips), 1966/2005, steel, 91 3/10 x 109 x 31 ½ in. Courtesy Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and New York. Julio Le Parc © 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Photo: André Morin.
At the fairs, socially and politically engaged art can be found, if you’re looking for it. Though the environment of the art fair is not particularly conducive for art that requires more than a cursory attention span, what an international art fair can offer is diverse perspectives by artists from around the globe on pressing matters that go beyond the U.S.-U.K. bubble, and it’s worth pointing out a few of the booths that are presenting issue-based works. In the Nova sector of , look for Leo Xu Projects with an installation of works by aaajia, Cui Jie, and Liu Shiyuan that address the “dystopian myth” of Shanghai; Kalfayan Galleries with work by Greek artist Kostis Velonis exploring issues of class identity and labor; Galeria Leme with works by Vivan Caccuri and Jaime Lauriano centered on an historical insurgency of African Muslims in Brazil; and in the Positions sector, Prometeogallery di Ida Pisani presents text, video, and an architectural intervention by Beto Shwafaty that concerns Brazil’s recent political history.
AAAJIAO, Gfwlist, 2010. Courtesy of the artist and Leo Xu Projects, Shanghai.
Other booths to watch for that are addressing the anxieties and tensions of the modern era include Anicka Yi’s “disquieting” installation about “radical biotech,” composed of fur, chicken skin, and synthetic flowers at 47 Canal; and works by Sanford Biggers and Xaviera Simmons at David Castillo Gallery that present personal perspectives within larger cultural narratives around race and otherness. Some dealers even opted to show works that directly respond to this moment of political crisis: Gavin Brown’s Enterprise is showing text and newspaper works by Rirkrit Tiravanija made in the wake of the Trump election; a portrait of Hillary Clinton painted by Karl Haendel and a sculpture of a pink gun calling for a ban on assault rifles by Andrea Bowers will be at Susanne Vielmetter’s booth; Blum & Poe will show politically charged works based on protest signage by Sam Durant; and at Marc Selwyn Fine Art, photographs by Richard Misrach of the U.S.-Mexico border evoke a vision of the crude, cruel promise of the U.S. president-elect.
Richard Misrach, Wall, Jacumba, California, 2009. Courtesy of the artist and Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Beverly Hills.
is sure to generate some pointed discussions around contemporary tensions in and out of the art world. On Thursday, December 1, Art Basel’s Salon will consider “Why is Gender Still an Issue?”, on Friday, December 2, it will address the “Post-Election Art Market”, and on Saturday, December 3, it will discuss whether “Technology [has] Really Changed the Artworld?” While over at , a poolside discussion on Friday, December 2, brings up the issue of Miami’s infrastructure vis-à-vis Miami Art Week and “how spectacle affects the natural environment.” Feel free to start your own dialogues about substantive issues outside of these appointed times (it beats the usual parade of names, places, and parties pronounced conspicuously over cocktails in the VIP lounge).
"Flotsam & Jetsam" rendering. Courtesy of SHoP Architects.
Additional installations and projects throughout Miami that reflect the concerns and inquietudes of contemporary life range from constructive to absurd, helpful to hopeless. Flotsam & Jetsam, the latticework pavilion installed at the entrance of the fair, designed by Panerai Design Miami/ Visionary Award recipients SHoP Architects, utilizes 3-D-printed biodegradable bamboo, and “holds the potential to revolutionize the expressive potential of new technologies in real-world conditions.” On the opposite spectrum, an installation entitled by artist duo Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw at Satellite reacts to the anxiety of the future and of “our current cultural and political state” with “a ridiculous and absurd gesture”: an oversized bowl of milk and cereal taking up an entire motel room.
While things may seem dismal now, it’s important not to give up hope, a lesson succinctly delivered by the most highly visible installation of Miami Art Week: a emanating from the Lionheart Capital building in the Design District, sponsored by the Ritz Carlton. Despite the aggressive corporate branding associated with it—it’s promoted on social media as the #RitzRainbow—the way these colorful lasers pierce the night sky is simply, unquestioningly beautiful. Viewable from up to 25 miles away, the electric rainbow by New York/Berlin-based artist Yvette Mattern strikes the sky with a vision of promise and reminds us that art can persevere.
—Natalie Hegert
