As we welcome 2022 with open arms and spirits high, I have to admit that this past year was a year for learning, adapting and, for many, exciting life changing happenings and travels, like visiting the return of the Milan Design Fair! This December, I had the amazing opportunity to experience Art Basel Miami in its full glory! Although Art Basel is one of the most interesting times of the year to be in Miami, this time the city had energy like never before after a long pandemic hiatus. While every event of the week was a highlight, here are the most memorable moments from this past Miami Art Week!
ANDRES VALENCIA AT ART MIAMI
One of the most stand out moments at the annual art fair was the 10-year old artist prodigy Andres Valencia, who ended the week with a sold out gallery. The young, San Diego-based contemporary artist is the youngest artist to present his work at the Art Miami fair, and claims to be inspired by cubism, Picasso and George Condo, his favourite painter. One of the paintings from his collection caught the eye of actress Sofia Vergara, and “The Wolf of Wall Street” author Jordan Belfort, purchased one of Valencia’s paintings too. Nick Korniloff, executive director of Art Miami, told the Post that in his 30 years in the art world, “he never witnessed someone this young so talented.”
10-year old artist prodigy Andres Valencia at Art Miami
CONTEMPORARY ART AT RED DOT MIAMI
Visiting our friends from The Gallery Steiner at Red Dot Miami was another highlight of the visit to Miami Art Week. The Gallery Steiner is a modern art gallery in heart of Vienna, led by Michelle, Corinna and Dominic Steiner, and has established itself as a meeting point for qualified art collectors and a hub for internationally recognized modern artists. I had the great pleasure of meeting the US artist Io Rasa and view her artwork capturing emotions in the form of female expressions. Some of my favourite pieces from her collection were Resilience, Silenced and Reflections of the Unknown.
The Gallery Steiner at Art Miami | Artist Io Rasa’s Reflections of the Unknown at Art Miami
NFT ART AT ART BASEL MIAMI
Given that the rise of NFTs happened over the pandemic, there have been very few in-person gatherings of this community. At Art Basel Miami, however, thousands of NFT and crypto enthusiasts descended on Miami for the art festival, which became a major sandbox for NFT art. Miami-based Palm Tree Crew collaborated with MoonPay, a leader in the cryptocurrency space, hosting an event which included a large display of NFT’s purchased through MoonPay’s platform and a live DJ set from Martin Garrix and Kygo himself, co-founder of Palm Tree Crew. This was quite the celebration of art, culture and technology, three pillars quickly making up the Magic City.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs
WHAT ARE NFTs?
An NFT is a piece of digital content or data linked to a blockchain (or digital ledger), providing it with proof of ownership—it can be a JPEG, video, an audio file or music. In other words, NFTs are tokens that we can use to represent ownership of unique items. They can only have one official owner at a time and they’re secured by the Ethereum blockchain.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club is a collection of 10,000 NFTs, each depicting an ape with different traits and visual attributes. It’s one of the most prestigious NFT collections in the world, and the Bored Ape doubles as a Yacht Club membership card, granting access to members-only benefits. At the moment, the price of entry – that is, the cheapest you can buy a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT for – is 52 ether, or $210,000.
LOUIS VUITTON
Louis Vuitton started the week on a high note with its first ever US fashion show, but the sudden death just two days earlier of its 41-year-old legendary designer Virgil Abloh turned the show into a somber yet whimsical celebration of life attended by Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, Kanye West and Bella Hadid, among others. The fashion show displayed some of their most remarkable looks going into the 2022 Spring/Summer season, and such was the evidence that Abloh’s fingerprints had been on so many different areas of art — fashion, architecture, music – that his spirit could be seen throughout the whole of Miami Art Week.
Louis Vuitton Spring Summer 2022 Fashion Show | Tribute to Virgil Abloh in Miami Design District
In Wynwood, graffiti artist Alec Monopoly painted an angelic Abloh mural within 24 hours of his passing while the Rubell Museum exhibited a Maybach designed by Abloh’s Off-White fashion label and Mercedes-Benz. In Virginia Key, the site of Abloh’s final Vuitton show, the French fashion house paid tribute to a man who, in July, became the most powerful Black executive in the luxury goods market. And in Miami’s Design District, “Thank you, Virgil,” was painted on a building next to a display of three large statues of models wearing Virgil Abloh designs.
As an interior designer, I found it super interesting to discover the 2022 Louis Vuitton Home Collection, displayed at the Design District. Some of my favourite pieces were the Blossom Stool, the Ribbon Dance two seater and the Petal Chair.
Louis Vuitton 2022 Home Collection in Miami Design District | Louis Vuitton Blossom Stool
DIOR
This year’s Art Basel saw a number of luxury fashion houses eager to show off their new furniture and Dior Maison invited seventeen artists to reinterpret one of its iconic emblems: the Medallion Chair. A symbol of Louis XVI style that Christian Dior chose as soon as he founded his House, in order to seat guests at his fashion shows in a “sober, simple and above all classic and Parisian” décor, as he recounted in his memoirs. Designers such as Sam Baron, Nacho Carbonell, Pierre Charpin, Dimorestudio, Khaled El Mays, Tokujin Yoshioka and Pierre Yovanovitch offered their visions and artistic and cultural sensibilities to reconceive this object of desire with boundless creativity.
Dior’s Store Facade in Miami Design District | The iconic Dior Medallion Chair
A quick stop at the Dior Café rooftop at Miami’s Design District was also a must for me to take a quick pause from all the creative stimulus!
Quick stop at the Dior Café at Miami’s Design District
CHANEL
Chanel collaborated with artist Es Devlin for a monumental sculptural installation in the Miami Design District to celebrate 100 years of its iconic fragrance.
Entitled “Five Echoes,” the multisensory experience included lights, a sculptural labyrinth, and more than 1,000 shrubs and trees that were donated to Miami-Dade County for replanting after the exhibition closed. Superstar Rosalía performed at the opening VIP dinner on the Friday night, which was also attended by Pharrell Williams, Whitney Peak, and Joe Jonas among other special guests.
Chanel Multi Sensorial Sculptural Installation | Rosalia performing at the Chanel VIP Event
You can also read this article in the published issue of Society Marbella Magazine, available in the most exclusive locations in Marbella and Sotogrande.
I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THESE HIGHLIGHTS OF MIAMI ART BASEL! I’D LOVE TO KNOW IN THE COMMENTS BELOW WHICH WERE YOUR FAVOURITE EVENTS OF THIS AMAZING EVENT UNITING ART, FASHION AND INTERIOR DESIGN!
With love,
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