JULIAN LE BALLISTER
Miami Art Week helped close out 2023 with its December 4 to 10 edition. Over seven days, the cities of Miami and Miami Beach hosted art fairs and showings by nearly 300 galleries and as many artists. Some 80,000 were in attendance — an incredible turnout for the multi-media event — to take in such highlights as Art Basel, the Untitled Art Fair, Design Miami and the Satellite Art Show, which was founded in 2015 by artist Brian Andrew Whiteley and presents interactive projects by galleries, artist-run spaces and non-profits.
Los Angeles was on the ground to take in the wide breadth of offerings, including standouts from several smaller galleries and the street art of Wynwood Walls. A last-minute addition to the lineup included a Miami version of Israeli artist Tomer Peretz’s When the Music Stopped, a live art installation commemorating the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks at the Nova Festival and surrounding communities along the Israel-Gaza border. Peretz had staged a version previously in Los Angeles. The Miami commemoration took place on Dec. 10.
The top-selling painting, Philip Guston’s Painter at Night (1979), went for $20 million, signaling an optimism with the turnout and sales during Miami Art Week and coming out of a slower time in the art world, and the economy in general.
Flip through moments from Miami Art Week 2023 in the gallery below:
