When you think Hello Kitty, the mental montage probably goes something like this: Hallmark, eight-year-old girls, white cat with no mouth and exactly six whiskers, Mariah Carey, toilet, beer, douchebags, and this gun. Notice that nowhere in that sequence are the words art or basel. Well, all of that is…
Thinking about skipping out on the Basel pretension by spending a few days submerged in mud at the Standard Spa? Well, look for an escape elsewhere, because the boutique hotel is just as infected with the Basel bug. There’ll be floating boob sculptures in the pool, art porn in the…
Some people would argue that Design Miami/Art Basel itself is the cure for insomnia. But we don’t subscribe to that theory. Not totally. Or even mostly. Okay, not at all. But you have to admit some of the exhibits elicit some serious z’s. And that’is most true of the “Once…
Just off shore, miles past South Beach’s glowing neon marquees, there are graceful and ethereal creatures, pulsing with their own natural fluorescence. These jellyfish, zoanthids, and corals, which pirouette and sway out on Miami’s reefs, are the muses of art/science duo Coral Morphologic. Colin Foord and Jared McKay filmed these…
We bet you’ve been a little worried about how you’d be able to track down some skull accent pieces now that Alexander McQueen’s line has been taken over by Sarah Burton. And if you’re like us, you probably like your kitsch right where you can see it: On your wrist.You’re…
Giant pink snails on South Beach? What’s next, famine and a plagues of locusts? The bubble-gum pink creepers spotted throughout Miami Beach are not a sign of end times. And no, they’re not the work of pink-loving Christo either. The 45 snails, made from plastic gathered from landfills, are part…
FriendsWithYou’s budding romance with producer/musician Pharrell Williams isn’t exactly news. They haven’t exactly been keeping it under wraps lately. But in this month’s Paper magazine, the publication does a nice job of talking with Sam Borkson and a super-slim Arturo “Tury” Sandoval about how the superstar is helping them grow…
December is almost here. That means Art Basel is coming to town. Just like everyday life, though, the action isn’t happening in the halls of some lame convention center. It’s on the streets of Miami. This year, Wynwood Walls, the public mural park established by Tony Goldman to help him…
Now that Art Basel is a mere three weeks away, we should all link up in a human centipede chain and get protective of our local art scene. We’re all for the hoity-toity art fair and the strange spin-off events, which follow it around like a piece of TP stuck…
Brace yourselves: We’re about to broach a topic rarely, if ever, discussed on a culture blog: rugs. And we’re not talking double entendres here, but the actually floor coverings bought and walked on. Caught up in the whirlwind of Art Basel is a traveling rug exhibit that involves the late,…
Sad news, guys. One of our favorite art shows during Art Basel is a no-go this year. A month shy of their press preview on November 30, Photo Miami has announced that the art fair has been canceled. Last year, we swooned over their “A Year of Magical Thinking,” and…
Photos by JipsySo Raw at NDSOh, Miami. We’ve been adulterous with our thoughts. We’ve been secretly pining for other cities, romanticizing their street markets. When the lights go off, we dream of going in and out of the aisles of London’s Spitalfields Market and running our fingers over smooth ceramic…
Design Miami/, one of the most seminal forums for international design, recently announced their coveted Designer of the Year Award. The winner, Munich-based Konstantin Grcic, will commission new work for the fair during Art Basel along with curating an exhibition of prominent work from his career.The Designer of the Year…
Flickr CC SwanksalotNot a Miami dumpster, hence the snow.Are you a broke, hungry, starving, artist? Then get money, fool. The 6th Street Container Project, in association with the Bakehouse Art Complex and General Hauling Service, are having a dumpster art contest. Submit any 2-D piece that you’d like to do…
Aleloop’s “Say Hello to My Little Friend”While most people leave their childhood fantasies of superheroes, cartoons, and comics at their 10th birthday party, artist Aleloop has made it her life’s work to create as many quirky characters as possible. Designing with a mixture of urban contemporary and pop surrealism, Alejandra…
The busy bees over at the University of Wynwood have been working nonstop to brighten this neon town with poetic radiance. Lately, they’ve brought the word to the streets, from the Miami Art Museum to Sweat Records. These pseudo-collegiate bastards are fully committed to making our lives less boring and…
Courtesy of FriendsWithYouThe Rainbow King.We were sort of jealous when local art collective FriendsWithYou put on its interactive display “Rainbow City” at Toronto’s Queen’s Park during the Luminato Festival. Sam Borkson and Arturo “Tury” Sandoval really haven’t done an interactive display in Miami since “Fun House” debuted at Scope Art…
Courtesy of Design Miami/With Art Basel Miami Beach rolling into town soon, news is coming hard and fast of everything that will be happening that week. Already revealed: Design Miami/’s new home for this year’s edition, which will not be taking place in Miami’s Design District. Instead, it will move…
We hope some gallery with primo real estate at this year’s Art Basel Miami Beach will take the cover of W’s upcoming art issue, which features a naked Kim Kardashian with her more titillating bits covered by Barbara Kruger’s iconic but increasingly tired, word-art aesthetic, and blow it up so…
Originally a manufacturing plant for the RC Cola company, the abandoned building visible from I-95 has served as a concrete canvas for graffiti artists over the past two decades. The walls surrounding the plant have displayed some of Miami’s (and the world’s) most notorious graffiti artists, including Crook and Crome…
Greg Haberny, The Wanker’s BallWe have a confession. We basically launched this culture blog just to have somewhere to write about all the cool shit that happens during Art Basel. And most of it has nothing to do with the official mega art show in the convention center, but with…
Because Art Basel Miami Beach is only a few months away, we jumped at the chance to speak with the new director of Design Miami/, Wava Carpenter. The Design Miami team, who, interestingly, are mostly women, seek out the best in contemporary and historically influential design and house it under…
