For its tenth year beside the ocean, Untitled Art Miami Beach 2021 (November 29–December 4) presents over 145 international galleries and organizations. Led by Omar López-Chahoud, Untitled Art’s Artistic Director, and featuring four guest curators specifically for the show, the fair also welcomes an ambitious new sector named “Nest,” which supports emerging galleries, non-profits, and collectives that were impacted by the global pandemic. Supported by Stelle & Fortuna, the first “Nest” inaugural prize-winner was named Caldéron, a new inclusive gallery with an imminent focus on artists from Latin America and the diaspora.
Special for the beachside presentation, guests can also expect to see the return of several not-miss programs and series—including “Special Projects” “Podcast Conversations,” “Monuments”—as well as other live performances and events, both indoors and outside.
Camilo Restrepo, The Other Names, photo by Eliza Jordan.
Walking through the fair, we were drawn to several works and booths for their ability to reel us in with subject matter, materials, and colors that spoke to our complex contemporary world. Presented by Steve Turner, Camilo Restrepo’s The Other Names piece featured 503 portraits of people who were mentioned by “other names”—known as the aliases that Colombian criminals assume—last year in the El Tiempo newspaper.
Jeff Sonohouse, The Spirit of a Hypocrite, photo by Eliza Jordan.
At Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery, a work entitled The Spirit of a Hypocrite by Jeff Sonhouse popped from the wall in vibrant colors and textures, depicting a man with yellow spiky hair adorned in red-and-yellow checkered paint and blue eyeglasses dotted with puka shells instead of pupils.
Works by Yashua Klos, photo by Eliza Jordan.
This was in perfect dialogue with other stunning depictions of the Black experience, such as the collages by Yashua Klos, like Paige, which poetically showed women from their side profiles naturally posed in blue shirts.
Rufai Zakari, photo by Eliza Jordan.
And at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, arresting works by Rufai Zakari and Sara Berman wrapped the walls, making it near impossible to forget the portraits that remain.
Sara Berman, photo by Eliza Jordan.
Last but not least, we admired Joyce Billet‘s “Rising” installation located in the fair’s podcast lounge. Made of etched and cut plywood, benches that explore the tension between the analog and the digital featured ends backing up to the wall, curling up the sides of the lounge. “I am interested in duality—positive and negative forms, presence and absence, darkness and light,” Billet said. “Rising explores these concepts by engaging both wall and floor with horizontal and vertical panels, rooted at the ground, and suspended as they rise. It challenges the traditional ways of painting by altering the flat surface into a visual, tactile, and functional sculptural element.”
Joyce Billet, Rising, courtesy of Joyce Billet.
