Sudden Impact

The Miami New Times’ art critic on how Art Basel has transformed a neighborhood’s artscape.

Back before the Swiss parachuted into town, the thought of a five-day, citywide art bacchanal would have frozen many locals like a deer in headlights. But a decade later, Miami has transformed Basel in its own inimitable way.

Now in its 10th year, Art Basel Miami Beach (ABMB) is hyped as the “Olympics” of the international art world, as the December arts confab transforms the city from Miami Beach to Wynwood and from Vizcaya on Biscayne Bay to the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables and points in between into one sprawling contemporary art installation. Consider the numbers: 50,000 art lovers converge on Miami, a third of whom are visitors to South Florida; 250 of the planet’s elite galleries from 35 countries attend, representing over 2,000 top-drawer talents; close to 1,000 journalists and art editors fly in to cover the event; an estimated $500 million exchanges hands. The stakes have raised the ante for local art dealers, cultural institutions and real estate developers.

The event has mushroomed in recent years to include upwards of a dozen satellite art fairs, with PULSE, Photo Miami, SCOPE and Red Dot among them. This year, Burst Miami joins them, hosting exhibits in South Beach and Wynwood, with a pair of double-decker buses tricked out with art shuttling spectators between the two. These piggyback expos vary in size and content and draw hundreds more dealers and thousands more artists shopping their wares. These fairs feed off of ABMB, ratcheting up the visual cacophony during a week where every imaginable representation of contemporary art — from video, installation, monumental sculpture, museum-quality paintings and experimental soundscapes — drowns out everything else across the 305.

As a result, Miami’s dramatic cultural evolution can be seen in neighborhoods like Wynwood, ground zero for the city’s flourishing arts scene. There was a time when a handful of pioneer galleries — like Dorsch Gallery and Locust Projects — struggled to attract Basel crowds. As early as 2005, though, the gritty neighborhood boasted nearly 50 galleries, with several international art

dealers launching second venues in the area. Attracted by Basel’s presence, Madrid’s Louis Adelantado Gallery, the Paris-based Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin and Mexico City’s Kunsthaus Miami all opened outposts in Wynwood. These were joined by new spaces like the David Castillo Gallery that just celebrated its sixth anniversary and is one of only two Miami spaces represented at the über-exclusive ABMB at the Convention Center this year.

Shortly afterwards, the NADA, Pulse and SCOPE Miami fairs left the confines of South Beach and pitched their tents in Wynwood, drawing throngs and elevating the scene there. In 2007, Art

Miami, the city’s oldest art fair and long a January staple at the Miami Beach Convention Center, threw in the towel after failing to attract the same throngs flocking to Basel, and moved to Wynwood that December.

Today, Wynwood is home to well over 100 galleries, artist studios, cultural organizations and project spaces, including world-class private collections like the Rubell Family Collection, the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, World Class Boxing (which houses the Debra and Dennis Scholl Collection) and, a few blocks away in the tony Design District, the Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz Collection. The area is also home to the Fredric Snitzer Gallery, David Castillo Gallery and the Dorsch Gallery, which represent the city’s established and emerging artists, many of whom enjoy international careers. Where local dealers once saved their heavy artillery to blow away visitors during Art Basel, these days you can discover bleeding-edge exhibits year round. In fact, Wynwood’s monthly Art Walk rivals Basel in popularity with locals, and is believed by many to be the engine driving culture in town.

Projects like Primary Flight and developer Tony Goldman’s Wynwood Walls have transformed the exteriors of worn-down buildings with murals by artists such as Ryan McGinness, Kenny Scharf, Ron English, Shepard Fairey and Miami’s FriendsWithYou, using Basel as a trampoline to launch the ventures. Art spills from the dozens of galleries and artist studios, and even lines the walls of nearly every café and bar in the bustling ’hood. On weekends, busloads of tourists and visitors amble through Wynwood, experiencing street art and visiting the edgy galleries on guided tours.

Wynwood is just one example of how America’s most important art fair has changed the very face of Miami. And as the event continues to grow, locals can’t wait to be surprised by the next area to glow in the light of artistic urban revival.