Dieci Design Plaza

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Miami Design District reviewed by the New York Times

The New York Times By Julia Chaplin
February 3, 2008

In Miami, the Beach Party Moves Indoors THE art and cocktail bacchanal known as Art Basel Miami Beach was still three months away, but that didn't stop a hundred artists and their hangers-on from cramming into a raw and unoccupied restaurant in Miami's Design District last fall. Glasses of Red Bull and vodka flowed freely. A noise band, armed with electric guitars and homemade synthesizers, jammed so loudly that it seemed to disturb the entire neighborhood. A gang of fresh-faced artists in tight T-shirts and worn-out jeans suspended a six-foot-long digital timer from the ceiling that counted down the milliseconds left in the party.

At the same time, another crowd had gathered at World Class Boxing, an old gym in a strip mall about 20 blocks away that had been delicately transformed by art collectors into a climate-controlled gallery. Guests admired works by international artists like Jim Lambie and Olafur Eliasson as more drinks flowed - this time from the gallery owners' private wine label.

The most unusual thing about this art-saturated Saturday night in Miami was that it wasn't unusual at all. Since Art Basel Miami Beach touched down on this city's palm- and condo-strewn shores six years ago, a contemporary art wave has swept across Miami like a tropical storm. Art is everywhere, from the walls of boutique hotels where works by young art stars have replaced the stark minimalism of the 1990s, to what might be the nation's first contemporary art shopping mall, the Aventura Mall.

So if you missed all the hullabaloo of Art Basel, with its 43,000 visitors, countless receptions and exhibits crammed into four days in early December, not to worry. A dizzying amount of art and its whimsical after-parties now rages on all season long.

"Every gallery and institution plans their best shows during Art Basel," said Terence Riley, the director of the Miami Art Museum, who is spearheading an ambitious $220 million new home for the museum designed by the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. "But they generally stay up for a few months afterwards. It's a secret time to see international, museum-quality art."

The best part of heading down to Miami now for a sun-kissed art crawl is that there are no lines, super-tight guest lists or jacked-up hotel rates. Add to that several high-profile private collections, the meteoric rise of local artists and a rush of new galleries to showcase them, and Miami has matured from a fleeting, skin-deep art showcase into an unlikely cultural oasis.

And unlike cities with long artistic roots, Miami offers a uniquely high-low thrill: you can glimpse museum-grade art at impressive private galleries in the morning, then dodge loitering crack dealers and prostitutes in the afternoon, as you search for promising new talent in the city's sketchier areas.

"The Miami art scene is somewhere between young adulthood and late adolescence," Mr. Riley said. "It's no longer a kid, but it's still happy-go-lucky and trying to figure out what it wants to do with its future."

The prime place to witness Miami's art odyssey is not in glittery Miami Beach, but across Biscayne Bay, along the sun-bleached avenues of the once-derelict Wynwood Art District. Before Art Basel came to town, Wynwood was an industrial wasteland with just a handful of pioneering galleries and private collections like the Rubell Family Collection and the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse. But over the last few years, a bevy of enterprising new galleries have either relocated or opened up shop.

"CONTEMPORARY art is the new glamour," said Rosa de la Cruz, the Miami-based art collector and philanthropist. "Of course, there's a danger that it will become trendy. But it's better to have a glam image than a crime image."

Now there are some 70 galleries and counting, from upstarts like the Spinello Gallery and David Castillo Gallery, to internationally regarded galleries like Fredric Snitzer, Kevin Bruk and Emmanuel Perrotin. Sandwiched between tire shops and clothing wholesalers, their concrete facades are freshly painted in purples, pinks and charcoals - giving the area the feeling of a discount bohemian frontier, where idiosyncratic experiments in art and commerce are possible because of cheap rents, too much space and plenty of parking.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the quality of the work is uneven, ranging from captivating to horribly clichéd. During my visit in early December, I saw trite performances that involved a woman suspended from a harness, and art installations that looked like art school projects.

More thought-provoking work was found at Twenty Twenty, a scrappy gallery that opened near vacant lots where prostitutes and drug dealers ply their trade. It was started by Scott Murray, a 27-year-old with tousled hair and a sunburn who was wearing skinny jeans when he greeted me outside. Inside, scattered on the floor, was a piece called "How to Become A Millionaire in 100 Days." The artist, a 24-year-old named Jen Stark, spent 100 days tearing a million scraps of colored paper - a not-so subtle statement about the hyper-commercialized art market.

Hoping to see more, I accidentally pushed through a white curtain and ended up in Mr. Murray's tiny bedroom.

In this young art pond, places like Fredric Snitzer Gallery are held as the art establishment. A sort of godfather of the local art scene, Mr. Snitzer championed Miami artists like Hernan Bas and Naomi Fisher long before contemporary art was considered cool in Miami. Three years ago, he moved his gallery from Coral Gables to a sprawling warehouse in Wynwood.

