As the excitement around Miami Art Week starts to die down, and the last of the Drake and Drake-adjacent performances end, we decided to head out for one final round of perusing the fairs. In addition, we ran into a certain famous duo who are usually hanging outside bodegas in The Bronx, but more on that later.

James Pettemgill of Wingate Studios showing an Elizabeth Atterbury print

First up was NADA Miami, which is the only major American art fair programmed by a nonprofit (New American Art Dealers Alliance). It seeks to  “[explore] new or underexposed art that is not typical of the ‘art establishment.’” We chose NADA as one of the final fairs to see because of its embrace of the underexposed and we needed to see works by Maine artist Elizabeth Atterbury who was named an Artist to Watch at fair by NADA organizers.

Northampton resident James Pettengill represented Wingate Studio out of Hinsdale, New Hampshire, which had some of Atterbury’s sculptural, embossed prints. Pettengill helped his father, master printer and owner of Wingate Studio, move the print shop in a new direction towards publishing contemporary and emerging artists. He was excited to show Atterbury’s work since her medium and method seem to match the shop’s new direction. Pettengill thought NADA was just the place to do it. “We do a lot of print fairs so it’s usually us and other print makers,” he says. “But to be at a contemporary art fair is really nice because we work with artists who are showing in that context.”

Wingate Studio not only operates as a publishing space for emerging printmakers; it also offers artists from around the region a small residency program (much like what Macrina Newhouse is doing at Mary Sky). The folks at Wingate Studio invite artists for short period of time to collaborate with staff while they live on their family farm in Hindsale.

Holi #16, 2013, Melted plastic, expanded foam, paper, artificial flowers, pigment 24 × 24 in 61 × 61 cm Sculpture by Judy Pfaff

Our final fair stop was Art Miami, the largest of the Art Miami/Aqua/Context network of Miami art fairs. Art Miami is less like a NADA, Untitled or SCOPE, and more like a PULSE or even Basel. At Art Miami,  there’s less fodder around programming and events, and more about packing the tent with people and sellable art.

This is where we tracked down James Baron Art, a booth full of interested buyers and contemporary works on paper and sculptures. Barron divides his time between Rome, Italy, and Kent, Connecticut, and has sold works by works by Picasso, Matisse, Warhol, Diebenkorn and LeWitt (just to name a few). “We work with collectors that are selling works. We don’t sell works directly from artists,” says Hascy Cross, director of James Baron Art. “Maybe the pieces have already been on the market sometime in the past or people will consign pieces to us in hopes that we’ll sell it for them.”

tomorrow is desus and mero’s first art auction and yes, these are the best art pieces money can buy #miamiartbasel

A post shared by the VICELAND bus (@vicelandbus) on Dec 8, 2017 at 9:55am PST

After the long haul across town through two different fairs, it was time to laugh at ourselves a little bit. So we cutt out to Wynwood to see Desus Nice and The Kid Mero of Viceland cable’s illustrious late night talk show Desus and Mero. They stood atop the Viceland Bus and conducted an art auction to benefit Planned Parenthood featuring props from the set of their show, one of Desus’s signature (allegedly) unused chap sticks and, of course, an enormous picture of themselves.

Top photo sculptures on view at Mrs. Gallery by Elizabeth Atterbury | Photo courtesy the artist website

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We stepped away from the big fairs for another day to check out some of the peripheral Miami Art Week fairs featuring familiar work from emerging and established artists, as well as some more DIY-oriented, artist-run spaces.

figure abstraction-fetish nuance. 24 x 24 in, oil on wood panel | photo courtesy Auerus Contemp. website

Aqua Art Miami is a smaller fair relative to its sibling fairs in downtown (Art Miami and Context). “It’s what I like to call a middle-class fair, not like Art Basel. Much more accessible,” says Kevin Havelton, art dealer and director of Aureus Contemporary in Providence Rhode Island. Havelton is a seasoned Miami Art Week presenter with  “a true passion for the work.” Unlike some art dealers, Havelton personally collects the work of all the artists he represents, and it shows when carefully he describes an artist’s work to interested buyers and folks who frequent just for fun. Havelton presented works by Carina Schott and Karim Hamid, both Rhode Island residents, and Eben Haines who lives and makes work in Boston.

Though Aqua is a beautiful fair staged in a posh, sun-soaked hotel in Miami Beach, for dealers like Havelton, it’s no afternoon jaunt. “This is a big week in the art world, a lot of people come pouring in. I refer to it as the Olympics of the contemporary art world,” says Havelton. “You have to work real fucking hard for your money.”

One of Andrew Fenlon’s “Procedural Paintings” featured by Mary Sky at Satellite Art Show

Next on our list was Miami Beach’s most rogue show (#NOTBASEL), all the way up North Beach past SCOPE. It’s called Satellite and seeks to “offer patrons and collectors a unique experience where art is at the forefront of creative expression, activism, and curiosity.” The charmingly dilapidated Ocean Terrace Motel housed dozens of spaces curated by gallery owners and artists. Some of the booths showed work all the way into the bathrooms of the converted hotel suites, which were usually painted or even incorporated into the works featured there.

At Satellite, we sought out Macrina Newhouse, director at Mary Sky, a gallery and rural individualized residency program in Hancock, Vermont, where, according to the artist, she “brings artists out of the city to have a rural experience and support them by giving them time to be quiet, be in nature and really engage with their work in a meaningful way.” Newhouse also has a space for Mary Sky at Spectrum Miami, but chose to bring the largest works she displayed by Andrew Fenlon, to Satellite. “I think this work is playing really well in Miami. It’s bright, colorful and poppy. People have been really receptive.”

Check in tomorrow for our final daily dispatch covering all the New England happenings at Art Miami and NADA.

Top photo courtesy Satellite website

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