The Year Without Basel

In the weeks leading up to Miami Art Week in past years, artist Nathan Delinois (aka Nate Dee) would have been turning down work since, by this time, his calendar would be full.

“Already by August, I’d be totally booked for December,” said Delinois. “Usually at this point, I’m turning down everything that comes my way because there are only so many hours in the day. This year, it’s really different.”

Art Basel Miami Beach and about 18 other satellite fairs have put South Florida on the map for almost two decades as the art world’s center of the universe for the first week of December, but this year, as so much else has changed because of the pandemic, the international influx of collectors and tourists will be staying home. Miami Art Week in its truest sense has been canceled because of COVID-19.

While it is a big blow to South Florida’s hospitality and tourism sectors, the collective “Ugh!” can be heard from local artists too, who will not only feel the void of lost revenue that would normally come from opportunities to exhibit and sell their work, but also the absence of networking with collectors and creatives from around the world. And there are other Art Week cash cows artists will be missing out on as well. Big bucks can be made by local muralists and artists with followings who are hired by corporations to create live on-site works at their VIP parties or commissioned items to be displayed as ambiance-boosting pieces.

Delinois said he would be gearing up right now for no sleep and a nonstop surge of schmoozing, exhibiting and working.

“I’d be off and running,” he said. Nate Dee would have had his work on display at two of the satellite fairs, most likely Scope Miami Beach and Context, and would also have corporate bookings during some of Basel’s high-end events, appearing on-site doing live painting or outdoors creating murals.

There are still local events planned for Art Week, and Delinois will be part of a group show at MUCE (My Urban Contemporary Experience) in Little Haiti.

Just three weeks after last year’s Art Week wrapped, Miami artist Gonzalo Fuenmayor was already creating and planning for a solo show that would be at Little River’s Dot Fiftyone Gallery.

“I was making ambitious work at the end of last year and the beginning of this year – making work for the show,” he said. 

Fuenmayor’s solo show, “Palindromes,” was specifically booked into Dot Fiftyone Gallery to open Dec. 3 to coincide with Miami Art Week 2020.

“I continued to move forward regardless, and it will be as exactly as it would have been despite that it won’t have the visibility it would have had,” he said. “The uncertainty of it all is what made it hard to navigate. The gallery is still going through with the show and I am going through with the expense of the framing and the production and putting the time into it, but it’s a big question mark. During Art Week, there was the potential of more eyes, more creators and collectors who would see the work.”

An artist-in-residence at Oolite Arts in Miami Beach, Fuenmayor said that the hustle during Miami Art Week was a financial boost “so that you knew up until spring you were safe, that December came in and you had that bonus.”

But it isn’t solely the financial cushion Art Week provides that will be missed. 

“So much came from the interactions,” said Fuenmayor. “For me, it was a way to connect, to meet someone who would be this point of departure for what would be coming.”

Street artist and muralist Nicole Salgar didn’t mince words about the financial hit of the absence of the fairs.

“It’s going to really, really hurt,” said Salgar, who, along with her business partner, Chuck Barrett, has made visual art into a business by providing activations for clients. “Companies hire us to paint murals or do installation work for Basel-specific parties,” she said.

Many lucrative gigs come from the alcohol companies who sponsor Basel.

“A vodka company had me make a mural at the Faena Hotel that represented their product, and a rum company had me paint a bunch of bottles for an installation that they were doing,” said Salgar.

She’s found that she can make money from “still doing art, but in a different way.” Salgar had moved from Miami to New York and would come back to her hometown to follow the work.

“We were coming here to paint murals and then we started getting clients that were noticing it and hiring us to do these activations for them,” she said.

Salgar moved back to South Florida permanently in 2015 and started NS/CB. She said this has been a slow year for the company since shutdowns in March, because not only are they usually booked solid during Art Week, but they also do work in other cities.

“I guess if I have to look on the bright side, the last few years I haven’t been able to focus on my own work because I am kept so busy with clients, so I have done some of that,” she said, but added in the next breath, “my main income comes from my business.”

Fuenmayor’s silver lining is that he was forced to look at Art Week in a different way this year for his exhibit.

“I always showed at Pinta Miami and usually there were sales from there and exposure, but during the noise of Basel there was no choice. You would drift from one place to another, navigate the chaos. Maybe this year, it will be an effort for me and the galleries to call on collectors, find the friends, find the opportunities to meet creators,” he said, and shared that he’ll focus more on an online presence, virtual tours, Instagram live – “that sort of thing to complement the void.”

The artists certainly don’t solely rely on Miami Art Week/Art Basel; they’re professionals who are exhibited and have their work in collections. For Salgar, in usual times, she is booking one job after another with steady, regular clients. Miami fine artist Metis Atash said she would usually have 20 or 30 pieces at the boutique Art Miami show at One Herald Plaza exhibited by Canadian Galerie de Bellefeuille, one of the three dozen galleries that represent her work. But, she said, buying hasn’t slowed. People are just purchasing differently.

“I do notice that there is more of a thoughtfulness in the consideration,” said Atash. “I don’t think COVID-19 has had an impact on some collectors’ ability to spend money, they are just more careful when it comes to the investment, like asking questions, investigating. This, indeed, may have been provoked by how things have become more reflective.”

She said she has always noticed this with European buyers, and that U.S. collectors typically go “with what they liked.” It’s her subject matter, too, that has always been a lightning rod, but she sees it more so now. The German artist, who lives in Miami, is known for her sparkly buddhas sculpted in fiberglass. She then uses acrylic paint and automotive lacquer prior to adding thousands of genuine Swarovski crystals, each hand placed. The buddhas are in various sizes, from 4-inch baby Buddhas to 18-inch tall buddhas. She has other collections, too. Markowicz Fine Art will be exhibiting pieces from her buddha collection in a mini exhibition during Miami Art Week, in which the Miami Design District is participating.

“COVID has made us think differently,” Atash reiterated. “My pieces have dipped into these consciousness notions. It has a lot to do with the time we are living in now, of newfound consciousness in nature, planets, humanity. I hope for lots of people, this [has been] a time of reflection.”

All the artists agreed that while there may be some financial fallout from the Art Week that wasn’t, it has given them time to breathe, and yes, reflect.

Said Fuenmayor, “This was a learning curve for everyone, and what the whole city has suffered from is that how do we sustain this big push [for art] all year long and not be dependent on a single week of the year?” 

Where to See Their Art Live

Nate Dee Group exhibition, Dec. 3 – 8 at MUCE (My Urban Contemporary Experience), 246 NW 54 St., Miami; 305.890.2121.

Gonzalo Fuenmayor Solo show, Dec. 3, 2020, through Feb. 5, 2021, at Dot Fiftyone Gallery, 7275 NE 4th Ave., Miami; 305.573.9994.

Metis Atash Nov. 28 – Dec. 6 at Markowicz Fine Art, 110 NE 40th St., Miami; 786.615.8158.