Brief Updates from the World Capital (at least for this week!) of the Contemporary Art Market
An evening walk in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami, just a stone’s throw from Charting Transcendence’s office in Midtown
Once a year, for a week or two, Miami can legitimately claim to be the world capital of the contemporary art market.
It’s been drawing me back for years and years now, until this year I can finally call the city “home.”
With the iconic pink and light-blue hues of the evening sunset settles in a a seductive, almost intoxicating feeling that makes Miami distinct among the hundreds of cities around the world that I’ve experienced. With every passing year the city’s influence and reputation grow along with the numerous new skyscrapers and art galleries added to the streets and skylines.
When the Swiss-based Art Basel announce the annual outpost of its fair to be held here, it promised that it would be the only North American city to host it. So far this has proven true even as a formidable competitor — U.K.-based FRIEZE — has since launched both Los Angeles-based and Seoul (South Korea) fairs and acquired several others, including EXPO Chicago (all of which with the possible exception of Seoul I am planning on attending in 2024).
The truth is that, with the sole exceptions of New York and Los Angeles, the fine arts sector has created more economic activity here in Miami & Miami-Dade County — perhaps $100 billion or more in 20 years according to a source I heard last week — since Art Basel’s decision to call Miami its winter home.
Although other American cities (Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Detroit, Cleveland and San Francisco to name just a few) have older art scenes and richer encyclopedic collections of art, none of these, I’m afraid, are as attractive as destinations for experiencing art, not to mention as attractive for artists themselves to live, work, and innovate.
This makes me proud to be in Miami both now and for the foreseeable future. Coupled with the fact that I’ve been living in Florida for years and exploring Miami and Florida at-large from a broader cultural context (having lived in several of the cities above as well as overseas for over a decade), I am confident that I can bring the experience of art in Miami to you whether or not you choose me as your art advisor and guide.
I still have some availability this week to accompany, consult, or guide anyone you might know who would like to experience the fairs in Miami. Please reach out to me today!
What’s fashionable in painting right now?
Highly critically-acclaimed new work by a Miami-based artist
Painting by Alejandro Piñeiro Bello (b. Cuba, 1990) in the show “En el arco del Caribe" at KDR Gallery in Allapattah, Miami
I’m also proud to have solid instincts when it comes to recognizing and contextualizing outstanding new art. This is no easy feat, given the surfeit of work on the market today, especially in the medium of painting, which for the past 50 years or more is regularly declared “dead” by art critics, as if nothing more could ever be achieved or innovated in the medium (obviously not a sentiment that I agree with).
This weekend, among dozens of gallery shows opening in the Magic City, I was drawn to the work of one artist who only recently came across my radar. Fittingly enough, he is Cuban-born and a graduate of the National Academy of Art who now, in addition to dozens if not hundreds of other outstanding Cuban artists, calls Miami home.
As is frequently the case for me with new artistic discoveries, this one began at a museum: Nova Southeastern University’s Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale (right downtown, so easy to find parking there compared to Miami!) is one of the best contemporary art institutions in South Florida, and since 2016 I visit no less than twice a year.
On my last visit to NSU in September, I was struck by the work of a Cuban-born, Miami-based painted by the name of Alejandro Piñeiro Bello in an excellent group show curated with the work of some of the best young artists (some under 25 years old) currently working in and around Miami.
Alejandro’s style of painting, which straddles a line between figuration (i.e. depiction of recognizable, figurative subjects) and abstraction (i.e. depiction of something immaterial or unrecognizable) is very much in fashion right now, as confirmed by its inclusion in two of Miami’s top private collections, the Rubell Museum and the Marquez Art Projects, and although I can’t say exactly why this is the case, something about these works lend themselves to deeper looking.
Painting by Alejandro Piñeiro Bello (b. Cuba, 1990) in the show “En el arco del Caribe" at KDR Gallery in Allapattah, Miami.
The paintings are complex, spiritual, and unmistakably Caribbean in a way that reminds me somewhat of the work of the greatest living Haitian contemporary artist Edouard Duval-Carrié. The colors are rich, textured and pleasant, with both human figures and palm trees emerging from energetic swirls that make up the landscape.
