Hip-Hop Artist Swizz Beatz To Curate Booths at SCOPE Miami Beach

Swoon, Thalassa (2014). Presented as part of The Dean Collection. Photo: Courtesy SCOPE Miami Beach

Hip-hop artist Swizz Beatz (whose given name is Kasseem Dean) is the latest celebrity to sink his teeth into the Art Basel in Miami Beach scene. The musician and art collector will curate four booths and one large-scale installation at the satellite fair SCOPE Miami Beach. According to SCOPE’s website, the project is labeled The Dean Collection, and will present the work of five up-and-coming artists Swizz has collected and befriended throughout his art-hunting, studio-visiting world travels. So far, Swoon, Cleon Peterson, and Lyle Owerko are on the roster, but the other two names have yet to be announced.

The installation will be provided by Swoon, who recently made waves in the New York art scene with her acclaimed 2014 show at the Brooklyn Museum. Entitled Thalassa, the work is inspired by the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill tragedy, but depicts the primordial Greek sea goddess Thalassa, who is said to have given birth to all tribes of fish in the sea and is a personification of the ocean itself. Given Swoon’s talent for intricate yet enveloping installations with an on-point environmental message, it’s sure to be a highlight of the fair.

According to Complex, Swizz’s collection is extensive and includes a mixture of young, street-influenced talents like KAWS, Jaybo, and Phil Frost, alongside canonical artists like Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol. He’s dropped a teaser or two about the project on his Instagram account, so we can’t wait to see what he posts while in Miami. Perhaps he’ll even bring wife Alicia Keyes along to double the celebrity intrigue surrounding The Dean Collection.


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