Art Basel in Miami Beach (ABMB) has established itself as one of the world’s foremost art fairs for all things brand new and cutting edge, and now the mega-fair is carving out some space for art history with its new “Survey” sector. Set to debut during this year’s edition, running December 4–7 (see “Art Basel in Miami Beach 2014 Boasts an Intimidating 267 Galleries“), the Survey section will boast 13 mini art historical presentations, including 9 solo exhibitions and 4 thematic shows.
The inaugural lineup of Survey presentations will highlight lesser-known artists and movements. São Paulo’s Galeria Bergamin will showcase the work of Brazilian painter Alfredo Volpi, who was especially influential in the middle of the 20th century. Paris’s Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois will showcase two sculptures from around the same period by Niki de Saint Phalle, while Garth Greenan Gallery‘s solo presentation of paintings and sculptures by Paul Feeley will span the early-to-mid 1960s. New York gallery Menconi + Schoelkopf is bringing photographs and paintings by the Canadian-born American Ralston Crawford, one of the leaders of the Precisionism movement.
Another New York gallery, Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, will show pieces spanning the decade between 1969 and 1979 by conceptual, minimalist, and land art figure Michelle Stuart. Works from roughly the same period by the Chilean Lotty Rosenfeld, including photo, video, and slides, will be displayed by Valencia’s espaivisor. James Fuentes Gallery, meanwhile, will display Fluxus artist Alison Knowles’s Big Book, a walk-in, book-shaped installation that made its debut in 1966. Galleri Bo Bjerggaard will present an exhibition of the Danish sculptor Poul Gernes’s work, co-curated by Gernes’s youngest daughters. Rounding out the solo presentations is Japan’s Y++ Wada Fine Arts, which will show dystopic and melancholy paintings by Tetsuya Ishida.
The group shows in Survey boast a similarly eclectic selection. Perhaps most intriguing will be Cecilia de Torres, Ltd‘s exhibition of Uruguayan artist Joaquín Torres-García’s self-titled constructivist art movement and workshop the Taller Torres-García, which spanned the 40s and 50s. New York’s Broadway 1602 will bring together works by four women artists who got their start in the 60s and 70s: the late French conceptualist Gina Pane; the New York-based sculptor and painter Rosemarie Castoro; the Brazilian artist Lenora De Barros; and Lydia Okumura, the Japanese-Brazilian artist known for her minimalist site-specific installations.
New York-based Outsider art dealer Andrew Edlin will present a two-artist show juxtaposing works by Henry Darger and Marcel Storr. And finally Vienna’s Charim Galerie will show works by three of the Vienna Actionists: experimental feminist filmmaker Valerie Export; conceptual artist Andrei Monastyrski; and early Action painter Alfons Schilling.