"An adventurous collector can wade through and find something good amongst the heap," Mr. Snitzer said of Wynwood. "A space will have terrible shows for months and then a great one. You really have to look."

Where you won't have to look too hard is at the district's private art collections. Places like Rubell and Margulies have blossomed in recent years into world-class viewing opportunities, and their numbers continue to grow.

Among the splashiest is the Cisneros Fontanals Arts Foundation, founded in 2002 by the Venezuelan philanthropist Ella Fontanals-Cisneros. From the outside, the collection looks like a glassy high-end boutique - a stark contrast to the surrounding concrete blight. Inside, the gleaming structure has works by Damien Hirst, Mateo López and Ai Weiwei that would be the envy of any contemporary art museum.

After dark, the Wynwood art scene moves to a clutch of new restaurants and bars that few of Art Basel's high-rolling sophisticates would be caught dead in. Popular among the upwardly mobile art set is the Lost and Found Saloon, a kitschy Western-themed restaurant with wagon-wheel chandeliers, a desertscape mural and cowhide wall hangings.

I was joined there on a recent Tuesday by two artists in their late 20s, Daniel Newman and Nick Lobo, who were making a pit stop between visits with gallery owners. "Before Miami had import-export and tourism," said Mr. Lobo, a sculptor who attended Cooper Union in New York City but has returned to Miami to jump-start his career. "Now art is our No. 1 export."

That might be an overstatement, but since Art Basel was first held in 2002, Miami artists have been snapped up by galleries in New York, Tokyo and Berlin. Hernan Bas, for example - Miami-born and known for his romantic, vaguely homoerotic paintings - now exhibits at Daniel Reich in New York and Saatchi Gallery in London and is part of MoMA's permanent collection. And last November three Miami artists - Bert Rodriguez, William Cordova and Adler Guerrier - were chosen for the Whitney Biennial, giving the budding scene a high-profile imprimatur.

Not insignificantly, the art scene also has the support of Miami developers and real estate brokers, who offer up free space to young artists and gallery owners for exhibitions as a way of adding cachet to marginal neighborhoods like Wynwood.

"Bank towers, unsold condos, empty office spaces, you name it," Mr. Lobo said. After all, many of the local art collectors are also real estate developers, among them Don and Mera Rubell, Craig Robins and Marty Margulies.

Hoteliers have also gotten into the act, turning lobbies and suites along South Beach into veritable galleries. Last October, the Sagamore Hotel commissioned the photographer Spencer Tunick to shoot photos and videos at the hotel. An image of 500 nude revelers was unveiled during Art Basel. And at the new Angler's Resort, the walls are adorned with luscious photos of indigenous flowers by the local photographer Sheila DeLemos.

The hubbub has more recently spread to the Design District, 18 blocks dotted with pastel-colored furniture stores from the 1920s and '30s. While several high-end design showrooms like Kartell and Vitra have set up there in recent years, the surplus of raw space has drawn numerous artists.

Indeed, if you're walking around and see a blacked-out storefront or a colorful unmarked door, chances are there's an art project in the works. Wander into the Moore Building - where Design Miami, the design offshoot to Art Basel Miami Beach, is held - and stumble across a white futuristic installation by the architect Zaha Hadid. Push through a door on the second floor and find yourself in the Moore Space, a nonprofit gallery that consistently exhibits internationally acclaimed artists like Tracey Emin and Paul McCarthy.

Or find your way inside the Art Deco Buena Vista office building, where you might see young artists and their friends hauling canvases to the top floor. It is the home of the Bas Fisher Invitational, a so-called "no-profit" space run by the artists Naomi Fisher and Jim Drain.

Behind one of the walls, through a secret cut-out in the sheet rock, is a studio filled with old slide projectors and yarn that is shared by Ms. Fisher and her boyfriend, Mr. Drain, an artist who recently moved to Miami from Rhode Island. In lieu of rent, Mr. Drain pays his landlord with works of art - most recently, a sculpture made of painted toilet seats. (The landlord, Craig Robins, is an avid art collector and a leading Design District developer.)

Around the corner, along a row of purple storefronts, is Nektar De Stagni's Shop, whose windows were recently filled with hundreds of pairs of Ferragamo shoes. Is it a boutique or gallery? Turns out, it is a little of both. Run by Nektar De Stagni, a fashion designer, and her boyfriend, the artist Martin Oppel, the storefront serves as a lifestyle boutique that sells Ms. De Stagni's glammed-up fashions, along with art books, T-shirts and jewelry by local artisans. In the back is a studio cluttered with paintbrushes and sewing machines.

BUT for many of the district's young artists, the shop also doubles as a party information booth. Ms. De Stagni, who moonlights as a D.J. (called Faux Real) at popular artist parties like Poplife on Saturdays at the White Room, is eager to pass along tidbits about the latest hot spots.

