Sinisa Kukec, Agustina Woodgate, Anthony Spinello, Naama Tsabar, TYPOE, & Manny Prieres

Miami, FL – December 2, 2013 – “What we are experiencing now is the magic hour. Things are aligning and the artists are coming into their own,” Anthony Spinello says between sips of ginger, orange and carrot juice at Buena Vista Deli. One of those aligning stars the Spinello Projects owner is referring to is his second year showing at Art Basel Miami Beach. And those artists coming into their own are Agustina Woodgate, Sinisa Kukec and Naama Tsabar, whose work will be on display in his booth, number N14, at the Miami Beach Convention Center on December 5 through 8.

As the 31-year-old talks about what will fill the 400-square-foot booth, which includes a monumental rug by Woodgate, Kukec’s Gravity Wells and Tsabar’s gaffer tape skin, he is quick to mention his reach outside the booth, too. The gallerist will also house a solo show, Game Over, by artist TYPOE at Spinello Projects during Art Basel Miami Beach. And his artist Manny Prieres will have a solo show, It Was a Pleasure to Burn, at the Bass Museum of Art. It may seem like an overwhelming load to carry for Miami’s most art-filled week, but it’s part and parcel of what he does. “I think my artists and I have been proactive and are relentless. We just don’t stop. I think we all have very serious studio practices, and my artists are the type of people that will always be creating work—with or without a gallery or a show. It has nothing to do with the market; it’s engrained in who we are. And we all have a very strong work ethic,” he says.

Spinello stumbled, literally, into the gallery scene in 2003. While living above Jeff Moore’s gallery, he heard a rumble outside the then very desolate area that is Wynwood. Going downstairs to explore, he realized the sound was the early days of Wynwood Second Saturdays Gallery Walk. Getting sucked into the crowds, Spinello found himself at Moore’s gallery, where a photography exhibit was showing. Moore stopped Spinello and asked the then-recent New York art school grad what he thought. Spinello shared his honest opinion and shortly thereafter, Moore offered him a position at the gallery.

 Anthony Spinello, Naama Tsabar, & TYPOE

What we are experiencing now is the magic hour. Things are aligning and the artists are coming into their own.

Anthony Spinello

 

 

“Part of my job was finding artists to show at the gallery. I had no idea how to find them, so I put a post on Craigslist,” Spinello says, “and she responded.” The she he’s referring to is the incredibly talented and touted artist Woodgate. “Imagine 21-year-old me and 22-year-old Agustina,” he says, laughing. Back then, Woodgate was working with hair, both her own and that of female family members, her grandmother, mother, aunts, as a form of lineage. “I went to Jeff and said we need to give her an exhibition. And he was like, ‘But it’s hair …’” Eventually Spinello won Moore over and took that gallery from uninspired photography exhibits to more cutting-edge work. It earned Spinello respect from the Miami art community and gave his life direction. “I realized this is what I wanted to do,” he says.

When Moore’s gallery closed, Spinello knew he wasn’t ready to showing Miami art that spoke to and inspired him. So, gallery-less, he made due with what he had. “In 2005, I turned my apartment into a gallery. I closed up the windows to make more wall space and I put up a wall at the back of the apartment with a futon/bed behind it. That’s where I lived when I wasn’t working.” On the flipside, he filled the walls with art and worked as hard as he could to get people to walk up the stairs to his apartment to see the work he’d curated. Work Miami was unaware of until then.

It’s a move that paid off. In 2007 he moved into a 300-square-foot storefront, a former auto mechanic’s garage on Northwest Second and 23^rd in Wynwood. “I put the floor in with dad,” he fondly recalls. Then, in 2009 he made a major move to the Design District next to Locust Projects into a 1,600 square foot space. “When other galleries were going out of business because of the recession, we were expanding,” he says. Spinello and his artists were helping weave the fabric of Miami’s art scene, even in the toughest of times. And in 2012, he moved to Spinello Projects current home, where today, the walls are covered in Typoe’s stretched Twister board canvases, neon welcome signs and ignited gunpowder flowers, all for Basel.

 Agustina Woodgate, Sinisa Kukec, Anthony Spinello, Naama Tsabar, TYPOE, & Manny Prieres  

I think my artists and I have been proactive and are relentless. We just don’t stop. I think we all have very serious studio practices, and my artists are the type of people that will always be creating work—with or without a gallery or a show. It has nothing to do with the market; it’s engrained in who we are. And we all have a very strong work ethic.

Anthony Spinello

 

From transforming his apartment into a makeshift gallery to his second year at Art Basel Miami Beach, it’s undeniable that Spinello is partially responsible for Miami’s art evolution. And it’s something he sees as well. “I’m one of Miami’s  biggest fans. I think Miami has a lot to offer and it has offered a lot to me. It’s has been really supportive to my artist’s endeavors. I feel like I have a sense of responsibility for my community. I was able to fill a void that was missing at the time, and I’m not the only one; there are also Fredric Snitzer and Brook Dorsch,” Spinello says, sharing his limelight.

He’s quick to shine the light on his artists as well. Because, at the heart of Spinello’s work is his relationship with his artists. “There is no hierarchy. Everything is a conversation, its always a conversation,” he says, explaining their dynamic. “The artist are my board of directors, we make daily decisions. They are my partners. I’m interested in what my artists are interested in.”

Ask any of them and they will gladly explain how he isn’t your typical gallery owner and how their relationship is anything but business. As Tsabar explains, “I think there is something right and beautiful about the way Spinello handles projects with the artists and it doesn’t always happen that way at other galleries. It’s like one body coming together.”

 

The artist are my board of directors, we make daily decisions. They are my partners. I’m interested in what my artists are interested in.

Anthony Spinello

 

“And that body is maturing,” Spinello says, practically finishing her sentence. If Spinello and his artists are one body, they are all parts moving and working together, the brain moving the arms, the heart pumping the blood through the veins. And like the bond of blood, Spinello very much considers his artists family. “I don’t have family here, and because I spend so much time with the artists they became my family,” he says, explaining how his brood has grown. While Woodgate came via the web, others, like TYPOE, came through other artists. “Throughout the years they came to my gallery, so I met them through exhibitions, collectors and fairs. I was introduced to TYPOE by Santiago Rubino, who brought him to paint the walls of my gallery/apartment.”

And now it’s all come full circle, as Spinello gears up for the week ahead. “As a Miami gallerist, I want to represent. I take my role in Miami very seriously. I realize I could be doing this anywhere, but Miami has been so supportive of me that I want to give back to it,” he says. “This is a collective movement, and there’s one direction. If I’m going to have one, it’s going to be the best one,” Spinello says. “This is a model. My gallery. I think people have noticed I do things differently. And I feel like they are interested in this type of relationship that my artists and I share.”

Agustina Woodgate

Agustina Woodgate

Woodgate has been with Spinello from the very beginning. The Argentine-born artist will present her largest-to-date rug at Art Basel Miami Beach. Milky Ways, a landscape comprised of the pelts of hundreds of previously owned stuffed animals, spans 18 feet wide. Woodgate reinterprets the galaxy that contains our solar system by painstakingly piecing and sewing together the expansive rug.  These precious, metaphoric beings are transformed into decorative functional objects. Milky Ways will simultaneously become the booths backdrop encompassing the entire center wall. The second work featured by Woodgate is Hemispheres Destiny, a kinetic sculpture consisting of a dartboard alongside a standard wall clock (both of which have lived within the artist’s studio). While the clock works as usual and the arrows move clockwise, the clock itself rotates counterclockwise appearing as if time goes forward and backwards all at once. The future becomes the past in each rotation. The spinning clock propels the dartboard to simultaneously spin as well, making the game almost impossible to play. She reflects on objects that represent symbols and become social archetypes transcending their objecthood.

 Agustina Woodgate & Anthony Spinello

 

Anthony Spinello & Agustina Woodgate

 

Our chemistry was instant. The first day I met Anthony we planed my first solo show. Since then, we have developed a powerful partnership collaborating on exhibitions as well as large projects outside the gallery realm. We don’t work, we play.

Agustina Woodgate

 

Agustina Woodgate

 

TYPOE

TYPOE

The Miami-born-and-bred artist will take over Spinello Projects during this year’s Art Basel Miami Beach. His show, Game Over, is a conversation about life and death, with heavy undertones of love and loss, blatant irony and double meanings. He explores both heaven and earth through ignited gunpowder, neon, Twister boards and found objects. The show will celebrate its opening reception December 3 from 7 to 9 P.M. As for his take on Art Basel Miami Beach, he says, “Basel is great because, just like every other fair, it brings everyone in the industry together. It’s a great tool for networking. Being in Miami, my home-city, just makes it better. The city gives me a major platform to share my art with the world.”

