Pearl Jam by Nicole Nomsa Moyo at Miami Art Week 2024 – Courtesy of Nicole Nomsa Moyo.

Art & Design. After a full year of events, Miami Art Week 2024 takes over the so-called Magic City with a city-wide festival often dubbed the Super Bowl of creativity. From Art Basel Miami Beach to Design Miami, we rounded up some of the most intriguing fairs, exhibitions and installations, blending art with crafts and design.

• RELATED STORIES: Read more about Miami 2024 on Archipanic.

The Great Elephant Migration

December 2-8. Beach shoreline between 36th and 37th Streets, [Map].

Photo via Instagram.

Grab your swim trunks… or just your trunks? A herd of 100 Indian pachyderms crafted from lantana weed reaches Miami Beach. The Great Elephant Migration is a nomadic global fundraising adventure that amplifies indigenous knowledge and inspires the human race to share space. Organisers say each sculpture is available for purchase, and proceeds benefit conservation and coexistence projects that protect migratory animals across land, water, and air.

DESIGN MIAMI

December 3-8. Miami Beach Convention Center Drive & 19th Street, [Map].

Design Miami 2023 exterior – Photo by James Harris.

Following successful editions in Basel, Paris, and, for the first time, Los Angeles, Design Miami returns to Miami Beach to celebrate its 20th anniversary. Under curator Glenn Adamson’s theme, Blue Sky, over 45 top galleries showcase contemporary and historical highlights demonstrating the power of ‘blue sky thinking’ in past, present and future design. The Future Perfect, from New York, reflects on the curatorial theme through a curated presentation of almost 100 new works by over twenty artists and designers, including Anita Major, Laurids Gallée, Olivia Cognet, Vikram Goyal, and Sophie Lou Jacobsen.

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Cape Town and Los Angeles-based gallery Southern Guild showcases contemporary ceramics by 12 African artists who blend ancestral roots with contemporary aesthetics, domestic life, politics, history, and society. Bottega Veneta brings The Ark collection to Miami. Matthieu Blazy commissioned the series for the brand’s Milanese fashion show early this year. The series comprises soft and childlike animal-shaped pouffes inspired by Zanotta’s iconic seat, Poltrona Sacco.

Magnetic Midnight Maison capsule collection by Lucía Echavarría for Lamb Gallery – Courtesy of Lamb Gallery.

Additional highlights feature the Magnetic Midnight Maison capsule collection by Lucía Echavarría for Lamb Gallery, where Colombian craftsmanship meets a Miami Deco colour palette. Sarah Myerscough introduces Dana Barnes‘ swing chair, Between Us: Tête-à-Tête, which adds elegance and equilibrium to the design of our envisioned interior space. Todd Merrill Studio presents new works by Draga & Aurel, exploring the interplay of light, colour, transparency, and material innovation. 

ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH

4-8 December. Miami Beach Convention Center, 1901 Convention Center Drive, [Map].

José Parlá working on the Pathways mural – Photo by Rey Parlá, courtesy of the artist and Ben Brown Fine Arts.

Under the leadership of its new director, Bridget Finn, Art Basel Miami Beach 2024 features 286 galleries from 38 countries, nearly two-thirds of which hail from the Americas. The Meridian section is dedicated to large-scale, ambitious artworks with powerful messages. Miami-born NYC-based artist José Parlá drew from urban spaces and city walls to create a mural-sized diptych of cursives and calligraphic strokes. For more than a decade, photographer Roberto Huarcaya has roamed Peru, creating monumental photograms representing the grandeur and precariousness of the Amazon forest.

Cencepto II bronze sculpture by Zilia Sanchez x Galerie Lelong & Co. – Courtesy of Art Basel Miami Beach.

The fair’s Nova section celebrates upcoming talents, while the Kabinett programme hosts over 24 meticulously curated showcases within gallery booths. Check Galerie Lelong & Co., which presents marble and bronze pieces by Cuban artist Zilia Sanchez, a prominent figure in Latin American Modernism. Costarican artist Federico Herrero unveils site-specific floor canvases inspired by the urban structure of his native San José —presented by Sies+Höke.

Seletega by Nicholas Galanin x Faena Art

December 3-8. Faena Beach, [Map].

Courtesy of Faena Art.

A Spanish galleon with 30-foot-tall masts emerges from the sands of Faena Beach. Titled Seletega (run, see if people are coming), the monumental site-specific installation by cross-disciplinary Native Alaskan artist Nicholas Galanin evokes the irreversible colonisation process of the Americas that began with Cortés’s 1519 expedition to Mexico. Urgent questions, spray-painted on the sails in English and Spanish, ask, ‘What are we going to give up to burn the sails of empire? What are we going to build for our collective liberation?‘

ALCOVA Miami

December 3-8. River Inn, 437 SW 2nd Street, [Map].

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ALCOVA returns to Miami after its debut last year. Known for transforming historical venues into dynamic showcases for cutting-edge contemporary design, the platform takes over Miami’s oldest hotel, the River Inn in the South River Drive Historic District of East Little Havana. The venue comprises multiple pastel-coloured Victorian chalets and mansions nestled in lush, tropical greenery. Objects of Common Interest presents Reflections of Now, a furniture collection of semi-transparent, coloured resin objects resembling prismatic gems to capture intimate memories.

