Miami, FL – December 3-5, 2013 – Each Art Basel, the Design District becomes an outpost for culturally rich events, which is no surprise as it is Miami’s art and design hub. This year, galleries and stores opened their doors to artists with projects that hailed from around the globe. Whether it was master painters to handcrafted dolls, the burgeoning area was alive and well with creativity. And it delighted the senses, entertained the masses and helped make Art Basel Miami Beach the juggernaut of the art world.

Additional photos by: Alex Markow

Poliform

What better time than Art Basel and Design Miami to celebrate the new showroom of a high-end Italian furniture store? There isn’t, which is why Poliform Miami hosted a cocktail reception to announce the arrival of its new showroom at its new location on N.E. Second Ave. The team designed the space to incorporate a layering of materials, including oak carbon, milky white glass and black bamboo walls to add different textures to the space. The result is a rich environment to properly showcase Poliform’s products. Guests took in the new digs while enjoying refreshments and entertainment.

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Locust Projects

Celebrating 15 years of bringing experimental contemporary art to Miami, Locust Projects presented artist Angel Otero and commissioned the work Art on the Move as part of its ongoing public commissions initiative. The spotlight shined this Art Basel on the New York-based Puerto Rican artist’s abstract paintings. Featuring thick, layered compositions painted on large planes of glass, the “oil skins” are then scraped off in sheets and draped onto canvas to reveal layers of paintings and distorting the original image. In addition to finding the work at Locust Projects, Otero’s work will also appear publically on the backs of Miami Beach buses and at Miami Metro Rail stops in December 2013.

Papa Loko & Loray Mystik

En Avance

It was a night of living dolls when En Avance hosted Mua Mua Dolls, a project from Milan and Bali. Headed by Ludovica Virga, the hand-knitted dolls from Bali have seen the likes of Milan, Paris and New York to introduce the world to their wit and craftsmanship. In the past, the dolls have taken on the life and style of fashion figures like Karl Lagerfeld, Coco Chanel, Anna Wintour, as well as rock stars, politicians and artists. For Artist Abduction at En Avance during Art Basel Miami Beach, the limited edition of 10 artists’ dolls featured the most famous modern and contemporary artists. The dolls have also inspired a clothing capsule collection, starting from Ludovica’s watercolours, that includes T-shirts, fleeces, sweaters, scarves, jackets. The Mua Mua Dolls contribute to the “Harapan Project” in the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia, where proceeds rebuild schools as well as provide full education, clothing, medical assistance and books for girls.

Fendi Casa

Taking luxury interiors to a new level, Fendi Casa celebrated Silvia Fendi and Maria Pergay during the presentation of the Bentley Home Collection at Art Basel Miami Beach. Presented by Living Luxury, Pergay, the famed Parisian designer, was commissioned by Fendi and Fendi Casa to create an iconic collection. The results yielded one-of-a-kind and limited-edition pieces using fur and steel world. Several of the pieces were displayed at Fendi Casa, including Bureau Louis XV, Torches Flammes and Chaise Marguerite. In addition to Pergay’s work, artist Fabio Pietrantonio’s pieces were also seen peppering the space.

Guests were, for the first time, able to step into the Bentley Home lifestyle, which reflects the class and style of the car. Of those guests were Alberto Vignatelli, Raffella Vignatelli, Daniele Vignatelli, Andrea Minnucci, Gabriella Moncada di Paterno, Vladimir Kagan, DJ Caterina Davies, Michael Goldstein, Matthew Burke, Alessandro Cremona, Marysol Patton and Vincent de Paul.

Eduardo Montefusco, Adolfo Barattolo, & Francesco Vergani

Marysol Patton & Nick Betancourt

Marysol Patton, Nick Betancourt, Leigha Love, Gideon Kimbrell, & Dee Trillo

Raffaella Vignatelli 

Raffaella Vignatelli, Eduardo Montefusco, Adolfo Barattolo, & Francesco Vergani

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Adamar Fine Arts

Also in the Design District, Adamar Fine Arts presented All About Pop and More, which featured works by Warhol, Longo, Katz, Haring, Dine, Christo, Close and more and includes more than 20 works from the Pop masters. This pop art was derived from popular culture in the late 1950s and features everything from telephones to soup cans. It’s an ode to American art that reflected the commercialism and attitude of the country. Valued at thousands of dollars, the pieces included Warhol’s famous Flowersseries, which the artist showed at a sell-out exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York in 1964 and with Galerie Sonnabend in Paris in May 1965, as well as more contemporary works from Longo and Chuck Close.

Debbie Carfagno

Christina Ogurick & Aaron Ansarov

Tamar Erdberg

 Zammy Migdal & Alan Roberts

Zammy Migdan

Surface Magazine TAPAS Spanish Design for Food Exhibition

Contemporary design mag Surface headed to the Design District during Art Basel Miami Beach for a co-hosted talk, along with AC/E, in conjunction with the TAPAS Spanish Design for Food exhibition. Curator Juli Capella hosted the event as part of traveling exhibit, where Crda Llanos y Cia presented four wines. The vino ncluded its modern Tempranillos from the DOCa Rioja deemed “New Spain” in their vinification and brand design and Spain’s first dry-elaborated white Moscatel wine, which hails from Mallorca’s DO Pla i Llevant.

Luis Eslava

 Francisco Tardio, Carlos Alfaro, & Luis Eslava

Luis Eslava, Francisco Tardio, & Spencer Bailey

Luis Eslava & Francisco Tardio

Luis Eslava, Francisco Tardio, & Spencer Bailey

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