Artists, dealers, and art enthusiasts came together in early December for the 2021 Art Basel Miami Beach, an international art fair hosted by one of the art world’s foremost global platforms for connecting artists, galleries, and collectors, Art Basel. Among the most comprehensive art shows in North America, Art Basel Miami Beach is the sister event of Art Basel’s original fair in Basel, Switzerland, and takes place every December at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Florida. It provides exposure to top-tier art galleries from Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and North America. Participants showcase significant contemporary artworks throughout the three-day fair.
Art Basel Miami Beach’s 2021 show featured over 250 galleries from 35 countries and the works of over 4,000 creators, ranging from historical masters to emerging talent. Leading international contemporary and modern galleries took up the main hall and displayed high-quality paintings, sculptures, photographs, installations, films, and editioned work by young artists and 20th-century experts. The fair contained sectors with a particular focus as well, including exhibition areas for international art publications, editioned prints, and curated selections.
The fair’s newest sector, Meridians, also made a return. Showcasing projects that challenge the layout limitations of a traditional art show, Meridians provides a platform for presenting installations, large-scale sculptures, performance pieces, and other creations outside of the standard mold. Meridians’ 2021 iteration comprised 16 historic and commissioned works by prominent artists such as Yinka Shonibare, Howardena Pindell, and Brendan Fernandes. Many of the projects explore key social issues highlighted by the turbulence of the past two years, including power, class, and racial inequities.
Moreover, Art Basel Miami Beach’s 2021 event marked a milestone in diversity for the fair with a broader composition of dealers, in part due to the fair organizers’ decision to relax some of its qualifications for exhibitors to participate. According to organizers, a desire to reflect the wider society of today spurred these changes. For example, they removed the required minimum for years in operation. This expanded eligibility to dozens of new galleries.
Galleries that exhibited at Art Basel Miami Beach for the first time included Pequod Co. Established by Mau Galguera and his wife, María García Sainz, it launched in February 2020 as a digital platform and acquired a physical space in Mexico City a few months later. Pequod Co. focuses on the emerging generation of Mexican artists, one of whom the gallery showcased at its solo booth in Art Basel Miami Beach’s Positions sector. The installation featured works by Paloma Contreras Lomas and used sculpture, drawings, video, and other media to examine the interplay between reality and fiction.
In all, 43 galleries made their Art Basel debut at the Miami Beach show in 2021. Art Basel global director Marc Spiegler praised the progress made in diversity, but added that the fair still requires improvement on this front.
An ardent supporter of established and new art galleries, Art Basel organizes its shows based on the principle that galleries serve as a driving force for promoting visual arts and development. Prominent gallerists from across the globe occupy its exhibitor selection committees, which handpick galleries for participation based on an extensive review in order to ensure that the artwork at each fair represents the highest quality. Additionally, committees build out exhibitor lineups with diversity as a defining characteristic.
