In Miami, the Beach Party Moves Indoors

Chip Litherland for The New York Times

Reflection of a visitor to the Rubell Family Collection in the Wynwood Art District is seen in an untitled work by Anselm Reyle.

Photo by: Chip Litherland for The New York Times

Frank Wick
Everything is Coming up Roses

Photograph by: Chip Litherland for The New York Times

 

 

By JULIA CHAPLIN

Published: February 3, 2008

THE art and cocktail bacchanal known as Art Basel Miami Beach was still three months away, but that didn’t stop a hundred artists and their hangers-on from cramming into a raw and unoccupied restaurant in Miami’s Design District last fall. Glasses of Red Bull and vodka flowed freely. A noise band, armed with electric guitars and homemade synthesizers, jammed so loudly that it seemed to disturb the entire neighborhood. A gang of fresh-faced artists in tight T-shirts and worn-out jeans suspended a six-foot-long digital timer from the ceiling that counted down the milliseconds left in the party.

At the same time, another crowd had gathered at World Class Boxing, an old gym in a strip mall about 20 blocks away that had been delicately transformed by art collectors into a climate-controlled gallery. Guests admired works by international artists like Jim Lambie and Olafur Eliasson as more drinks flowed — this time from the gallery owners’ private wine label.

The most unusual thing about this art-saturated Saturday night in Miami was that it wasn’t unusual at all. Since Art Basel Miami Beach touched down on this city’s palm- and condo-strewn shores six years ago, a contemporary art wave has swept across Miami like a tropical storm. Art is everywhere, from the walls of boutique hotels where works by young art stars have replaced the stark minimalism of the 1990s, to what might be the nation’s first contemporary art shopping mall, the Aventura Mall.

So if you missed all the hullabaloo of Art Basel, with its 43,000 visitors, countless receptions and exhibits crammed into four days in early December, not to worry. A dizzying amount of art and its whimsical after-parties now rages on all season long.

“Every gallery and institution plans their best shows during Art Basel,” said Terence Riley, the director of the Miami Art Museum, who is spearheading an ambitious $220 million new home for the museum designed by the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. “But they generally stay up for a few months afterwards. It’s a secret time to see international, museum-quality art.”

The best part of heading down to Miami now for a sun-kissed art crawl is that there are no lines, super-tight guest lists or jacked-up hotel rates. Add to that several high-profile private collections, the meteoric rise of local artists and a rush of new galleries to showcase them, and Miami has matured from a fleeting, skin-deep art showcase into an unlikely cultural oasis.

And unlike cities with long artistic roots, Miami offers a uniquely high-low thrill: you can glimpse museum-grade art at impressive private galleries in the morning, then dodge loitering crack dealers and prostitutes in the afternoon, as you search for promising new talent in the city’s sketchier areas.

“The Miami art scene is somewhere between young adulthood and late adolescence,” Mr. Riley said. “It’s no longer a kid, but it’s still happy-go-lucky and trying to figure out what it wants to do with its future.”

The prime place to witness Miami’s art odyssey is not in glittery Miami Beach, but across Biscayne Bay, along the sun-bleached avenues of the once-derelict Wynwood Art District. Before Art Basel came to town, Wynwood was an industrial wasteland with just a handful of pioneering galleries and private collections like the Rubell Family Collection and the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse. But over the last few years, a bevy of enterprising new galleries have either relocated or opened up shop.

“CONTEMPORARY art is the new glamour,” said Rosa de la Cruz, the Miami-based art collector and philanthropist. “Of course, there’s a danger that it will become trendy. But it’s better to have a glam image than a crime image.”

Now there are some 70 galleries and counting, from upstarts like the Spinello Gallery and David Castillo Gallery, to internationally regarded galleries like Fredric Snitzer, Kevin Bruk and Emmanuel Perrotin. Sandwiched between tire shops and clothing wholesalers, their concrete facades are freshly painted in purples, pinks and charcoals — giving the area the feeling of a discount bohemian frontier, where idiosyncratic experiments in art and commerce are possible because of cheap rents, too much space and plenty of parking.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the quality of the work is uneven, ranging from captivating to horribly clichéd. During my visit in early December, I saw trite performances that involved a woman suspended from a harness, and art installations that looked like art school projects.

