NEW FAIR BURSTS ON MIAMI SCENE

Monday, 03 December 2007 21:00

Miami, FL - Breadth and Depth of Works and Unique Services for Visitors Distinguish Art Miami 2007. To navigate Art Miami, a visitor need only seek out Tony Oursler's phantasmagoric Purple Resonant Dust (2006). Suspended from the ceiling, the globe of swirling purple clouds and spookily disembodied figures will be a lodestar amid the bustle of the 100,000 sq-ft art fair, a newcomer to the December scene in Miami. Art Miami December 5-9 2007

By far the largest art show in the Wynwood Art District and the second largest of 23 expositions setting up shop from Wednesday, December 5, to Sunday, December 9, Art Miami offers thousands of works of art and design presented by 99 galleries from 17 countries. The fair once anchored the January art calendar in Miami; its move to December is accompanied by a new slate of exhibitors.

Art Miami's range will thrill those who relish encountering extraordinary, unexpected objects representing high points of a specific time, place, and set of skills. Some works set a standard for an entire medium: Laurence Miller Gallery, New York, is offering a Diane Arbus portfolio that was in process at the time of the influential artist's suicide in 1971. Only about half the sets from the original edition of 50 remain unbroken; still fewer are in private hands. Comprising such iconic images as "A family on their lawn one Sunday in Westchester, N.Y., 1968," this rare "Box of Ten" is expected to bring three quarters of a million dollars.

Art Miami will introduce many fresh faces to Miami, including a good many leading, long-time experts in their areas of specialization. One of these scholar/gallerists is Mary Hunt Kahlenberg of the TAI Gallery in Santa Fe, who for more than a decade served as the curator of Textiles and Costumes at the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts. Ms. Kahlenberg and partner Robert T. Coffland, a foremost expert on contemporary Japanese basketry, will present, among other objects, a sculptural, double-banded Japanese bamboo basket created over the course of four months last year by 77-year old Torii Ippo, one of Japan's great master craftsmen.

High points of post-war American art will be found throughout Art Miami, such as an exceedingly rare, large-scale canvas from Joan Mitchell's prime period (1957), at Hackett-Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, and a brash haiku of an abstraction on newsprint by Willem de Kooning (1966) and an important Ad Reinhardt, both from Spanierman Modern, New York. From the same ascendant period in Latin American art comes a major Wifredo Lam, on the market for the first time in a quarter century (David Castillo Gallery, Miami). From a later decade, the '70s, comes a masterly Philip Pearlstein painting of two nude women (Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York).

Photography makes a strong showing with a much remarked upon infrared series shot in the '70s by photographer Kohei Yoshiyuki, to be seen at Yossi Milo Gallery, New York. This cache of 12 black and white photographs shows people having and watching casual sexual encounters at night in Tokyo parks. As well, a selection of Martin Schoeller's monumental color portraits will be on view at Hasted Hunt, New York: Robert de Niro, Meryl Streep, and Joe Namath are among the cultural icons portrayed in tight close-ups, minus any frame of reference.

Art Advisor Program

Art Miami has retained a group of top art consultants, experts in a range of disciplines, as a service for its VIP guests. Coordinating the effort is Stacey Gershon, former president of the International Association of Professional Art Advisors (IAPAA) and former Curator of the JP Morgan Chase Art Collection. A private lounge has been designated as a meeting place for advisors and clients.

Wynwood Art District

Art Miami will occupy a spectacular tented structure stationed in the Wynwood Art District at NW 23 Street at NW 2nd Ave, just blocks from The AIPAD Photography Show Miami at NW 31 Street at N. Miami Ave; Aqua Wynwood at NE 25th Street at N. Miami Ave; Photo Miami, NW 31 Street at N. Miami Ave.; Pulse Miami, NW 1st Avenue at 21st Street; and Scope Miami, NW 34th Street at NW 2nd Avenue. Also in the Wynwood Art District are CIFO (Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation), The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, MOCA at Goldman Warehouse, and The Rubell Family Collection.