More art-fair fun in Wynwood – Knight Foundation
Arts

More art-fair fun in Wynwood

Gustavo Acosta at Pan American Projects booth.

Think Miamians (and visitors) are sick of art fairs? Think again. This President’s Day Weekend, the second Art Wynwood opened up to huge crowds in a tent in Midtown. It was joined by a new fair, MA+D Miami Art and Design, in the waterfront Bayfront Park Pavilion, which also opened up on Thursday evening. At this February’s Art Wynwood – an offshoot of the huge Art Miami fair that takes place every year during Art Basel – there is no dearth of art for those crowds to look at. With more than 70 galleries, the place is bursting a lot of painting, some sculpture, performances and works made for the fair, such as the street-inspired murals that hang above the café area.

Peter Demetz at Italy's White Room

Peter Demetz at Italy’s White Room.

Miami is well represented throughout the fair. Some of the galleries here may be unfamiliar, a number of which have sister galleries in either South America or Europe.

Others will be familiar. Spinello Projects features new neon works from Typoe. Cernuda Art based in Coral Gables prominently displays Jose Bedia. Wynwood’s Ascaso gallery has a large, wonderful, abstract geometric piece on its outer wall from Luis Tomasello. Robert Fontaine has an interesting mix of emerging and mid-career artists.

Waltman Ortega brought in a live performance duo from Paris, Christian Volckman and Raphael Thierry, known as ©®, for the opening (they will return to the gallery in March). In the Juan Ruiz Gallery, some very nice painting and sculpture from locally based Ruben Torres Lorca is featured. And we get a sneak preview of Pan American Project’s upcoming show “Made in Miami” at its booth, with some fine cityscape paintings from Gustavo Acosta; and work that may surprise you from hometown star Edouard Duval-Carrie. And these are just some of the local representations at the fair.

Non-local galleries worth mentioning include Long Island City-based Julian Navarro Projects, with a new piece from Miamian Teresa Diehl. Don’t be fooled by this incredible piece — it is not really a sculpture, it is a video installation. Take time to watch it transform. And don’t miss specific pieces at two Italian galleries: the small wooden figurines set in a diorama from Peter Demetz at the Capri-based White Room. And the fabulous 3-D line sculptural paintings from Paolo Cavinato at Milan’s The Flat – Massimo Carasi.

That’s just a start. In fact there is too much here to take in. As is the case with many fairs, it can be overwhelming. But there are three more days left.

Art Wynwood runs through Monday, Feb. 17 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and until 6 p.m. on Monday. At the Art Wynwood Pavilion, 3101 N.E. 1st Ave., Midtown; tickets $20 for day pass; www.artwynwood. com.