More thought-provoking work was found at Twenty Twenty, a scrappy gallery that opened near vacant lots where prostitutes and drug dealers ply their trade. It was started by Scott Murray, a 27-year-old with tousled hair and a sunburn who was wearing skinny jeans when he greeted me outside. Inside, scattered on the floor, was a piece called “How to Become A Millionaire in 100 Days.” The artist, a 24-year-old named Jen Stark, spent 100 days tearing a million scraps of colored paper — a not-so subtle statement about the hyper-commercialized art market.

Hoping to see more, I accidentally pushed through a white curtain and ended up in Mr. Murray’s tiny bedroom.

In this young art pond, places like Fredric Snitzer Gallery are held as the art establishment. A sort of godfather of the local art scene, Mr. Snitzer championed Miami artists like Hernan Bas and Naomi Fisher long before contemporary art was considered cool in Miami. Three years ago, he moved his gallery from Coral Gables to a sprawling warehouse in Wynwood.

“An adventurous collector can wade through and find something good amongst the heap,” Mr. Snitzer said of Wynwood. “A space will have terrible shows for months and then a great one. You really have to look.”Where you won’t have to look too hard is at the district’s private art collections. Places like Rubell and Margulies have blossomed in recent years into world-class viewing opportunities, and their numbers continue to grow.

Among the splashiest is the Cisneros Fontanals Arts Foundation, founded in 2002 by the Venezuelan philanthropist Ella Fontanals-Cisneros. From the outside, the collection looks like a glassy high-end boutique — a stark contrast to the surrounding concrete blight. Inside, the gleaming structure has works by Damien Hirst, Mateo López and Ai Weiwei that would be the envy of any contemporary art museum.

After dark, the Wynwood art scene moves to a clutch of new restaurants and bars that few of Art Basel’s high-rolling sophisticates would be caught dead in. Popular among the upwardly mobile art set is the Lost and Found Saloon, a kitschy Western-themed restaurant with wagon-wheel chandeliers, a desertscape mural and cowhide wall hangings.

I was joined there on a recent Tuesday by two artists in their late 20s, Daniel Newman and Nick Lobo, who were making a pit stop between visits with gallery owners. “Before Miami had import-export and tourism,” said Mr. Lobo, a sculptor who attended Cooper Union in New York City but has returned to Miami to jump-start his career. “Now art is our No. 1 export.”

That might be an overstatement, but since Art Basel was first held in 2002, Miami artists have been snapped up by galleries in New York, Tokyo and Berlin. Hernan Bas, for example — Miami-born and known for his romantic, vaguely homoerotic paintings — now exhibits at Daniel Reich in New York and Saatchi Gallery in London and is part of MoMA’s permanent collection. And last November three Miami artists — Bert Rodriguez, William Cordova and Adler Guerrier — were chosen for the Whitney Biennial, giving the budding scene a high-profile imprimatur.

Not insignificantly, the art scene also has the support of Miami developers and real estate brokers, who offer up free space to young artists and gallery owners for exhibitions as a way of adding cachet to marginal neighborhoods like Wynwood.

“Bank towers, unsold condos, empty office spaces, you name it,” Mr. Lobo said. After all, many of the local art collectors are also real estate developers, among them Don and Mera Rubell, Craig Robins and Marty Margulies.

Hoteliers have also gotten into the act, turning lobbies and suites along South Beach into veritable galleries. Last October, the Sagamore Hotel commissioned the photographer Spencer Tunick to shoot photos and videos at the hotel. An image of 500 nude revelers was unveiled during Art Basel. And at the new Angler’s Resort, the walls are adorned with luscious photos of indigenous flowers by the local photographer Sheila DeLemos.

The hubbub has more recently spread to the Design District, 18 blocks dotted with pastel-colored furniture stores from the 1920s and ’30s. While several high-end design showrooms like Kartell and Vitra have set up there in recent years, the surplus of raw space has drawn numerous artists.

Indeed, if you’re walking around and see a blacked-out storefront or a colorful unmarked door, chances are there’s an art project in the works. Wander into the Moore Building — where Design Miami, the design offshoot to Art Basel Miami Beach, is held — and stumble across a white futuristic installation by the architect Zaha Hadid. Push through a door on the second floor and find yourself in the Moore Space, a nonprofit gallery that consistently exhibits internationally acclaimed artists like Tracey Emin and Paul McCarthy.

