The city of Miami is exhausted from the last three public days and nights of Art Basel Miami Beach 2012. It’s the closing Sunday where people only start early in an attempt to get a deal on artwork that hasn’t sold yet. Most get a late start after a long series of high dollar parties where drinks are free. Some fairgoers have left the city and some have left the country entirely. The convention center is off the map for most attendees having hit art overload.
Instead they preferred to shop at lux shops such as Louis Vuitton’s temporary shop in the Design District featuring a one-time graffiti piece from Los Angeles artist RETNA. Inside shoppers could purchase collaboration Louis Vuitton X RETNA scarves. Famous for his work on the tail of a VistaJet Global Express XRS private luxury aircraft, his unique lettering style that draws on calligraphic traditions has mass appeal. He produced the piece “Salva Los Espiritus Santos” (Save the Holy Spirits) on Sept. 11 for ABMB 2012, offering the piece at the famous Wynwood Walls of Miami. Likely, a tribute to real estate developer Tony Goldman.
The Wynwood Walls were the final transforming legacy of placemaker Goldman (1943-2012). Designed to become the catalyst that changed the Wynwood warehouse district into a thriving center of the arts, the large warehouse exterior walls are ideal for murals from the most celebrated names in street art. For ABMB, the walls feature the talents of pioneers Kenny Scharf, Futura 2000, a collaboration of wheat paste collage pioneers FAILE and BÄST, and a memorial for Goldman by OBEY’s Shepard Fairey.
Outside of the complex the neighborhood that was the source of racial violence in 2009 after the acquittal of a police officer in a drug related shooting is well on its way to gentrification. Large stretches of world-class galleries and iconic graffiti are slowly softening the edge of this once gritty section of Miami. Still, visitors are in for a shock if they wander a block or two off the beaten path of galleries, bars and shops.
The transformative effect of artists drawn to low rent areas of cities is nothing new. Starving artists are often drawn to less than savory areas of major cities by cheap rent and the thrill of danger found there. Often the gritty places to live are immediately lacking a place to get a decent meal and a gallery to show their work. A few years pass and the change is apparent.
As Art Basel winds down in Miami Beach a select few up and coming artists are having exhibitions in the newly established galleries. As the sun sets on the walls and galleries of Wynwood and ABMB12 draws to a close, patrons look toward something fresh and new outside of the establishment.
At the ArtSeen Gallery in the Wynwood area one such artist created an immersive textile installation for the Walls of ArtSeen Exhibition in conjunction with the Art Week Miami Events which occur simultaneously to ABMB12. Kayla Delacerda’s “The Gobelins Journeying to Willemborg / LOL Crying Cave” is an accomplished installation piece that invites appreciators inside of a childhood fort where a sense of innocence and naivete seem to hang in the fragile balance of multicolored threads and animal motifs.
Since Wednesday, Miami has been the concentrated center of the international art world. With night life, corporate sponsorship, celebrity appearances and attendance reported at over 70,000 over the fours days, and with sales of artwork rumored to be in the hundreds of millions, calling it a success would be an understatement.
