Art Miami!!

Wow!! Art Miami is HUGE. It is a week long festival of Art, Art and more Art. And Kerry was there. He was actually there to participate in the ISC ‘Movers and Shakers’ Sculptors’ Symposium, but managed to find time to walk the streets and the galleries of many of the 20 different Art fairs. His feet are still recovering.

In the Wynwood Art area huge marquees were set up to house Art Miami; Context; Miami Project; Red Dot Miami; Spectrum Miami and several others. 

On the VIP preview night there were so many people, cars, security and art it was overwhelming.

Nighttime was an exhilarating experience in the Wynwood Art District itself. Situated in one of the grittier parts of Miami, Kerry saw quite a bit of the grit on his walk there. Wynwood is a working class predominantly, Puerto Rican neighborhood, which until recently was renowned for drugs, crime and a general sense of foreboding. It is in the process of transformation due to Art. The night before Art Miami kicked off Kerry and his partner walked those streets, carefully picking their way though the enthusiastic graffiti artists who were creating huge, amazing murals on the walls of the abandoned warehouses. Known as ‘Wynwood Walls’ these attract thousands of people and the energy level is very high. The many small galleries lining the streets show contemporary and bold art, and the young gallery owners are very welcoming. There are also many good places to eat.

One has to go to Art Basel on Miami Beach and Kerry did; it is enormous. It contained what felt like hundreds of booths (and probably was) and each booth was as big as an Art Gallery; Picasso, Henry Moore, Miro and many contemporary artists were displayed. The whole affair though was a bit impersonal, ‘like the art.’

One gallery that was quite different was Aqua Art Miami near South Beach. Set in the Art Deco corridor Aqua is a classic South Beach hotel with spacious exhibition rooms. These are all equipped with luxurious baths which combined with the rooms opening out onto a breezy intimate courtyard gave it the feel of an up market brothel. Kerry said ‘it was a fun place to visit to view art that was more accessible.’

Seeing so much Art so quickly makes it difficult to remember most of it.

Red Dot was Kerry’s favorite, but that might have been because it was the first gallery visited and he was fresh.