Miami happily satisfies every native and tourist who craves copious amounts of sand and sunshine. And now, it can put New York City to shame by enabling everyone and anyone to become a gallerina. Every second Saturday of the month, the Wynwood Art District in Miami, Florida, opens its galleries’ doors and extends its hours late into the evening. The experience is incomparable to Chelsea’s gallery opening receptions, which may excite the elite buyer or hipster college student, but could never entice a mix of social classes and ages in the way that Art Walk seamlessly achieves. While Chelsea is an art hub that invites a somewhat exclusive group to view their galleries, usually with an offering of wine and sometimes cheese, Miami is an explosive art destination with food trucks galore, live bands and street markets. In one Saturday night, a wandering tourist could roam through almost one hundred thousand people celebrating the birth of art in Miami.
Art Walk begins with the traditional white cube gallery, the Ascaso Gallery, which hung a variety of styles on its walls. The most interesting of the eclectic bunch were the paintings of Luis Tomasello, especially his Atmosphere Chromoplastique No. 852,” (2006). This piece of art, constructed from white planks of wood, created a grid of cubes, was painted with neon acrylic paint. The calculated areas of paint reflected off particular edges of each square in order to create a series of blue and orange diagonals when viewed from a distance. The clever, and yet aesthetic appeal of this work was grabbing the attention of the packed-to-capacity gallery.
The next stop would only exist in Miami, with its pop-art-loving Britto fans. Kawaii Universe Studio, is more like a sticker shop than a gallery; huge stickers in the shape of ice cream cones, sashimi sushi, cupcakes, and cod fish lined the studio’s white walls. Tacked with Velcro, these stickers sell for a whopping $40.00, even though they are not one-of-a-kind nor are they embellished with gold. The most surprising part of the space is the fact that is was busy! In true Miami fashion, people, adults to be specific, were shedding cash on stickers in an art gallery.
While shuffling through throngs of teenagers and seniors on the sidewalk, I was presented with a warehouse-turned-rave-venue where The Eclectic Art Movement (TEAM) presented itself in the form of graffiti plastered on canvases, large-scale cartoons in frames, and classical paintings hanging on concrete. While one band blared its heavy metal from outside the complex, a techno band deejayed its beats from inside. One man was sculpting a gold Michelangelo-esque statue, while another man finger-painted a three-eyed yellow dog onto a piece of tarp. The interplay of styles from every angle – there were paintings and graffiti on the walls, the ceiling, the floor, and even on some of the people – explored an area of art yet to be explored in NYC.
This space could have been a nightmare, but instead it was the art-lover’s dream. The atmosphere epitomized the definition of art in the way that it both enticed and challenged all of the viewer’s senses and preconceived notions about classical and commercial art. The somewhat loose definition of art further emphasized the future of contemporary art in the way that it can be anything from a calculated wooden grid to a child’s supply of stickers to a gallerina’s phone (one gallery featured iphoneagraphy!). Miami proves it is not a one trick pony; did not just get it right with its beaches, it got it right with its art, too.
Luis Tomasello, Atmosphere Chromoplastique No. 852,” (2006) & detail