If it's the second Saturday of the month, she'll probably clue you into Second Saturday, a loosely organized arts circuit when many galleries time their new shows. Besides the usual white-wine receptions and mobbed openings, there are barbecue competitions judged by artists and impromptu D.J. sets at unlikely venues like Mike's at Venetia, an Irish sports bar on the ninth floor of a condo complex.

Even on nights when there are no receptions, the art party rages. At midnight on a recent Friday, a crowd had gathered at Circa 28, a chill bar that opened in Wynwood in December. It happened to be during the Art Basel fair, but there was not a dolled-up socialite or dark-suited corporate sponsor in sight. Abstract paintings hung crookedly on the walls, and young artists sat languidly under a bookshelf - in marked contrast to the hedonistic, bottle-service hangouts of South Beach. Outside on the deserted sidewalk, a truck pulled up and opened its flatbed to reveal a portable art exhibit and D.J. booth that began to play lounge music.

Soon people trickled out of the bar, beers and all, creating an ad hoc tailgate party. A police car was parked a block away but seemed uninterested. A good clean party is tolerated here, almost protected, in a neighborhood with a history of more serious crime.

No Need to Wait for Art Basel. It's an Art Fair All Year Long.

Miami's go-go art scene is no longer confined to the four-day December circus known as Art Basel Miami Beach. Galleries, private collections and alternative spaces are popping up faster than weeds, particularly in the Wynwood Art District and the Design District. Here are a few places to view art-fair caliber works all season long.

WYNWOOD ART DISTRICT

The Rubell Family Collection (95 Northwest 29th Street; 305-573-6090; www.rubellfamilycollection.com) seems to get bigger and more impressive every year. Housed in an austere warehouse formerly owned by the Drug Enforcement Agency, the collection recently added a leafy sculpture garden. Check out the wondrous videos by the Miami-based artist Hernan Bas, alongside works by the European artists Urs Fischer and Anselm Reyle, until May 31.

For emerging young artists, check out Twenty Twenty (2020 Northwest Miami Court, second floor; 786-217-7683; www.twentytwentyprojects.com), a year-old alternative space on a dodgy industrial stretch. It has generated much buzz for its high-grade talent and festive openings.

The Parisian gallery Emmanuel Perrotin has a satellite location in a former refrigerator warehouse (194 Northwest 30th Street; 305-573-2130; www.galerieperrotin.com). Works by the sculptor Peter Coffin and the French installation artist Tatiana Trove are on view.

Anthony Spinello, 25, runs the jewel-box-size Spinello Gallery (2294 Northwest Second Avenue; 786-271-4223; www.spinellogallery.com), with trendy openings that often feature graffiti and graphic artists.

Andreina Fuentes, owner of Hardcore Art Contemporary Space (3326 North Miami Avenue; 305-576-1645; www.hardcoreartcontemporary.com) fills the space with works centered around social and political issues and pop culture.

DESIGN DISTRICT

You can see tomorrow's art stars at the Bas Fisher Invitational (180 Northeast 39th Street, Suite 210), a so-called "no profit" gallery devoted to edgy, non-commercial work, started by the local artists Hernan Bas and Naomi Fisher.

The low-key Moore Space (4040 Northeast Second Avenue; 305-438-1163; www.themoorespace.org) has exquisitely curated contemporary art shows, thanks to the deep pockets of one of its patrons, Rosa de la Cruz. "French Kissin'," an exhibit of emerging French artists, is on view until March 8.

For a mix of art, fashion and music, stop by Nektar De Stagni's Shop (155 Northeast 38th Street; 786-556-3033; www.nektardestagni.com), a boudoir-esque boutique run by the local fashion designer and D.J. An adjoining studio is used by the artist Martin Oppel, who is also her boyfriend.

WHERE TO PARTY

Circa 28 (2826 North Miami Avenue; 305-722-1858; www.circa28.com), a bar in Wynwood, is decorated like a gentlemen's club and is often the spot for after-parties and impromptu musical performances by visiting bands like the Brazilian Girls and Rapture.

To dance with Miami's young art intelligentsia, hop over to Poplife (www.epoplife.com), the Saturday night party held at the White Room (1306 North Miami Avenue; 305-995-5050; www.whiteroommiami.com), a sleek club that opened in December on the edge of Overtown, an up-and-coming night-life district.

The trendy Japanese bistro Domo Japones (4000 Northeast Second Avenue; 305-573-5474) draws a post-opening crowd with innovative dishes like black edamame, and mirin-glazed short ribs. Dinner, about $75 for two including wine, is served until midnight.

Lost and Found Saloon (185 Northwest 36th Street; 305-576-1008; www.thelostandfoundsaloon-miami.com) is a popular pit stop for gallery hoppers and paint-splattered artists. The laid-back cafe has a campy, frontiersman décor and serves Southwestern fare like "posse energy burritos" ($6.75) and piñon-and-pepita-crusted tofu ($9.25).
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