Art Basel 2021 has always been the most entertaining and exciting art market show in the world: a single major exhibition in which leading galleries from five continents display significant works by masters of modern and contemporary art. It is absolutely the ideal place to discover and fall in love with the work of the new generation of emerging stars.
Art Basel Miami Beach 2021 is first in-person fair in Miami Beach since 2019: it will feature 253 leading galleries from around the world presenting the highest quality of work across all media, from rare and historic masterpieces to new pieces from today’s emerging artistic voices. In addition to presenting exceptional art within its Galleries, Positions, Nova, Survey and Edition sectors, the fair will also feature 16 large-scale artworks in Meridians, 25 carefully curated exhibitions as part of Kabinett and also 10 panels as part of the fair’s renowned Conversations series.
‘There is huge excitement in the art world on both sides of the Atlantic for Art Basel Miami Beach 2021,’ says Marc Spiegler, global director of Art Basel. “Not only because it is our first fair in two years in the Americas, but also because the show has never before featured such a diverse range of voices.”
Meridians
Meridians is Art Basel’s unique platform in Miami Beach for large-scale projects, providing galleries the opportunity to exhibit monumental works that transcend the boundaries of a traditional art fair layout, including large-scale sculptures and paintings, installations, video projections and live performances. The sector, which will again be set up in a dedicated space on the main exhibition floor, will once again be curated by Mexico City’s Magalí Arriola, director of the Museo Tamayo.
Meridians highlights include:
- A new work by Maxwell Alexandre as part of the artist’s ‘Pardo é Papel’ series presented by A Gentil Carioca.
- A site-specific installation and a performance-based activation of six body devices by Brendan Fernandes titled ‘Contract and Release’ (2019–2021) presented by moniquemeloche.
- Todd Gray’s ‘Sumptuous Memories of Plundering Kings’ (2021) presented by David Lewis, a 14-part work exceeding 30 feet in length, exploring the history and enduring impact of European colonialism, slavery, and the African diaspora.
- A monumental double-sided painting by Jacqueline de Jong titled ‘De achterkant van het bestaan’ (The backside of existence), (1992) presented by Pippy Houldsworth Gallery.
- Howardena Pindell’s iconic ‘Sweatshop’ (1998–1999), an expansive canvas presenting advertising cutouts of quotidian objects: combs, scissors, glasses, and other items, presented by Garth Greenan Gallery.
- ‘Moving Up’ (2021) by Yinka Shonibare, CBE, an installation presented by James Cohan Gallery capturing the vertical move of six million African Americans from rural Southern states to the cities of the North, Midwest, and West from 1916 to 1970, known today as the Great Migration.
Magalí Arriola, curator of Meridians, says: ‘Many of the works included in Meridians question the traditional representations of class, race and power to resist social conventions, and to bridge the physical and cultural boundaries that surfaced in our society in recent times.’
For the full list of artists and galleries represented in Meridians please visit artbasel.com/miami-beach/meridians.
Kabinett
Providing galleries with an opportunity to present curated exhibitions in separately delineated spaces within their booths, this year’s Kabinett sector will include 25 presentations by established and emerging artists.
Kabinett highlights include:
- Jorge Mara – La Ruche’s presentation of Ellen Auerbach, Grete Stern and Horacio Coppola, three influential figures of Avant Garde photography who established themselves as visionary modernists in Europe and South America during the 1930s.
- Sies + Höke’s presentation of rare early drawings by Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter, which trace the differences as well as the common ground in their artistic approaches.
- Mayoral’s presentation of works by Manolo Millares, one of the most important Spanish artists of the post-war European Informalist movement.
- Roberts Projects’ presentation of community-based portraits by Ghanian artist Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, a series of new paintings exploring the relationships between identity, materiality, and race, that mark a critical evolution for the artist.
For the full list of artists and galleries represented in Kabinett, please visit: artbasel.com/miami-beach/kabinett
Conversations
Art Basel’s renowned Conversations series offers a platform for the exchange of ideas on topics concerning the global contemporary art scene. This year’s program features 10 panels bringing together leading artists, gallerists, collectors, art historians, curators, museum directors and critics from across the world discussing diverse issues from the rise of the NFT art market, to questions of resilience post-pandemic and the need to reinvent the museum. Conversations will be curated for the second time by Art Basel and private art dealer and author Edward Winkleman. The program will be free to the public, running from Wednesday, December 1 to Saturday, December 4 in the Auditorium (Grand Ballroom). All panel discussions will be live-streamed on Facebook and recorded.
For further information please visit artbasel.com/miami-beach/conversations
Photo courtesy of Art Basel Miami
