ART MIAMI

By Vanessa Haim

For a second year in a row I’ve had the pleasure of attending the Art Miami fair in Midtown. Showcasing works from Picasso to Banksy, Lichtenstein to Botero, Art Miami is Midtown’s biggest and best Art Basel fair this side of the beach.

Here’s a look through my Miami eye on a few of the crowd favorites and mine…

The Foot Project, giant baby sculptures created by Idan Zareski, were placed out front of Art Miami in Midtown and another at Miami Beach Botanical Garden.

Also, see: <a href=”http://tropicult.com/?p=20874″ target=”_blank”>Introducing Bigfoot & His Creator Idan Zareski

These over sized notebooks gathered quite a crowd. The notebook paper works were literally the size of a wall and were very politically driven with comedic undertones.

In the gallery below are works by David Datuna, an American artist based in Georgian known for this collection ‘Viewpoint of Millions’ and Robin Rhode, a South African artist based in Berlin. Rhode’s work reflects more of a street culture. For his canvas he works in public spaces like walls or basketball courts. Also, Emilio Garcia, returned to Art Miami with his skull brain and frogs. These were really cool!

Tom Wesselmann, is probably one of my favorite artist! Below is a piece from his steel drawing edition titled ‘Monica, Sitting With Legs Spread’ and another from this series. Domed work below is by Indian based artist Thukral & Tagra, titled Dominus Aeris-circa (ii). Another Indian artist, Hadieh Shafie, returned to Art Miami for her second year. She constructs her work entirely of thin individual strips of paper that are hand painted and rolled to created these trippy circular works. Her pieces are stunning!

Jean Francois Fourtou, a French artist, focuses on photography as well as sculptures (below). As a duck enthusiast I loved these! Plus, Edward Lipski, made ‘Bird’ out of fiber glass, actual dyed feathers and of course, good ol’ glue.

Lynn Aldrich‘s Renew Your Reef is made of brushes, sponges, scubbers, scourring pads, mop heads, plunger, gloves & wood. In her words she uses “usually those common to a suburban-based, consumer society” products in her work.

In the photo gallery below, you’ll find Federico Uribe, a native to my country Colombia, he was born in Bogota and based in Miami. His work was all over Art Miami (also see the giant pink pencil sculptor below). This was a really cool booth where opposed to the white walls of most, he created a forest scene entirely made of bullet shell animals. From the small scorpion you see here to a giant tiger, bear and dear! Also featured below are Claudio Dicochea, a painter from San Luis Río Colorado and part of Jessica Joslin‘s gilded beasts collection. Dicochea was raised on the Mexican– United States border in southern Arizona, which is obvious in his artwork (below).

Last but not least, we have works by Patricia Piccinini, an Australian artist and hyperrealist sculptor, an unknown artist of a girl in a yellow retro 50s dress with a chainsaw (which pretty much describes how I feel everyday) and Rod Deal, who was all over the place during Art Week with artworks exhibited at The Armory Studios, Miami Independent Thinkers Fair, and
TheVagabond as the ‘Artist of the Month.’

Also, see: Rod Deal: Latest & Greatest