The Littlest Art Fair Is a DIY Rebellion Against Basel Bloat

Art Basel has its million-dollar bananas. Now, Little Havana has The Littlest Art Fair.

Running during Miami Art Week, the grassroots mini-fair is positioning itself as Miami Art Week’s most defiant underdog, a proudly DIY counterpoint to the velvet-rope exclusivity that can dominate Miami Art Week. Instead of corporate pavilions and $50,000 booths, you’ll find ventanitas — pint-sized art kiosks modeled after Miami’s iconic walk-up cafés and tucked into streets, alleys, and courtyards across the neighborhood.

The fair is the collective effort of artists Daniel Fila (AKA Krave) and Diana “Didi” Contreras, along with hip-hop education nonprofit PATH. Together, they’ve created a template for something that feels deliberately small in scale but massive in terms of impact. It’s a love letter to the Miami artists who feel they’ve been left out of the Miami Art Week conversation, and the mission is clear: To pull the spotlight back to the neighborhoods, locals, working artists, and cultures that existed in Miami long before Basel brand activations planted their flags in the city.

“Miami’s always been a host city,” Krave says. “We give [people] a place to party, and then they leave. Now, we’re flipping that and saying, ‘Look what we’ve got going on here year-round.’”

The initiative taps deeply into the roots of the neighborhood through various channels. Raissa Fernandez, whose family’s Little Havana-based business, Brickell Kidz Bus, is participating in the fair, says the neighborhood’s stake in the fair is personal. “I was born and raised in Little Havana. My family business has been here 60 years…To me, this is home. This is my grandparents’, my parents’…our neighborhood.” She says helping coordinate locations, property owners, and local participation feels like a natural extension of what the community has built for generations.

For Contreras, the fair’s placement in Little Havana is the most natural part of the whole idea. She’s lived and worked there for years, painting murals, guiding art tours, and watching the neighborhood evolve one wall at a time. “Little Havana is such a great representation of Miami; it’s so cultural and full of life,” she says. “I’ve been inviting artists here for years. It just feels like the right moment to finally build something of our own.”

Wynwood’s over-commercialization has accelerated that shift. With the neighborhood increasingly gatekept, and its prime walls gobbled up by developers and corporate installations, artists have started looking elsewhere.

“Wynwood is so saturated now that artists from out of town keep asking, ‘Where else can we paint?’” Contreras says. “Little Havana has always had its own art scene, and it deserves that spotlight.”

She’s watched the economics of Miami’s art scene change in real time. “I used to make the most money of the whole year during Art Week,” she says. “Now brands expect everything for free. There are so many artists here that they know they can get free work.” Her point hits at the fair’s ultimate goals: reclaiming artistic, cultural, and financial value for the people who built Miami’s visual identity in the first place.

That desire to reroute the energy of Miami Art Week forms the backbone of The Littlest Art Fair. Built on the momentum of the long-running Vinyl Tuesdays series at El Fresco Gallery, the Little Havana space Krave has held onto for 13 years, the fair takes the same community-first ethos and widens the footprint. The ventanitas will showcase small works and live demos by Miami-based artists, while the week’s programming spans mural tours, art-law panels, youth activations, and more.

The gallery will serve as home base for panels, exhibitions, and the closing “Secret Walls: Littlest Art Battle” activation. Around it, Little Havana’s quieter, often-overlooked corners will come alive with murals and installations from local heavyweights and rising names, selected with an eye toward neighborhood storytelling.

Contreras says the featured artists were chosen not just for skill, but also for sensitivity to place. She gives them creative freedom but also shares local context — the stories behind the buildings, the people, the histories — so their work feels rooted rather than parachuted in.

In true Miami fashion, it all came together through hustle, barter, and borderline chaos. Sponsors like BeatBox Beverages and El Jardín Hotel chipped in where they could. Everything else so far has come from the trio’s pockets, mural commissions, and favors pulled from years of community organizing. “It’s desperation and determination,” Krave admits. “If we’re not being elevated, we have to do it ourselves.”

The Littlest Art Fair. Tuesday, December 2, through Saturday, December 6, at various venues throughout Little Havana. elfrescomiami.com.