Faena Hotel on the beach artist Es Devlin's "Library of Us". (Image courtesy of Faena)
And we’re off to experience the twenty-fourth year of Art Basel Miami Beach and it’s expanded version into Art Week. Just keep those well-heeled feet moving as Miami-Dade does the usual careening from Book Fair to Thanksgiving to Art Week before hitting the holidays face first, wildly unprepared for gift giving and, yes, more party-going. Keep dressing up creatively and making yet more scintillating small talk as you deflect endless bon mots.
I want to use the words “ground-breaking” to describe what this past year has brought forward, but I feel that my mental dictionary needs an update as "breaking ground” is hardly the proper term for the virtual parallel universe that now encompasses whatever it is we now call “life.” The realm of art has veered off accordingly. Art Basel Miami Beach 2025 has reflected the refraction of this “reality.” Expect what you do not expect.
The Betsy Hotel. The ORB Artist team: LizNBow, Projections are by Laura Paresky Gould. (Image courtesy of the artists and The Betsy Hotel)
It is impossible to see all that is Art Week (Dec.1–7), but there will be moments that make the entire crazed season seem worth the sea of overload input. After all, the world of contemporary art is laid at our feet during Art Week, Miami Beach style. It’s exciting as all get out. Whether you have a passion for the arts or your focus is the all important commerce of creation... pay attention. (I refuse to make an obvious comment about the traffic this year... just add your own eye-roll and let’s move along).
Before I get into strolling the city as excitement ratchets up into what made Art Basel Miami Beach into a week long international party cruise, the most important factor beneath the Champagne and glitz is the art market itself. With the vertigo-inducing stock market, where exactly are we in the business end of selling art in 2025? The Global Lead partner, UBS, tracks ever more diverse collectors, their tastes and movement throughout the industry. UBS asks the questions that are cropping up in every aspect of our new society, i.e. “Will AI reshape the art market - or just automate its paperwork?”
The online Art Basel site remarked that the (art) “market appears to be building momentum after two years in decline.” However, collectors are more careful when selecting pieces, the freneticism of the past has calmed to more thoughtful buying. Two more morsels of this years trends: 1) Women collectors have grown by 46% when compared to men. 2) Digital art has now expanded into third place in collector purchasing.
Elephant Chair by Yanxiong Lin for Charles Burnand Gallery at Desgin Miami. (Photo Courtesy of Design Miami)
With works engaging AI, robotics, and code, -“Zero 10” sector at the Convention Center situates digital media at the center of contemporary artistic discourse. Get ready for: A pack of robot dogs with human heads of public figures roaming the MB Convention Center fashioned after Andy Warhol, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk. Artist Mike Winkelman brought his pack of wild things in Art Basel’s new digital and media space Zero 10. For those who like their visage to be proof positive inclusion in the latest what’s what, you’ll get your photo by the pack taken along with a code to perhaps win a free NFT. Add to your list of imaginary, and by that I mean "artificial," friends with AI, robotics, and code - get over to Zero 10 for digital media focusing on contemporary art going forward.
Situated near the Meridians sector, it’s a mix of “booths and freestanding works,” along with the robot dogs and twelve exhibitors. Digital platforms cozy up to traditional galleries with physical locations, ie. Pace Gallery, Nguyen Wahed, and Fellowship, plus an immersive video added by Chinese artist Lu Yang. I just read that “The Art Basel and UBS Survey of Global Collecting 2025” has declared that digital art “has become a core collecting category among high-net-worth collectors, with 51 percent of 3,100 respondents having purchased a digital work in 2024–2025. The medium now ranks third in total spending and has seen its share in private collections more than quadruple over the past year.” That is impressive information on where we are going at the moment. No matter how you stand on this genre, you may need to check on it.
In 2024, Art Basel Miami Beach alone generated an estimated $547 million in economic activity. Digest that snippet as one grumbles about getting around town. These details may or may not reflect on your current lifestyle, but it does indicate the health of the market, ergo, it’s ongoing influence on the health of Miami’s economy going forward.
Art Basel Miami Beach, Galleries sector Artist Erin Jane Nelson from Documents Gallery. (Photo Courtesy of ABMB)
While we read about a good deal of the U.S. population grappling with weekly grocery bills, note that a Gustav Klimt just sold for U.S.$236.4 million.
You may need a brisk walk after all those vivid pieces of information. It’s a quintessential time of year to meander about the Beach and surrounds. Keep your eyes open for sudden seasonal additions to the scenery.