In my opinion, this show at KDR Gallery’s new space on NW 22nd St. in Allapattah is the best gallery show of new painting one can see in Miami right now and will be on display until January 13. Alejandro’s works are also on display at the Rubell Museum (probably the best and best-curated collection of contemporary art in all of Florida) through Summer 2024.
Vintage photographs of an incredibly talented but long overlooked Miami Beach photographer: Andy Sweet (1953-1982)
Selection of vintage and editioned photographic prints by Andy Sweet
(most of these are available for purchase)
Some of you may know that I am also an artist — a photographer by training — in fact I was planning on pursuing photography artistically and/or as a vocation just prior to the September 11 attacks, the aftermath of which convinced me that I ought to pursue a career in the foreign service (which I did from 2004 to 2010). I’ll probably to share more about my own journey as a photographer in a future missive.
My point is that, although my talent in the medium wasn’t quite enough to make a career out of, I do have a keen eye for photography and can say without a doubt that Andy Sweet was probably one of the most talented yet underrated photographers of the late 1970s.
I don’t say this because I can personally relate to the subjects of Andy’s photographs of the now largely-vanished community of South Beach denizens that he shot tens of thousands of frames of over approximately seven years; nor do I say this because of any special connection to the Jewish community that called the crumbling Art Deco hotels of Ocean Drive home in the late 1970s, although for me even there is more of a hint of nostalgia in these photographs of a Miami Beach, long-since internationalized and glamourized nearly beyond recognition.
Given Andy’s exceptionally strong training in the field (he studied photography both as an undergraduate in Florida as well as a graduate student in Colorado) and his uncanny ability to connect with his subjects (a la Diane Arbus, one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century), I can point to a number of formal and psychological elements on each frame that make these vintage prints true works of art.
Sadly Andy’s story as a photographer, documented in a 2018 film that is available to stream on Apple TV and Amazon, had a tragic ending, as he was murdered in 1982 in a senseless act of violence. Subsequently many of his negatives were lost.
However, over the past decade or so, a Miami-based curator, whom I met with last week, has succeeded in combing what remains of Andy’s deep photographic archive, rescuing some incredible shots by enlarging them from contact sheets, and cataloguing a number of highly-attractive vintage prints that Andy developed himself.
Looking at these one is instantly transported back in time to a different version of Miami Beach that was a sanctuary for people who had experienced the worst of 20th century history.
Some of Andy’s best photographs have been enlarged into editioned prints, which are now part of important collections in Miami.
I feel very strongly about the potential for Andy’s photography to be recognized more widely in museum shows and private collections in the coming years and surprisingly, given the prolific work he did as a man who died at age 28, relatively little of is available for sale, as the archives have been promised to a major institution.
That being said, prices for these photographs are reasonable considering their rarity and quality, and I am happy to provide more details to anyone who would like to acquire these directly from the archivist (they are generally not available in galleries). Please reach out to me and let me know what you think!
Robert Indiana (American, 1928-2018), Ahava (Love in Hebrew), 1993, limited edition serigraph in blue and white on wove paper, 31” x 33”, framed, ed. 1/150, private Miami collection, acquired from a Palm Beach gallery approx. 10 years ago.
With all that is going on in the world today, there has never been a better time to appreciate the healing power of LOVE. Of course American Pop artist Robert Indiana’s original version of LOVE is famous worldwide, but I was not actually aware until recently that he executed versions of this work in Hebrew, including a large Cor-Ten steel sculptural rendition “Ahava,” which is in the collection of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
As an art advisor, I can provide access to works available neither in galleries nor on the secondary (i.e. auction market) while also being able to make such works available with discretion through my network of art-world colleagues.
A good friend of mine’s family here in Miami is currently downsizing their collection and is offering the above-pictured Robert Indiana print in mint condition for sale. Not only are the colors beautiful and the semantics behind the letters meaningful given current events, it is also rare (#1 out of an edition of just 150); this print has also rarely been seen at auction. Please contact me for more details.
Welded painted stainless steel sculpture by Ricardo Cárdenas (b. Medellin, Colombia, 1966), part of a series called “Aleatory Intersectons II” at La Cometa Gallery, Miami.
