Dispatches from Miami: NADA - The Fair Frenzy

Ross Karlan, Director of Art Muse LA and Miami

It’s Miami Art Week, a time when a city rich in sensory overload goes into overdrive. In 2023, Art Basel Miami Beach alone had more visitors than the Super Bowl. Hundreds of art galleries send their envoys to the Sunshine State to sell and network. Artists have prepared for months for one of the peak opportunities to expand their markets. Party-goers come to — well — party. And locals find themselves in traffic and devoid of dinner reservations.

As a curator and educator, it feels crazy to really process just how much art I’ve seen, making what does stand out, that much more impressive. Beyond the main Art Basel fair, there is so much to see. In this first installation let’s look at NADA — the New Art Dealers Alliance’s fair in the historice Ice Palace film studios — with a few hot takes.

Marius Steiger’s “Bookcase (Optimism),” from Blue Velvet Gallery in Zurich is oil and acrylic on linen that is stretched custom to each image he presents, here the disco ball and apples. The work is a new era of trompe l’oeil where the trompe is no longer a trompe at all, but a lack of canvas altogether. It’s a strong piece that plays with the idea of composition and dimension in way that is playful and pure.

The aluminum works of Paula Santomé from Miami’s Primary Projects is a stunning example of what an artist can do with an in-depth understanding of material and texture. Santomé (Spanish, based in Basel, Switzerland) creates incredible metal relief works that look at femininity and mythology, and are hand embossed with a precision that is unbelievably captivating.

Eugster Gallery in Belgrade, Serbia, provided endless entertainment with their booth highlighting the work of Vuk Cuk whose meme-theme paintings reckon with society’s fast pace, technological advancements, commercialization, and the need to slow down and soak it all in. Gallerist Jan Eugster took Cuk’s work to the threshold of simulacrum, making his Apple Watch background match the memes on view.

One of the “winners” of NADA (though everyone is a winner), was London-based Annka Kultys Gallery’s presentation of Swedish artist Jonas Lund who was selling work that didn’t even exist. Instead, the artist, who is a new father, wants to spend more time with his baby and be a present dad, so he created Jonas Lund Tokens to buy futures in his work. When the futures token expires, you get a painting, letting you invest in the artist’s career and take a risk on his rising value, while also giving him the opportunity to be present for his family. Is it wild? Absolutely! Is it brilliant? Maybe! Is it an example of the hyper-speculation of the contemporary market? You bet! But I kind of loved it.

Stay tuned for more!