The beach sand has not been overlooked for the week. The self-described Faena art hotel on Collins and 32 Street will provide this year’s always popular beach installation. Dig your toes in the sand and contemplate artist Es Devlin’s “Library of Us”, an illuminated fifty-foot revolving library reading room on the beach in front of the Faena Hotel as well as the Faena Cathedral and Project room during Art Week.
Start, end or take a midday break to discover a few open air exhibitions in front of the Ritz-Carleton and The Shelbourne by Proper: www.artbasel.com/miami-beach/at-the-show/offsite-activation
For all the gravity of the international art world, Miami must add its touch of light playfulness. Lincoln Road, our center of whimsy, has recently added a number of large round pink blow-up “people” peering down from iconic architect Morris Lapidus’s playful 1959 cantilevered shade structures and deco storefronts. “Mr Pink Takes Flight” has risen to lofty heights as French artist Philippe Katerine fashioned the pieces after a movement he began during the 2020 lockdown celebrating the aesthetics of cuteness called Mignonisme (aka “Cuteism”), a concept with which Miami Beach is quite familiar. The inflatables will stay up through April.
Lincoln Road "Mr Pink Takes Flight" by artist Philippe Katerine on Morris Lapidus 1959 structure. (Photo by Irene Sperber)
A very large head made of puzzle pieces has popped out from mid-walkway near Pennsylvania Avenue on Lincoln Road. “The Living Heritage” (La Herencia Viva) by Oscar Esteban Martinez Nieto stares back at us. The mirrored pieces are to reflect our own self into the many skin tones making up parts of the puzzle. The artist thought this concept fit into Lincoln Road’s central element: “Our diversity and complexity may make us appear very different, but at our core, we are all alike.” (one may want to debate that assumption after what has occurred in the world, but that's a separate discussion.)
On to the Betsy Hotel which never disappoints. The ORB is a plain white “egg-shaped” footbridge permanently squashed in the alley, like a beach ball caught on the second floor between the main hotel facing Ocean Drive just north of 14 Street, and connecting that main building to the old Carlton Hotel on 1433 Collins Avenue. It’s a clever way to accomplish a necessary task, but then The Betsy is that kind of place. After dark the ORB is a perfect surface to project an artist’s light installations into a generally gloomy alleyway. This month until December 20, head over after sunset to catch “Portal to Niña” concocted by LIZN’BOW (artists Liz Ferrer and Bow Ty). Their work is “an entryway to the artist’s surreal, femme-centered universe.” Projections are by Laura Paresky Gould.
Lincoln Road "The Living Heritage" (La Herencia Viva) by Oscar Esteban Martinez Nieto. (Photo by Irene Sperber)
After the brightness of winter days, The Betsy hotel provides jazz and the cool ambience of what the word “cool” actually means. If you have not frequented The Betsy throughout the year for art, readings, music and general activity featuring creatives in the area and beyond, get over there. The restaurant and bars will provide a perfect opportunity to rest as one's feet and brain protest by Day Two of Art Week’s onslaught of activity.
Pardon me as I careen wildly from place to place... but that is the nature of Art Week after all.
Art Basel Miami Beach, the big Kahuna fair of Art Week, this year has 287 galleries from 44 countries and territories. The site touts 2025’s “expanded representation of Latin American and Caribbean galleries.” El Apartamento, the “first homegrown Cuban gallery to join the fair,” concentrates on Afro–Cuban identity.
Apparently, the “Midwest remains one of America’s “most quietly radical creative engines”. In the Galleries sector of ABMB, Chicago-based gallery "Document" was where I caught a glimpse of Erin Jane Nelson’s “hybrid sculptural ecologies.”
Design Miami, a quick hop across Convention Center Drive from Art Basel, celebrates its twentieth year on Miami Beach. The theme for 2025 is “Make. Believe.” An interesting (and appropriate) choice after the year we’ve just lived through, is my first reaction. DM explains the design fair will reflect our heritage and where we are going (if only we knew). The vehicle design highlighted this year is the Range Rover SV Black. After all, black is the new... er... black.
The choices of what to see and what to focus in on are wildly diverse. I have done a quick spin through a potpourri of information stuffing up my in box. Do what you can and remember, you will absolutely miss the one thing others will gush over after the circus has picked up their tents and left town. You can’t do it all, but ignore this opportunity at your regret. The entire circumference of Miami-Dade is participating, so make the effort.
There are many options with tickets purchases, dual fairs, date varieties, etc.
Thump on the link below for the full list of what's on at Art Basel Miami Beach: www.artbasel.com/miami-beach/buy-tickets