Reflections of Now by Objects of Common Interest at Alcova Miami – Photo by Objects of Common Interest.

AnanasAnanas presents the 1033 Tangerines installation, featuring 200 pounds of tangerines installed on rotating stainless steel vessels and ready to be eaten during the fair. Producing the fruits requires 17,572.84 gallons of water, the amount of water in the pool at The River Inn. This year’s lineup includes works by Alvaro Catalán de Ocón, Panorammma, made by ASTRONAUTS, and more.

UNTITLED ART

December 4-8. South Beach, Ocean Drive & 12th Street, [Map].

Untitled Art fair – photo via IG, follow @untitledartfair.

East Meets West is the main theme of Untitled Art Fair 2024, led by guest curators Kathy Huang and Jungmin Cho. The fair, which will take place on the sands of Miami Beach, features 176 exhibitors and highlights artists, galleries, and nonprofits from Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and the Asian diaspora. Raheleh and Reza Filsoofi investigate the connections between language, identity, and heritage through artistic performances that blend poetry and music with crafted vessels. These two Middle Eastern immigrant artists convey a fresh narrative that respects past histories while establishing a strong contemporary identity. The Nashville-based gallery ZieherSmith is hosting this presentation.

Nest chair by Flechtwerk Berlin with People of the Sun – Courtesy of hettler.tüllmann.

hettler.tüllmann presents The Nest Seating Installation, featuring bespoke, basket-like seats designed by Flechtwerk Berlin in collaboration with People of the Sun. This Malawian social enterprise supports artisans while preserving cultural heritage.

The ReefLine by Carlos Betancourt and Alberto Latorre

December 3-8. South Beach shoreline, [Map].

Image by Mateo Rembe.

Carlos Betancourt and architect Alberto Latorre reveal a large installation featuring 46 3D-printed concrete star-shaped modules on South Beach. This initiative is part of the ReefLine project, a seven-mile underwater coral reef installation designed by OMA. ReefLine integrates art, architecture, and marine science to develop a snorkel trail and artificial reefs, promoting biodiversity and strengthening coastal resilience. 

Lightfall by Studio Lemercier at Superblue Miami

From October 28. 1101 NW 23 Street Miami, [Map].

Courtesy of Superblue.

At Superblue Miami, Brussels-based Studio Lemercier teamed up with ambient musician Murcof to present Lightfall, a mesmerising, multisensory installation that triggers reflection on our connection to the environment. Visitors are plunged into an interplay of light, water, and air through a darkened space, cascading mist, and suspended light forms, evoking atmospheric phenomena that reveal nature’s dynamic elements.

SCOPE Art Show

December 3-8. South Beach, 801 Ocean Drive between 8th and 10th Street, [Map].

Courtesy fo SCOPE Art Show.

The SCOPE Art Show returns to its renowned pavilion on South Beach, presenting artists who push the limits of technology, culture, and society. This year’s selection features 85 galleries from 15 countries, highlighting an array of emerging and mid-career artists and innovative projects. British artist Lucy Sparrow presents Blessed Be the Fruit, an unconventional farmers market featuring 6,000 individually handmade felt fruits. Known for pushing the boundaries of sensory perception, Lua Brice, founder of New York-based Hovver Studio, presents the Folding Light sculpture, exploring the captivating intersection of reflected light and sound.

Pearl Jam by Nicole Nomsa Moyo

Until March 2025. Paseo Ponti,  Paradise Plaza and across Miami Design District, [Map].

Courtesy of Nicole Nomsa Moyo.

Handcrafted jewellery by Indigenous Ndebele women from Southern Africa inspired Toronto-based artist Nicole Nomsa Moyo to create a vibrant series of installations across the Miami Design District, celebrating the 10th anniversary of its Annual Design Commission. The bold, site-specific urban interventions feature giant pearls in a bracelet and a deconstructable necklace, all adorned in bold patterns and distributed throughout the area’s plazas. Across the neighbourhood, 1,000 trees are adorned with 1,000 trees.

Memphis Miami

December 2-8. Miami Design District, 88 NE 39th Street, [Map].

Photo via IG, follow @kbernhardt2014.

Capsule design platform and magazine presents a bold-hued exhibition featuring iconic pieces of Memphis Milano, the Italian brand and iconic ‘80s design movement, along with rugs by Katherine Bernhardt. Immersed in a bubblegum pink space, pieces by Ettore Sottsass and Michele de Lucchi dialogue with Bernhardt’s signature style, creating a lively dialogue between Italian radical design and American pop surrealism.

Ikea Sleepeasy

December 6-8. 391 NW 24th Street, [Map].

Photo by IKEA U.S.

Complete comfort, optimal lighting, suitable temperature, gentle sounds, good air quality, and effective decluttering. These represent IKEA’s six key components for a great night’s sleep. The renowned Swedish furniture brand participates in Miami Art Week 2024 with the Sleepeasy pop-up installation, highlighting top bedroom design solutions for stylish dreaming.

Art Basel Miami Beach 2023 – Photo by Esther Schipper, courtesy of Art Basel.