Art Concept launches Miami’s first downtown art fair in Bayfront Park

(Miami, FL) Held at the “Waterfront Fair in the Round”, Concept Art Fair sits on a 32-acre Noguchi designed Bayfront Park on Biscayne Bay – the epicenter of Downtown Miami’s Arts, Museum and Entertainment District – bounded on the north by Perez Art Museum Miami and on the south by the city’s dynamic Brickell Financial District, home to over 1000 companies making up Miami’s global trading, banking, law, creative and tech industries.  Over 45 participating galleries will be exhibiting internationally renowned modern and contemporary art.

Highlights of the fair include a rare view of the artworks by Pritzker-winning architect, Richard Meier who is currently completing a re-design of Miami Beach’s Shore Club. Collectors will have the first viewing of Meier’s collage installation which contains 224 major original works of art. Meier’s collages join the tradition of collages in modern art, alluding to Dadaist collages, and to their later interpretation by artists such as Robert Rauschenberg. The collages of Meier also resonate the decollagist legacy of European post-WWII artists such as Mimmo Rotella and Raymond Haines. Meier’s collage practice suggests an in-depth examination of his vision of constructed and deconstructed spatiality, offering a key to the work of a globally significant architect who is also a unique artist.

Art historian and author, Peter Hastings Falk will present the works of the large and innovative paintings of Gil Cuatrecasas [1935–2004], a brilliant but reclusive visionary colorist whose paintings had been buried for the last forty years — and nearly discarded. “The Cuatrecasas Discovery” is making its first appearance on the East Coast at Art Concept having made its debut earlier this year in Los Angeles where a feature article in the Los Angeles Times concluded that “No one has ever painted like this.” After attending Harvard and Yale he worked with Josef Albers. This solo exhibition is presented by redM, the online illustrated biographical encyclopedia of artists who have been rediscovered — or newly discovered — by founding Editor and Curator, Peter Hastings Falk, and his Art Advisory Board. Falk underscores the surprise that, for Cuatrecasas, the artist’s style, as well as his technique, are unique in the history of painting. “These paintings elicit a strong visceral reaction,” says Falk, “People linger in contemplation not only over the compelling imagery but over the inscrutable complexity of the technique and paint-handling. No one has fully figured out how he did them.” Fourteen paintings will be exhibited, with a few as long as 14-18 feet. Cuatrecasas’s particular form of action painting exemplifies how web-like configurations of color and surface become a free-floating energy in the world, suggesting an existential stance regarding the intersection of art and life.

Art Concept Fair revitalizes the notion of the Bayfront Park as an open space for the arts. “Reimagining Miami Public Spaces – Homage to Isamu Noguchi”, part of the Art Concept Fair program, is a special outdoor project in Bayfront Park by Miami Mountains Foundation and the City of Miami Public Art Initiative on the significance of art in public places to enhance urban communities and create new audiences. Produced in partnership and with the support of Miami-Dade County Cultural Affairs/Art in Public Places, Miami Beach Art in Public Places, Bayfront Park Management Trust, the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Museum, American Institute of Architects, International Sculpture Center, The Miami Foundation, Next Level Fairs and private sponsors.  The Biscayne entrance to the fair will be transformed into an outdoor sculpture exhibition through the duration of the fair. The project will stretch Noguchi’s notion interactive sculpture and will expand the scope of viewing participation from the purely experiential-sensual, to the social and historical.

Redesigned in the early 1980’s by Noguchi, the park’s 32 acres of lush greenery, its proximity to the water – which affords a spectacular view of the bay that can be enjoyed from the fair’s dining area – its central location close to ample parking and public transportation, and its proximity to Miami’s leading restaurants, luxury shopping, museums and five star hotels.

Art Concept’s 50,000 sq. ft. 4700 sq. meter column-free venue is enhanced with the translucent ceiling, waterfront dining, lecture pavilion, and outdoor sculpture garden drive from Miami making this the premiere art fair location for Art Basel Week visitors. A short 12 minutes Beach’s Convention Center the fair will offer easy direct access to satellite fairs and the city’s highlighted social events.

Next Level Fairs is the parent company for Art Concept, Art Palm Beach, and Art Boca Raton.  Next Level Fairs curates sophisticated, event-driven fairs attracting global attendance, supported by an international marketing and branding strategy in coordination with local museums, collectors, and galleries. Organizers Lee Ann and David Lester, beginning in 1989 they have organized over 100 international fairs and were the original founders of Art Miami, Art Asia Hong Kong, Art Palm Beach, American International Fine Art Fair, and Art Boca Raton. They sold their fairs to major publicly traded companies Advance Star (New York) and Daily Mail Group DMG Media (London) and resumed ownership of Art Palm Beach in 2011.

Hours:
Nov. 29, 6-10 pm Collectors Preview by invitation
Nov. 30-Dec. 3, 1-10 pm
Dec. 4, 1-6 pm

 

301 Biscayne Blvd. Miami FL 33131unnamed

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