Among the fresh faces at Art Basel in Miami Beach this year are Elizabeth Dee, cofounder and president of the Independent fair in New York, as well as several members of the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA), who are graduating from the organization’s event at the Deauville Beach Resort to the convention center. “The vacancies are enabling us to bring on some great new galleries,” says NADA Art Fair director Heather Hubbs, who also notes that due to economic recovery, she has seen “a surprising number of quality galleries open in places you wouldn’t necessarily expect” over the past couple of years. This year the NADA show attracts a strong crowd of young art world insiders, with a range of exhibitors from places likes Romania and Estonia to Milwaukee and Kansas City.
There is no shortage of competition for the attention of curious young collectors, and fairs continually must reinvent the wheel. Scope is moving over the causeway from midtown Miami to a series of tents near the ocean in South Beach. The 24-year-old Art Miami, a more established scene (based in the Wynwood neighborhood) that’s heavier on work by modern or midcareer contemporary artists, will reprise its edgier sister, Context, launched last year. And Pulse returns to the Ice Palace Studios downtown with an international lens, with half of its galleries hailing from outside the United States.
All eyes will be on the second edition of Untitled, which last year felt like an oasis in an airy, spacious tent on the beach (designed by architects John Keenen and Terence Riley of K/R). More than doubling its number of exhibitors, with 97 on board this year, Untitled is changing the traditional art fair model. It’s not a “come here and hang your wares” fair, says founder Jeff Lawson. Rather, curator Omar Lopez-Chahoud and a team of advisers carefully consider what to show — and this year that means more Latin American galleries and a “contrast between older and midcareer artists with a younger generation,” says Lopez-Chahoud of a strategy pitched to add historical context. A similar approach is apparent at Design Miami, the sister fair to Art Basel that attracts a well-heeled crowd of collectors and stylemavens. Cutting-edge creations by the world’s top designers are de rigueur at Carpenters Workshop Gallery, Demisch Danant, and Didier Ltd., among others; but it’s the historical material that lends gravitas, courtesy of Moderne Gallery and Magen H. Gallery. With all the flurry, it’s easy to see why in Miami there’s no time for fatigue.