Or find your way inside the Art Deco Buena Vista office building, where you might see young artists and their friends hauling canvases to the top floor. It is the home of the Bas Fisher Invitational, a so-called “no-profit” space run by the artists Naomi Fisher and Jim Drain.

Behind one of the walls, through a secret cut-out in the sheet rock, is a studio filled with old slide projectors and yarn that is shared by Ms. Fisher and her boyfriend, Mr. Drain, an artist who recently moved to Miami from Rhode Island. In lieu of rent, Mr. Drain pays his landlord with works of art — most recently, a sculpture made of painted toilet seats. (The landlord, Craig Robins, is an avid art collector and a leading Design District developer.)

Around the corner, along a row of purple storefronts, is Nektar De Stagni’s Shop, whose windows were recently filled with hundreds of pairs of Ferragamo shoes. Is it a boutique or gallery? Turns out, it is a little of both. Run by Nektar De Stagni, a fashion designer, and her boyfriend, the artist Martin Oppel, the storefront serves as a lifestyle boutique that sells Ms. De Stagni’s glammed-up fashions, along with art books, T-shirts and jewelry by local artisans. In the back is a studio cluttered with paintbrushes and sewing machines.

BUT for many of the district’s young artists, the shop also doubles as a party information booth. Ms. De Stagni, who moonlights as a D.J. (called Faux Real) at popular artist parties like Poplife on Saturdays at the White Room, is eager to pass along tidbits about the latest hot spots.

If it’s the second Saturday of the month, she’ll probably clue you into Second Saturday, a loosely organized arts circuit when many galleries time their new shows. Besides the usual white-wine receptions and mobbed openings, there are barbecue competitions judged by artists and impromptu D.J. sets at unlikely venues like Mike’s at Venetia, an Irish sports bar on the ninth floor of a condo complex.

Even on nights when there are no receptions, the art party rages. At midnight on a recent Friday, a crowd had gathered at Circa 28, a chill bar that opened in Wynwood in December. It happened to be during the Art Basel fair, but there was not a dolled-up socialite or dark-suited corporate sponsor in sight. Abstract paintings hung crookedly on the walls, and young artists sat languidly under a bookshelf — in marked contrast to the hedonistic, bottle-service hangouts of South Beach. Outside on the deserted sidewalk, a truck pulled up and opened its flatbed to reveal a portable art exhibit and D.J. booth that began to play lounge music.

Soon people trickled out of the bar, beers and all, creating an ad hoc tailgate party. A police car was parked a block away but seemed uninterested. A good clean party is tolerated here, almost protected, in a neighborhood with a history of more serious crime.

Hugo Montoya
wake me before you go
Photographic print (edition of 5)
10 x 16

Gallery owner clicks by keeping it real
By BRETT SOKOL
Special to The Miami Herald
Around one of Wynwood’s darkened corners, past a few stray cats, up a flight of stairs and down a hallway, is Twenty Twenty Projects, one of the area’s newest — albeit poorly marked — galleries. ”You have to hunt a bit if you want to see the good stuff,” chuckled Scott Murray, the space’s charmingly scruffy director, as a visitor peeked in curiously. Of course, director may not be the most accurate title for Murray.
Besides curating Twenty Twenty’s current show, Closet Photographers (its fifth since launching in December), Murray himself hammered together the gallery’s walls, put up its overhead lights, and because he’s nothing if not a gracious host, brought along a six-pack of Milwaukee’s Best for its latest opening. Installing air-conditioning was still on the summer’s to-do list, he apologized, hoisting a fresh can of beer in sweaty sympathy.

Hugo Montoya
Untitled (999 building)
Unique digital print
10” x 15”
Still, creature comforts aside, Murray’s critical eye more than speaks for itself. Miami’s own Federico Nessi concurrently has a show of impressive black-and-white photographic portraits at Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts, but it’s only in his work at Twenty Twenty that his gaze literally comes to full flower. Shot in sumptuous color amid the lush greenery of Portland, Ore., (his previous home), these oversized prints offer a tender look at Nessi’s circle of friends and former lovers, all with tendrils of the forest sensuously curling toward them. The net effect is simply gorgeous.