Working with Spinello has changed both myself and my work over the years. He is constantly pushing me to look deeper into what I’m doing, which has made me grow 10 times faster. He has spent so much time in my studio and even at times stood by my side to install and work with me, that he knows my work to its core., just as well as I do. To me that is what makes him stand out from a typical gallerist or dealer.

TYPOE

 

Manny Prieres

 Manny Prieres 

Cuban-American artist, who is based between Los Angeles and Miami, is an archeologist of sorts. Taking the covers of first edition banned books, he sketches them to scale with gouache and pencil on board, giving them an anarchist-like quality, fitting for books that are the renegades of the printed word. Naked Lunch, Animal Farm, The Catcher in the Rye, they are all part of his 60-piece series. The dark covers, whose words and images manage to convey the author’s message, are, as he explains, artifacts that mark moments in time, censorship and banned art. This Art Basel Miami Beach, his work will be displayed in his first solo museum exhibition, dubbed It Was a Pleasure to Burn, at The Bass Museum of Art through February 23.

 

What’s great about my relationship with Anthony is that we are both growing together. It’s trail and error, we learn from each other. Anthony is my peer.

 Manny Prieres 

 

 

Naama Tsabar

 Naama Tsabar

Hailing from Israel, N.Y. – based artist Naama Tsabar combines her passion of music and sculpture in her works for Art Basel Miami Beach 2013. Cave of Swimmers November 7, 2013 is a skin of a stage made from gaffers tape—capturing the arrangement of cords after the band Cave of Swimmer’s concert at Churchill’s on November 7. Interested in the hidden materials that play a vital role in the construction of all encompassing experiences, Tsabar’s work often involves elements revolving around music, such as her recent exhibit at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in the Helena Rubinstein Pavillion which displayed the composition Propagation (Opus 2). The piece encompasses walls held up by stage gear, such as stage lighting and guitar amps. The gear reverberates sound through the walls, as the band plays. Viewers are invited to lean against the walls to feel the vibrations from the music, which brings yet another sense to live music: touch. Tsabar is no stranger to Basel, her work, Encore was presented in 2007 at Art Statements a sector of Art Basel in Basel, Switzerland.

Naama Tsabar

 

I think there is something right and beautiful about the way Spinello handles projects with the artists and it doesn’t always happen that way at other galleries. It’s like one body coming together.

Naama Tsabar

 

 Naama Tsabar

Sinisa Kukec

Sinisa Kukec

The Croatian-born artist will not only be showing for the first time at this year’s Art Basel, his series Gravity Well influenced the name of the curated selection Spinello will present at Art Basel Miami Beach 2013, dubbed Gravitywell. Of the pieces, viewers will find a large scale linen diptych with what Kukec calls a “gravity well” entitled Monolith and Standard, as well as a 6-foot sphere, called Vale and Globe, rubbed in graphite for a mirror effect and comprised of a light component that shines through the globe and onto the booth wall. As for what Art Basel Miami Beach means to the artist he says this: “Miami is great and it has become home, but my desire is to travel and make work in another context. I traveled a lot earlier in my career, meeting new people and seeing new places (cultures) has allowed me to grow and learn new things and share ideas. I am perpetual student of the world. Miami Beach Art Basel is an international platform, and I would like to show internationally.”

 

 Anthony Spinello & Sinisa Kukec

In the last three years working with Anthony and his family/ community of artists has allowed me to focus on bring many ongoing projects into fruition. Anthony is a creative being that has long-term foresight. He is an awesome collaborator and great curator. This relationship is not just business it’s a community of creative beings—every one looks out for each other and that goes a long way in this world.

Sinisa Kukec

 

 

  Naama Tsabar, Anthony Spinello, Sinisa Kukec, & Agustina Woodgate  

This is a collective movement, and there’s one direction. If I’m going to have one, it’s going to be the best one. This is a model. My gallery. I think people have noticed I do things differently. And I feel like they are interested in this type of relationship that my artists and I share.

Anthony Spinello

 

Sinisa Kukec,  Agustina Woodgate, Anthony Spinello, TYPOE, Naama Tsabar, Manny Prieres, & Aramis Gutierrez

Exclusive sneak peek of the six works to be presented at Spinello Projects at Art Basel Miami Beach, Booth N14