This event proclaims itself as THE BEST HOTEL ART FAIR IN THE WORLD. I know, I know. A pretty bold claim coming from a bunch of smooth, laid back Seattle-based West-coasters. But they’ve been around. And if you’re dying to get down there and prove them wrong, your going to have a pretty hard time keeping your people’s attention with that story of the retrospective you saw in the south of France. The venue is outrageously beautiful and Aqua Art Miami is about to rock the Aqua Hotel which they’ve made their home now, returning for a seventh consecutive year at Art Basel.
With returning production partners Dirk Park and Jaq Chartier, this year Aqua has over 45 exhibiting galleries from all over the country and from their home in the west coast, focusing on upcoming artists with a baffling range that will make the space one of the most electric on Miami Beach this year. You’ll probably end up getting your most smooth looking ‘I’m at Art Basel’ profile pics at this location, to boot, with it’s wide open courtyard, the soft sun-battered blues of the hotel, and the tremendous colors of this years artists. Aqua will again be a strong representative of the West Coast this year.
Any interested parties are encouraged to look at Aqua’s site to view some of the upcoming, featured artists and installations. But among the tasteful array of vivid pop absurdism, there are some special projects and installations worth mentioning. One will feature artist Will Wilson from Navajo Nation guiding artists from the Miccosukee Nation to create an installation at the Fairchild Botanical Gardens and at Aqua Art Miami using Burma Reed, a plant destroying native habitat all over South Florida. Also, Montreal gallery Pierre-François
Ouellette will feature a special collaboration of artist Adad Hannah with Oscar-winning filmmaker Denys Arcand, in an installation inspired by the turn of the 20th Century play by Arthur Schnitzler entitled La Ronde (A play that was originally about how sexual contact transgresses boundaries of social class, and caused massive controversy in the 20’s).
On Aqua’s now traditional non-profit front, they’ll feature Seattle’s SOIL Gallery and Toronto’s Blunt Collective, as well as the debut of Chicago’s What It Is Projects championing awareness. Graduating students will be making their mark as well from New York’s School of Visual Arts, as well as the introduction of the MFA program at Georgia State University’s Ernest G. Welch School of Art + Design.
With the fair’s veteran art dealers like Gallery 339 and Gregory Lind (to name a small percentage), and first-time Aqua exhibitors like RHV Fine Art from Brooklyn, Porter Contemporary and Lyons Wier Gallery from New York, Prole Drift and SEASON from Seattle, this year is likely to be a year that the organizers mark as their best. If you are mining Art Basel for new art, I’d spend one night at Aqua. If the only art you appreciate is the art of looking good while holding a good-looking drink, I might spend two nights at Aqua 11 this year.
By Jason Kesser
This year the show dates are December 1-4, with a preview party on Wednesday evening, November 30.
Aqua Art Miami – Aqua Hotel
1530 Collins Ave, Miami Beach, FL 33139
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