Closet Photographers features another Miamian who has also saved his best work for Murray. Indeed, anyone who caught Hugo Montoya’s solo show at the David Castillo Gallery in February will be pleasantly shocked at his change in tone. Where his Castillo exhibit relied on posed homoerotic snaps that were far less sublime than just plain goofy — and often juvenile — Montoya has given Twenty Twenty Projects a set of photos he himself concedes “are much more personal.”

For that earlier show, Montoya now admits, ”I had a hidden agenda,” one that took aim at the art market’s current vogue for gay-themed visuals. ”I wanted to poke fun at the notion that gay art is easier to sell than straight art.” And while those Castillo selections may have created some buzz (as well as an uncomfortable ”Is there something I should know?” mother-son conversation), it’s Montoya’s Twenty Twenty photos, documenting the young bodies at rest and play around him, that truly excite.

Hugo Montoya
i wear my sunglasses at night
Photographic print (edition of 5)
10 x 16
He’s a socialite who knows everybody in Miami,” Murray notes, ‘’so he’s always in the right place at the right time to take great pictures,” including one dramatic image of Pop Life party co-host Barbara Basti, her face bloodied following an abrupt dance floor collision. Basti looks oddly exhilarated by the sudden burst of blood — and perhaps a little surprised at Montoya’s insistence on whipping out his camera before helping her clean up.

So how exactly did Murray convince both Montoya and Nessi to bypass Miami’s higher profile outlets? After all, besides Castillo and Lowenstein, there are no less than 57 other galleries, ”alternative” spaces and museums in Wynwood alone — many of which have an array of staff assistants and loyal patrons at their disposal, not to mention air-conditioning.

”It rarely takes more than a single phone call,” Murray says matter-of-factly. At 26, he feels his youth is key. Having grown up in Kendall and studied painting at the New World School of the Arts alongside many of the local figures now making a name for themselves, he believes he is seen less as a businessman than as a peer. “These are my friends. I know their work inside and out. Naturally they’re going to show me different things than they’d show a regular dealer.”

True, he may not have the detailed Rolodex of some of the established dealers. And with a full-time job in addition to running Twenty Twenty Projects, his harried lifestyle is anything but fabulous. ”I’m not a rich guy from out-of-town,” Murray says with a soft laugh. “I’m not serving top-shelf liquor at my openings, and there’s no French woman greeting you at the door.”

JOHN VANBEEKUM / MIAMI HERALD STAFF
Gathering steam, he motions to the gallery’s walls around him: “This space is a blank canvas. But that epitomizes what’s great about art itself — that anybody could make something beautiful out of almost nothing!”

As for the putative competition, ”A lot of these galleries have moved in from other cities — they’re not tapped into the community. They’re just showing art based on the premise of. . . ” He trails off with a sigh. “I guess they’re selling work based on [Art] Basel’s humongous growth over the past few years. But there’s still a ton of great artists who aren’t represented by any of these new galleries. They’re tucked away inside studios in the weirdest little spots, constantly making art. They just don’t have a place to show.”

He cites much of the crew once associated with the now-defunct Rocket Projects: ”They’re as discrete as any gallery owner.” Instead of jumping into the arms of the first new dealer that comes calling, many prefer to “to just float around.”

It’s a viewpoint Nessi, a floater himself, seconds. ”There’s more of an intimacy when you’re dealing with a gallerist who understands your work, and who understands the struggle of making work,” Nessi says. “That’s why Scott’s space is so different from bigger galleries. For lack of a better term, he’s keeping it real.”

Yet while he’s dismissive of those post-Basel arrivistes, striking an underground pose isn’t on Murray’s agenda. Many local scenesters remain anguished over the spotlight presently being focused on Miami by moneyed collectors and a fascinated press. At a recent acrimonious public forum, Westen Charles, co-founder of the nonprofit Locust Projects (an early Wynwood pioneer), recalled the nervous questions of a neighboring gallery owner: “Should I sign a 10-year lease? What happens if Art Basel leaves town?”

Murray however, sees this as a moment to be seized. He points to the career of New World schoolmate Hernan Bás. “You can go to any city and talk with people who take art seriously — New York, London, L.A. — they all know Hernan’s paintings. He has a beautiful perspective on life and it deserves to be spread around the world. Isn’t that what this is all about? His success is something anybody down here can and should aspire to.”

