Miami Art Week 2015: CONTEXT, Art Miami, and Aqua Art Miami Recap

Kehinde Wiley at Art Miami

Among the largest fairs during Miami Art Week has always been the extensive Art Miami, which was conjoined with its sister fair CONTEXT Art Miami in Wynwood, and Aqua Art Miami on the other side of the causeway. We first attended Aqua Art Miami, so named for its host, the Aqua Hotel. Since 2005, the fair has filled room after room, and even the hotel’s hallways, with works by emerging galleries and mid-career artists. Tampa based gallery CASS Contemporary was among the stand outs this year, with their selection of new works by artists like Oakland based painter and street artist Allison Torneros, better known as Hueman, whimsical drawings with fantastical characters by French artist Amandine Urruty, and ink and gouache paintings by Berlin based Andrea Wan. We were also delighted to see the “cracked” graphite portraits of Taisuke Mohri in Frantic Gallery’s room, as well as glorious stained-glass inspired works lit from behind by Beau Stanton, and Rogan Brown’s intricately laser-cut arrangements in C. Emerson Fine Arts’ room.

Taisuke Mohri at Aqua Art Miami

Though Miami Art Week has something for everyone, Art Miami seems to have developed a reputation as the fair that houses the most bizarre. Combined with CONTEXT next door, the fairs featured aisle upon aisle of contemporary art from a daunting 179 galleries, where we learned that an “art hangover” is a real thing. At Art Miami, we were greeted by an obese teddy bear designed by Los Angeles based Pop Art sculptor Desire Obtain Cherish (whose real name is Jonathan Paul). Also drawing in crowds were the half-grotesque, half-beautiful Frankenstein-like taxidermy sculptures of Enrique Gomez de Molina that sparked controversy in previous fairs, the sculptural paintings of Patrick Hughes that seem to defy physics, the freakishly hyper-realistic sculptures of Marc Sijan, and sculptures by anonymous Japanese artist trio “Three”, who melted and repurposed action figures and rubber figurines into a cute magical girl.

Desire Obtain Cherish at Art Miami

The work became increasingly experimental and detailed at CONTEXT, where we spotted dreamy lenticular digital paintings by Sonya Fu, abstract cut-paper works by Meredith Dittmar (HF Vol. 4), Michael Mapes’ (HF Vol. 26) portraits made out of various materials like insect pins, pinning foam, glass vials, and magnifiers, and Kerry Miller’s intricately carved 3D artworks from old books, from which forest shrubs blossomed before our eyes. Other stand out pieces included artist Mars One’s (Mario Martinez) “Mars Molecule Project”, which had a presence throughout Miami Art Week with a public installation also coinciding with Miami Project at the Deauville Beach Resort Miami. Take a look at some of our highlights from CONTEXT Art Miami, Art Miami, and Aqua Art Miami below.

Aqua Art Miami:

Taisuke Mohri