News Information
- NEWS_POSTED_BY: Haiti Place
- NEWS_POSTED_ON: Jan 10, 2015
- Views : 997
- Likes : 1
- Category : General News
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Description :
Art Is a Splash, Grand and Tiny, in Miami
By MELENA RYZIKDEC. 5, 2014
Photo: Casey Kelbaugh for The New York Times
- Location : Miami, FL, United States
- Website : http://www.nytimes.com
Overview
MIAMI — “My name is Richard, I’m from New York City, and I’m happy to be here in Art Basel Miami,” the singer Richard Kennedy, of the dance music act Hercules and Love Affair, announced into a mike late on Wednesday night, before launching into a spirited solo set for an eclectically dressed crowd, in a room surrounded by paintings.
Technically speaking, though, Mr. Kennedy was not at Art Basel Miami, the annual art and design showcase held in Miami Beach. He was seven miles away, at a thrift store in the Little Haiti neighborhood here, performing as part of an effort to connect a burgeoning community of local artists to the international jet set that descends in a buying frenzy each year.
“This is the largest art moment on the planet,” said Karla Ferguson, owner of the Yeelen Gallery, a 13,000-square-foot space that opened last year in Little Haiti. “We want our voices to be heard.”
On Saturday she will host the second edition of Fade to Black, a party celebrating the work of African-American artists. Last year, it was in the Design District; this year, Ms. Ferguson hopes that holding it in her gallery will introduce out-of-towners to Little Haiti, which lately has seen an influx of artists priced out of the Design District and neighboring Wynwood.
After years of effort, “it’s time that Little Haiti is also recognized as being part of this immense art scene that we have in Miami,” Ms. Ferguson said. A hashtag, #ihaitibasel, was invented to promote the scene.
Over Basel’s 12 years here, the metastasizing business of showing and selling art has transformed this city and its waterfront environs into a weeklong Dionysian cultural playground.
“Imagine taking Cannes, a rock festival, a home and boat show, a whole lot of expensive art, and fashion week, and smashing them all together, and you’d be approaching Art Basel,” said the film director Baz Luhrmann, who knows spectacle (“Moulin Rouge!”).