By Reed V. Horth & Kat Barrow-Horth
Art is the great equalizer. Cities rely on it to cultivate civic pride. Investors speculate on the next great thing, and admirers bask in the beauty, the spectacle and the conspicuous excess. While not everyone knows about art, they can usually pick out what they like, setting all on equal footing. This week, all of the art world’s eyes descend on Miami’s Art Week in order to shape perceptions and create new expectations in the art market. No longer the one-dimensional destination known solely for beaches and sun, Miami has emerged as one of the primary barometers of the art market, both for emerging international artists and museum-level 20th-century masters. The coalescence of vast wealth, celebrities, international draw, a robust party scene and ample sunshine make Miami the perfect storm for the art world.
The granddaddy of the art fairs is Art Miami, which started in1989 as a primarily regional fair. Since then, a steadily growing fan and investor base has become more culturally literate and has demanded greater and more blockbuster works, as well as edgier and smarter exhibitions. In 2002, the Swiss art fair Art Basel, named for the chalet-laden city that birthed it in 1970, adopted a sunnier step-child, Art Basel Miami Beach. This solidified a core need in South Florida for big-name artists, collectors and gallerists to get some sand in their toes. Collectively these fairs have brought a focus on Miami to fill an excitement gap and bring art from being a stodgy affair, to a hip one.
Among the highlights of Art Miami this year are museum-level paintings and sculpture by 20th-century masters such as Alexander Calder, Pablo Picasso, Roy Lichtenstein, Salvador Dali, Wilfredo Lam, Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, Hans Hofmann and Antony Gormley.
Roy Lichtenstein
On the heels of the recent auction of Pop icon Roy Lichtenstein’s (American, 1923-1997) “Nurse” sold for $95 million at Christie’s in November. Evelyn Aimis Fine Art has curated Lichtenstein’s “Reflections on Brushstrokes” (1990, Oil and magna on canvas, 149cm x 221cm, series). Differing from his typical comic-oriented subject matter, the composition is Lichtenstein’s satire on the abstract expressionism of artists like Jackson Pollock. The patterned blocks of color partially obscure underlying images and simulates a “looking glass” effect.
Pablo Picasso
Aimis also brings us Pablo Picasso’s (Spanish, 1881-1973) exquisitely complex “Figuras” (1967, India ink and wash on paper laid on card, 50cm x 61cm). This work undulates and balances complex images of voyeuristic male faces with the lithe feminine nudes quintessential to Picasso’s oeuvre.
Alexander Calder
The Greenwich, Connecticut-based Queue Projects will feature Alexander Calder’s (American, 1898-1976) seminal “The Spiral (No! to Frank Lloyd Wright),” which descends from the hallowed halls of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, where it resided from the late 1960s through the end of the 1990s. Primarily known for his free-flowing suspended mobiles, Calder’s monumental-scale aluminum and steel structure (120” x 172” x 118.75”) recalls his earlier motorized kinetic works.
Claes Oldenburg
Omer Tiroche Contemporary Art takes a decidedly non-glamorous turn with Claes Oldenburg’s (American, b. 1929) “Fagend Study” (1975, Lead and Cor-Ten Steel filled with Polyurethane Foam, 87cm x 73.5cm x 180cm). The oversized cigarette butt, referred to by its equally uncouth British title “Fag-End” (meaning: the last part), depicts the soft cigarette as a hard and immobile object, perhaps a metaphor for smoking in and of itself. The sheer size and weight of the carcinogenic monolith discomfits viewers, but creates a compelling social commentary.
Salvador Dalí
Barcelona’s Mayoral brings the great Spanish master Salvador Dalí’s (Spanish 1904-1989) experimental decalcomanic “Anatomies” (1937, Oil on cardboard affixed to plank, 50cm x 64cm), which deconstructs female forms into Rorschach-like beings with heads of roses. Decalcomania was a technique adopted from Dalí’s friend, Max Ernst (German, 1891-1976), in which unpredictable images were created using pressed pools of ink and paint. Dalí then overpainted his signature Freudian drawers in the central figure’s breasts to symbolize women’s ability to store away unconscious ideas. Children, he felt, always touch and open drawers and closets, revealing every secret, perhaps alluding to his own secret desires.
Joan Miró
Joan Miró’s (Spanish, 1893-1983) “Femme” (1979, Mixed Media on Japon Paper, 134.5cm x 52cm) epitomizes his attempts to reject traditional painting methods for primitive, childlike expression of color and form. “For me,” he said, “what I call a woman is not a woman, but a universe.” The surrealist deconstruction of the feminine form recalls Picasso’s disjointed compositions, with the mismatched breasts in the center and the dark pubis in the lower portion. The sweetness and spontaneity of the figures is perhaps a reminiscence of Japanese calligraphy, which captivated Miró. Further, the presence of Japanese paper further reinforces this hypothesis.
Andy Warhol
Edvard Munch’s (Norway, 1863-1944) “The Scream” series is one of the most enduring images in art history. In all, Munch painted two pastels, two oils and a series of lithographs depicting this theme. Icon Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987), in his tradition of taking the old and updating it, carried on Munch’s vision with his own “The Scream (After Munch)” (Screenprint on Lenox Board with Warhol Board Stamp, 40 inches by 32 inches).
“Andy Warhol’s prints after Munch were never published and exist only in rare color variants,” says Ray Waterhouse of Waterhouse & Dodd. The intensity of the red emphasizes Munch’s already haunting and angst-laden image and updates it into a modern vernacular.
