Artwork: Derrick Adams, Floater No. 2, 2016, Acrylic paint and collage on paper, 55 × 55 in., courtesy of Rhona Hoffman Gallery.

Top 6 Highlights at Art Basel in Miami Beach

So much art, so little time, it seems every time you think you’ve made the rounds, a mystery aisle pops up out of nowhere. Crave went the distance and combed the fair for some of the best work at Art Basel in Miami Beach.

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Make a splash without saying a word with American artist Derrick Adams as he dives into a pool of color, light, and pleasure with his Floater series on view at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, featuring a delightful cast of African-Americans enjoying a dip in the water. The paintings are bright, bold images of a world without care, mesmerizing meditations on the necessity of rest, relaxation, and self-care.

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José Parlá, Roots. Young Arts, Miami, Photo by Kari Herrin.

José Parlá: Roots

“My grandfather, pilot Agustin Parlá once said to my father; ‘Son, find your place in History’ and my father said the same to me. And my old friend Don Busweiler once said, ‘Without roots the tree won’t grow.’ This has always stuck with me and remained present in the process of my work over the years.” reveals Cuban-American artist José Parlá (n. 1973).

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Now based in Brooklyn, the Miami Beach native comes home for José Parlá: Roots, currently on view at the Jewel Box at the National YoungArts Foundation, Miami, through December 15, 2016. Presented by Rolls-Royce Motor Cars in partnership with the Savannah College of Art and Design, Roots finds returning to the city where he spent his formative years in the underground art scene of the 1980s and ‘90s, where he embraced graffiti.

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Artwork: Martin Wong, Untitled (portrait of boxer with roses) c. 1984. Acrylic on canvas, 30 inch diameter. Copyright Martin Wong, Courtesy P.P.O.W.

Martin Wong at P.P.O.W.

 

Martin Wong (1946-1999) moved to New York City in 1978 at the age of 22, settling in on the Lower East Side. The son of Chinese immigrants, Wong was born in Portland and raised in San Francisco, where he first delved into the world of art as set designer for the Angels of Light, an offshoot of The Cockettes. When he arrived in New York, he moved into the Meyer Hotel on Stanton Street, where he lived for three years, doing repair work to the dilapidated hotel and working as a night watchman. In 1981, he moved to a six-story walk-up on Ridge Street populated by heroin dealers and their clients. In total, Wong stayed in New York for 16 years, moving back to San Francisco to live with his mother after being diagnosed with AIDS in 1994.

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Wong’s time in New York was dedicated exclusively to painting, where he captured scenes on the Lower East Side that evoked the beautiful, casual, fleeting temporality of life itself. Set amid the desolate, desperate crumbling tenements that had been abandoned and left to disrepair in a city that had all but been destroyed by the government’s policy of “benign neglect” that denied minority neighborhoods basic services, Wong discovered the spirit and the soul of the people shining through.

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Artwork: Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Cast of Characters), 2016. Digital print on vinyl, 60 × 120 in. Courtesy of Sprüth Magers.

Art in the Age of Anxiety and Rage

Emotion is one of the strongest forces on earth, capable of rendering people paragons of power or utterly vulnerable to external influences outside of their control.  If 2016 has taught us anything, it is the ability to manipulate the masses by preying upon their weaknesses and shoring up support through fear and rage.

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Unfailingly art speaks a thousand words without ever making a sound, reaching the innermost recesses of our being through sight alone. In this way, it can communicate to us—and for us—when words fail to articulate the sense that we’re going to Hell in a handbasket. Crave spotlights a selection of works at Art Basel in Miami Beach that give voice to the shadows that have seemingly come to life.

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Artwork: Titus Kaphar (American, b. 1976), Front Page, 2012. Oil on newspaper on canvas, 85½ x 57½ x 2½ inches. Courtesy of the artist and GMAF. Photography by John Lam. © Titus Kaphar

Titus Kaphar: The Vesper Project

Fact and fiction seamlessly merge in Titus Kaphar: The Vesper Project, currently on view at the Lowe Museum of Art at the University of Miami, now through December 23, 2016—reminding us of the ways in which mythology shapes our sense of the past, present, and future. For this exhibition Kaphar (b. 1967) has draws upon the Vespers, a fictional family living in nineteenth-century New England who “passed” as white despite the fact that their mixed-race heritage designated them black in the eyes of the law.

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The story begins when a man named Benjamin Vesper experienced a psychotic break while looking at a painting by Kaphar on view at the Yale art Gallery and attacked one of the figures in the painting. He was admitted to the Connecticut Valley Hospital, where began to reveal details about himself and his family’s troubled history to both his therapist and, in private correspondence with Kaphar.

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Wynwood Doors, artwork by Tati.

Not for Sale: A Legacy of Graffiti & Street Art in Wynwood

Although art has always been a tool of the ruling class to elevate and reinforce its status and the bourgeois who hope to join the ranks, it is not exclusively this. There is a place where art is for the people, by the people. That place is the Wynwood District. Centered around the construction of Wynwood Walls, an outdoor museum to graffiti and street art that is free and open to the public, the neighborhood is home to block after block of public art.
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Liu Junqi, Bodhisattva Holding a Lotus Bud. (Mogao Cave 220,. Early Tang Dynasty). Mineral pigment on paper. 33 x 22 inches

Huayan Art: A Silk Road Legacy

The oldest surviving Chinese silk in the West was discovered in Egypt, and dated to 1070 BC. However, as silk degrades rapidly, it cannot be known just how far back the trade between ancient kingdoms goes. But it is known that throughout the course of history, the East and West were in regular dialogue with expeditions traveling to and fro across the Silk Road, bringing together the peoples of Europe, the Middle East, East Africa, India, China, and Java. As kingdoms rose and fell, control changed hands but what always remained was the desire to do business.

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The Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, also known as the Thousand Buddha Grottoes, is an oasis strategically located at the crossroads of the Silk Road in the Gansu province of Northwest China. First dug out in 336 AD as a place for Buddhist meditation and worship, the caves contain some of the finest examples of Buddhist art made over a period of 1,000 years, 45,000 square meters of wall paintings, rock cut sculpture, paintings, printed images, textiles, and manuscripts

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Photo: Glenn Kaino, Invisible Man, 2016, aluminum and concrete, 381 x 178 x 178 cm, courtesy of Kavi Gupta. Photo by Miss Rosen.

This is “Ground Control” to Collins Park

 

“It was the height of the space race in 1969, when David Bowie’s legendary Major Tom took his protein pills and put his helmet on. But even the world’s most advanced technology could not protect him from our human vulnerability,” Nicholas Baume, Director and Chief Curator of Public Art Fund, New York, writes in the curator’s statements for Ground Control, the Public sector of Art Basel in Miami Beach.

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He continues, “The idea of ‘Ground Control’ struck me as apt this year, the year that Bowie himself departed our physical orbit for good, leaving his myth and music to ensure. The relationship between technological progress and human subjectivity continues to be an animating concern for artists, but our fascination with outer space has largely been replaced by an exploration on virtual space.”

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