If you want to take advantage of both the beach and the art that’s all over Miami right now, you couldn’t do much better than to visit UNTITLED, which takes place in a tent right on the sand at Ocean Drive and 12th Street.
Here are some of the works and booths you shouldn’t miss this year.
Ebony G. Patterson, (…when they grow up…), 2016. Courtesy Monique Meloche.
1. Ebony G. Patterson at Monique Meloche
The Jamaican artist’s multimedia works are devoted to the memory of black youths; she incorporates images of the late teens’ faces as well as decorative sculptures of guns, in addition to toys appropriate to the stage of life when they died. Prices range from $25–60,000. (The booth is also showing work by artist Sanford Biggers.)
Robert Burnier Znet Sixe (IDOT #3 Fade) (2016). Courtesy Andrew Rafacz.
2. Robert Burnier at Andrew Rafacz Gallery
Chicago artist Robert Burnier takes the colors of his aluminum sculptures from the landscape of the Windy City, such as a pink that replicates one that the transit authority used to use, and is visible now only in faded glory. They’re priced between $1,800 and $8,400.
Joseph Leroux, All Eyes on You (2016). Courtesy GRIN.
3. Joseph Leroux at GRIN Gallery
Leroux draws on his upstate New York hometown as a symbol of the dying industrial age; this sculpture, though, is a little sunnier, including yearbook photos of his high school graduating class. So why do people tend to think that the subjects are deceased, as the gallery’s owners told me tends to happen? It must be their nostalgic tint, which will cost you $65,000.
Mary Reid Kelley, Sisyphus’s Vanity (2011). Courtesy Fredericks & Freiser.
4. Mary Reid Kelley and Jocelyn Hobbie at Fredericks & Freiser
I’ve long been a fan of recent MacArthur “genius” grant awardee Mary Reid Kelley, who, with her husband Pat Kelley, makes fantastic videos; this is the first time I’ve seen her sculptures. This work shows the vanity of a Parisian prostitute who figures as the main character in her video The Syphilis of Sisyphus, and it’s tagged at $15,000. Behind it are entrancing paintings by Jocelyn Hobbie; her gorgeous Chimes, which evokes Ophelia floating away after being rejected by Hamlet, was priced at $45,000 and is already sold.
Patrick Angus, J.B. with Black Shirt (1990). © Douglas Blair Turnbaugh.
5. Patrick Angus at Thomas Fuchs
Angus died of AIDS in New York in 1992; some of his paintings and drawings show gay strip clubs, some are portraits of the men in his circles. Decades later, the California-born artist is getting his due; he will have a show next year at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, and Hatje Cantz recently released a book devoted to his work.
Alois Kronschlaeger and Paul Amenta with Ted Lott, HYBRID STRUCTURE (Miami Folly) (2016).
6. Alois Kronschlaeger, Paul Amenta, and Ted Lott, with SITE:LAB
A pavilion in the aisles will host Untitled, Radio, where various guests will appear and be broadcast on Wynwood Radio. Those using wheelchairs can also participate, since the lower part of the ramp is accessible. Activist Chris Smit, who argues for accessibility as a civil right, is among the participants, so expect some lively and engaging shows on much-discussed issues.
Sculptures, to the left and on the wall, by Mia Fonssagrives-Solow, with, at right, a painting by Miriam Schapiro and a sculpture by Orly Genger, all at Eric Firestone.
7. Mia Fonssagrives-Solow and Miriam Schapiro at Eric Firestone Gallery
Fonssagrives makes enticing abstract sculptures in materials like bronze, Lucite, and wood, and they go for anywhere from $3,000 to $80,000. On the other end of the booth, gorgeous abstract canvases by Miriam Schapiro are tagged at between $100,000 and $275,000, and date from 1967 to 1975.
Matthew Stone, Happiness (2016). Courtesy the Hole.
8. Matthew Stone at the Hole
The London artist gets a solo booth at the New York gallery this year, with work that “dramatizes the human need for interaction, touch, recognition, [and] respect,” as the press release notes. Stone paints on glass, scans the results, and evokes classical imagery through collaging together the scanned images.