ART BASEL MIAMI + RUBELL MUSEUM by Norma Poindexter

Art Basel Miami 2021, North America’s most comprehensive, international contemporary art fair, packs over 268 ad-hoc galleries into the Miami Convention Center, showcasing gorgeous works by more than 4,000 artists from 35 countries. In this celebratory week known as Miami Art Week, the vibrant spirit of Art Basel Miami thrives in enthralling satellite fairs, glittering celebrations and parties, and thrilling creative events liberally sprinkled throughout colorful Miami. Besides embracing the dynamic vibrancy at these contemporary artist activities, Miami Art Week also publicizes both legendary established artists and the most promising, emerging artists at leading-edge Miami galleries and museums. The infamous Rubell Museum always highlight their most impressive, new exhibits during Art Basel/Miami Art Week, and this year won’t disappoint you.

Protecting the largest, most renowned contemporary art collections in North America, the Rubell Museum resides in a brilliant, new modernistic building within the beating heart of Miami’s art district. Buying whatever they could when he was a young medical student and she was a teacher, Don and Mera Rubell made their first art purchase in 1965 and have since lovingly built one of the most significant contemporary private collections in the world. The ever-evolving collection encompasses 7,200 pieces by over 1000 artists from across the globe. The Rubells approach art with the intention to preserve, share and learn from championed, emerging artists. With the newly architected space by Annabelle Selldorf in Miami’s multi-ethnic Allapattah district, the Rubell Museum features their extraordinary collection in forty crisp, white galleries with polished concrete floors, 65 per cent dedicated to long-term installations, and 35 per cent to special exhibitions from the collection.

For this years’ Miami Art Week, the Rubell Museum pulls out all of the stops with special exhibitions until December 12, highlighting five noteworthy, global contemporary artists:

Yayoi Kusama:
With her infamous Infinity Rooms reopened, the museum now features three glorious, major Kusama installations including her mesmerizing Narcissus Garden, composed of 700 stainless steel spheres flowing 200 feet along the museum’s central hall. The only Infinity Rooms in the Southeastern United States, these celebrated, fully immersive, mirrored works create a kaleidoscopic effect that transports visitors to an alternate, limitless universe. Kusama, a renowned 92-year-old Japanese global contemporary artist and author who works primarily in sculpture and installation, exhibits worldwide, including at Tate Modern and New York Botanical Gardens.

Genesis Tremaine: Sanctuary:
The Rubell Museum’s 2020 Artist-in-Residence, Genesis Tremaine (born 1983, Brooklyn, NY) lives and works in Brooklyn. Sanctuary encompasses a series of eight outstanding paintings the artist created during her six-week 2020 residency at the museum. Heavily influenced in the series by her spiritual upbringing and study of the Bible, Tremaine depicts unique, biblical figures and portraits.

Hernan Bas:
One of South Florida’s most celebrated artists, Bas (born 1978) hails from Miami. Bas’ work incorporates fantastic romantic and classical images finding inspiration in leading-edge fashion, Goth Culture and children’s mystery books.

Yoshitomo Nar:
A Japanese artist, a pioneering figure in contemporary art since 1984, stars in exhibits worldwide including MoMA and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Nar is best known for his paintings and figures of free-standing whimsical animals and children’s characters, present in Dogs from your childhood and Too Young to Die.

Natalie Ball:
Living and working in Chiloquin, Oregon, Ball considers intersectional narratives of indigenous experience and history throughout her globally-exhibited works. In the Rubell Museum, Ball exhibits three sculptural paintings with a wide breadth of fascinating materials including animal hides, horsehair, quilts, acrylic and canvas.

Dramatically showcasing the latest kernels of contemporary-artist brilliance at Miami Art Week, the Rubell Museum perfectly couples with the sensational artwork at Art Basel Miami 2021 (December 2nd to 5th with their preview days on Dec. 1 st and 2 nd ). Since this year’s energizing celebrations and marvelous exhibits are the first in two years, we expect an especially action-filled, dynamic experience enlivened with electrifying artists and extraordinary events. We can’t wait.

DETAILS
Rubell Museum | 1100 NW 23rd St, Miami, FL 33127 | + 1.305.573.6090
Images via Rubell Musuem