Art Basel Miami Beach

Art Galleries Sector and Art Kabinett, Booth K3
Miami Beach Convention Center, Miami Beach, FL

Alexander Gray Associates participated in the Art Basel Miami Beach 2012 art fair, Art Galleries and Art Kabinett sectors. The Gallery's booth presentation links the political content and social concerns of Luis Camnitzer, Coco Fusco, Melvin Edwards, Lorraine O’Grady, Dawit L. Petros, and Regina Silveira, in artworks from the 1960s to the present.

Early conceptual works by Luis Camnitzer highlight a playful engagement with image, sign, and language. Melvin Edwards' welded steel sculptures push the language of abstraction to conjure a narrative of African Diaspora. Coco Fusco’s 2012 etchings, of The Undiscovered Amerindians series, revisit her seminal 1993 performance collaboration with Guillermo Gomez-Peña. Lorraine O’Grady’s 1991/2012 photo-montage, The Fir-Palm, considers the hybridized heritage of the Western colonies and the subjugated female body. Dawit L. Petros’ photographic works also deploy landscape and the body to explore transcontinental and trans-national migration and identity; Encuentro, a site-specific installation rendered by Regina Silveira, comments on power and combative global politics.

Art Kabinett: History, Painting
The Gallery is honored to present one of three thematic shows for the Fair’s competitive Art Kabinett program. The Gallery's curated exhibition History, Painting connects three painters whose work reflects three distinct movements in American social activism over a period of three decades. The lineage of the Civil Rights, Feminist, and Gay Liberation movements are explored through the paintings of Jack Whitten, Joan Semmel, and Hugh Steers, spanning the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, respectively.

Jack Whitten’s narrative Abstract Expressionist works from the 1960s draw imagery from the Civil Rights movement, including ghosted images of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr; Joan Semmel’s figurative paintings question representation of female sexuality through the lens of self-portraiture; Gay liberation and the AIDS crisis are the cultural context for narrative paintings by the late Hugh Steers (1963–1995). Placed in conversation, the paintings by these three artists weave a coherent historical narrative focused on social progress.

About Art Basel Miami Beach
Art Basel Miami Beach, the most prestigious art show in the Americas. More than 260 leading galleries from North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa will take part, showcasing works by more than 2,000 artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The exhibiting galleries are among the world's most respected art dealers, offering exceptional pieces by both renowned artists and cutting-edge newcomers. Special exhibition sections feature young galleries, performance art, public art projects and video art. The show will be a vital source for art lovers, allowing them to both discover new developments in contemporary art and experience rare museum-caliber artworks.

Top-quality exhibitions in the museums of South Florida and special programs for art collectors and curators also help make the event a special time for encountering art. And every year, a greater number of art collectors, artists, dealers, curators, critics and art enthusiasts from around the world participate in Art Basel Miami Beach—the favorite winter meeting place for the international art world.