“Auto Body: Video and Performance Project,” set in a real, 7500 square foot auto body workshop on Bay Road in downtown Miami is the most edgy and provocative event during Art Basel in Miami Beach. It isn’t just the location; it’s the content—video works by 25 women artists and a daily performance program. Works deal with issues ranging from domesticity, gender, sexuality, beauty, and economic and political inequality.

Anthony Spinello, producer of the show, says he wanted to do something out of the ordinary: “I wanted to give female artists a platform. They are amazingly still underrepresented in museums, galleries, and the mainstream art market.” But it was also about bringing work together that used the body as a subject and tool for making art.

Cheryl Pope, Up Against (2010)
Photo: ©artnet News

On Thursday at noon, Cheryl Pope, a Chicago-based artist, performed Up Against in which she stands within 700 balloons filled with water and suspended from ceiling . Over an hour the artist knocks all of the balloons down with her head . It is endurance-based and violent but captivating. The balloons fall on the ground splashing water all over the floor. Five pounds of water fills each balloon.

The show will travel to the Faena Art Center in Buenos Aires in May.

Go to artnet News’s Art Basel in Miami page for the latest coverage, including:

“Overheard at the VIP Preview of Art Basel in Miami Beach”

“Art Basel in Miami Beach: The Definitive Sales Report”

“What To Buy? See These Top 10 Booths at Art Basel in Miami Beach”

“Art Basel in Miami Beach 2014 is a Rip-Roaring Success“