Art Basel Miami Beach (Part II): Standout Artists & Artworks

This year’s Art Basel had a lot of exciting and moving displays, but some corners of the fair were more stop-in-your-tracks moments than others. Like all contemporary art fairs, not every piece holds significant emotional weight, but even the works that read as less inspired and more cliché to people in the industry have an audience at Art Basel, thanks to the show’s expansive reach – after all, cute phrases written with neon tube lights are a reliable hit on social media. To reuse my own phrase: there’s something for everyone at Art Basel because every kind of person is there. And while I mean that specifically regarding the attendees, the artist pool is becoming increasingly diverse too.

Hayley Tompkins, Populations, 2024, acrylic on gesso panel. Photo by Maya Garabedian.

Including artists with more varied backgrounds, in every sense of the word, is an industry-wide shift (albeit to varying degrees). Still, by designating spaces specifically for early-career contributors, Art Basel sets a powerful precedent. In my eyes, the sectors on the show floor can be broken up into pairs representing the intersections of time and place that result in the current art landscape. For elements of the past, the sectors Survey and Kabinett are both characterized as having historical relevance. As for works that ground us in the present, sectors Galleries and Meridians, the latter focusing on large-scale works that hold your attention in the now. Then, two sectors offer a glimpse into the evolving art world: Nova (young works within the last three years) and Positions (young galleries). Speaking to the inclusive intentions of the show at large, truly standout works existed in each sector, and each moment in the symbolic ulterior timeline they formed. In reality, sector distinctions proved largely unnecessary – especially since Art Basel itself lists the sectors differently in print, online, and person – with thematic trends transcending these boundaries.

Zhu Jinshi, The Era of Drifting Away, 2022, oil on canvas, diptych. Photo by Maya Garabedian.

One of the most noticeable and recurring themes was stylistic: gestural brushstrokes, layering highly pigmented paints, resulting in visible texture. Some abstract works were particularly three-dimensional, on a less intense scale, with Populations, a massive gesso panel work by Hayley Tompkins, a British artist represented by The Modern Institute. However, there are no stronger maximalist examples than work at Hong Kong’s Pearl Lam Galleries, from artist Zhu Jinshi, a true impasto artist. As a pioneer in Chinese abstract art, Jinshi’s impasto is known for his “thick painting,” a captivating technique that gives observers a different viewing experience with each shift in vantage point. Scholars tend to differentiate Jinshi’s thick styling from other forms of expressive, gestural techniques of modern abstraction due to the heaviness of such layering, which reads as a bit stubborn, and at times, unpredictable, which is at odds with the rhythmic flow of a more traditional approach.

Thalita Hamaoui, Rosário Oeste, 2024, oil and oil stick on linen. Photo by Maya Garabedian.

Brazilian artist Thalita Hamaoui is also a part of this general trend. During the week, her name was most commonly heard in reference to the meet and greet she did while launching her limited-edition scarf for the Art Basel shop, a collaboration with Parley for the Oceans – a nonprofit that collaborated with two additional artists (Janaina Tschäpe and Sam Falls) on their Italian-made scarves (60% Upcycled Ocean Plastic® and 40% silk). Hamaoui’s design for the scarf and some of her work on the show floor, like Rosário Oeste, an oil stick linen work, allowed this popular gestural abstraction to take a slightly different form, moving towards the inclusion of recognizable natural elements like flowers. Due to the similarities between these works of abstract naturalism and modernist abstraction – stunning, bright, large-scale works with visible brushstrokes, building unique textural elements from their mediums – the gap between iconic Eastern artists like Jinshi and certain Western figurative artists on view becomes less extreme. Take fellow oil stick artist Andi Fischer, for example, whose literal similarities to Jinshi probably end with their ties to Berlin. The faux-naif artistry of Fischer still exists within this common theme, with vibrant colors and layered textures, drawing attention to the child-like chaos in Jinshi’s own strokes.

Close-up of Andi Fischer’s SCHLONGÄ DURST, 2021, oil stick on canvas. Photo by Maya Garabedian.

Even in works that strayed from abstraction, focus on texture, including in the form of textile art, was abundant, further expanding into home décor. For some artists, like Sarah Zapata, the intersection of visual art and furniture is the standard niche, but for others, seeing their work take a different form was exciting, possibly speaking to future trends. At the Nazarian/Curcio booth, LA-based Korean artist Ken Gun Min, whose work is usually on my standout roundups, entered the realm of this trend. Min is known best for his rich, colorful paintings that exist at the dream-like intersection of ancient Eastern mythology and psychedelic naturalism. Seeing his signature painting style on a room divider was a captivating experience, ruminating on the socio-cultural layers of such a choice. I followed a similar train of thought visiting the Anat Egbi booth, where New York-based Palestinian artist Jordan Nassar was displayed. Nassar, my main selection of artist-to-watch this year, is known for his textile works, but typically embroidery, honoring the traditional tatreez style, a 3,000-year-old technique originally used by Palestinian women. The addition of tilework into his repertoire this year culminated in a touching tribute to his familial homeland.

Ken Gun Min, Who dares to love forever? Who wants to live forever? 2024, onyx, crystal, assorted gemstones, vintage beads, Korean pigment, silk embroidery thread, found fabric, oil paint on canvas, walnut, powder, coated stainless steel. Courtesy of Nazarian/Curcio.

In the sea of textile art at the fair, South African artist Thania Petersen, represented by the Asia-Pacific gallery Ames Yavuz, had an intricate work that somehow held centuries of stories, depending on where you looked. After learning more about the artist, the complexity of her work made more sense. Petersen is a direct descendant of Tuan Guru, the Indonesian Prince brought to South Africa in the late 1700s by the Dutch as a political exile. As a multi-disciplinary artist, her practice explores personal and historical identities – a description that could just as well describe the artist responsible for the most potent piece of the fair.

Thania Petersen, FAATI GAYATI, 2024, hand-embroidered textile, embroidery thread on cotton poplin and linen, metal beads, glass beads, painted carved wooden birds. Photo by Maya Garabedian.

Roksana Pirouzmand, The Past Seeps Through the Present, 2022, fired and unfired clay, water, couch, thread, metal. Photos by Maya Garabedian.

For me, there’s no contest as to the most memorable booth of the fair: Dastan, a gallery with locations in Toronto, Ontario, and Tehran, Iran, the artist’s home country. In Roksana Pirouzmand’s The Past Seeps Through the Present, there are two clay casts, one of her grandmother’s body, that hangs from the ceiling parallel to the cast of her mother, that lies on a white couch directly beneath it. I happened to be at the booth just as the gallerist got up to fill the hanging casts with water, something she would do every few hours. The water would seep through the clay and drip onto the one beneath it, leaving marks on both the cast and the couch. So many artists try to capture the essence of intergenerational trauma, and so few do – capturing both the transmission and the effects is a difficult task. The work, while technically not a performance piece, was for those lucky enough to have our visit coincide with the watering. A crowd formed as the woman slowly watered in silence, and we all watched in silence too, right until that first drop.  Calling it a stand-out piece – the only time I’ve ever seen a booth draw a crowd in silence – hardly does it justice.

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