The first step, he argues, is learning to embrace the hustle. ”Every successful artist in Miami is a great businessman. You can’t just schlep paint around a warehouse and expect you’re going to get discovered. Daniel Arsham’s show with Merce Cunningham didn’t happen just because he was a good artist sitting around in his studio scratching [himself]. You should see the way Daniel negotiates!” he says of the sculptor’s much-publicized Carnival Center collaboration with the famed choreographer.

It’s a lesson Murray has taken to heart with Twenty Twenty Projects: “Let’s be honest — this is still a ghetto. I have to fight to get people to come up those stairs. Sometimes it’s like pulling teeth. But you know what? If you care about art, then you need to start pulling people’s teeth.”

By Omar Sommereyns
April 26, 2007
Any healthy art scene should have its fair share of museums, private collections, commercial galleries and artist studios. Yet without the presence of alternative spaces, artists may not have enough room to experiment and the art dialogue may very well falter.

In Miami, we’ve seen a number of interesting alternative spaces come and go — including Placemaker Gallery and The House — but very few that remain standing, such as Locust Projects. Which is why the arrival of Twenty Twenty Projects in Wynwood is all the more promising.

“I guess it is more of a project space,” says Scott Edward Murray, Twenty Twenty’s founder. “I show the things that artists are constantly working on that most people might never see. These guys never stop and some of the art they make might be disregarded by other spaces. I like the nuances. I don’t represent artists but I do hustle to sell their work.”

Defining “alternative” here is always an equivocal matter, but, as explained by Murray, he sees Twenty Twenty as alternative to a commercial gallery or even a not-for-profit space. Like most people that create such venues, Murray is young, ambitious and an artist himself. Now 26, he grew up in Miami and went to the New World School of the Arts for high school and one year of college before attending the Maryland Institute College of Art. He has previously worked for top dog local gallerists Fred Snitzer and Kevin Bruk before opening his own space, which focuses on local emerging artists, yet keeps an open eye for out-of-towners that fit the program.

“The art [that] I show here constantly interests me as per the reasons why people keep making these inanimate things and how it is that they give them so much life,” Murray explains. “I started the space in order to fuel my friends’ productivity. There is no reason to keep making art if no one is going to see it. This is just a little more fuel for the fire and it’s a space that may be more accessible to experimental artists.”

Mark Gibson
In the Cover of Darkness
Pen on paper
22 x 30”

Twenty Twenty Projects has had three shows since it opened in December 2006, each of which was themed around certain mediums: the first a compelling drawing exhibit, followed by a sculpture show curated by Nick D. Lobo, and then a painting show featuring work by Kevin Arrow, Bhakti Baxter and Aramis Gutierrez, among others. Notably, some gutsy work was on display at the aforementioned drawing exhibit, such as a vigorous brush and ink piece by Jay Hines called “A Landscape’s Entrails” and Justin Dean Worsdale’s “Fiddy,” depicting a decidedly subdued Osama bin Laden fellating rapper 50 Cent, who is portrayed here as a faun.

As for finding curators to work with, Murray says, “I only ask artists who I know have an intense vision to put together shows here. And it’s easy for me to find them. I have been interacting with them for years … There are plenty of talented artists in Miami that make more work than this city can show right now. A lot of the artists think alike or else make work that is aesthetically similar, so I just mix that drink.”

Upcoming at Twenty Twenty, local artist Martin Oppel is curating a video show, followed by a photography show with artists who aren’t known for their photo-work, and future exhibits that will be curated by other noteworthy locals, such as Daniel Arsham and Jacin Giordano.

“I love the Miami art scene,” Murray says. “It is just big enough for it to affect the rest of the art world, yet still small enough for local collectors to really get involved personally with the artists’ progress. It means a lot to me that collectors really understand the importance and integrity of the object they buy. I want them to know the historical importance of each object and how much that object means to the artist who made it.”

Over the summer, Murray plans on hosting a series of lectures and video screenings, and claims to have a stellar show lined up for Art Basel in December, although he declines to reveal any details since it would be too premature. For now, developing the space is a day-by-day procedure.
“I want it to be a breeding ground for new artists and for new ideas from established artists,” Murray says. “I want collectors to embrace and understand some of the great ideas coming from these ‘alternative’ artists. Commercial spaces are restrictive by nature, so I hope that this space won’t have to be.”