One Herald Plaza, Miami — December 2, 2025

Art Miami | CONTEXT Art Miami | Tickets

I walked into Art Miami this morning at eleven. By eleven forty-five, I had already made my decisions.

Thirty-five years of this fair, over 160 galleries, more than 800 artists. I don’t need to see everything. I need to see what matters. Here’s what did.

The Drawings

Let me tell you what stopped me.

Picasso’s drawings. Not the paintings everyone fights over at auction. The drawings. There’s an intimacy to them that the grand works don’t have. You see the hand. You see the thought. You see a genius who didn’t need color to prove anything.

And then — Warhol. Andy Warhol, who apparently also drew. I say “apparently” because the world has been so busy screenprinting his soup cans onto everything from handbags to hotel lobbies that we forgot the man could actually draw. The line work is exquisite. Delicate. Almost shy. Not a word typically associated with Warhol, which is precisely why it’s interesting.

These are the moments that remind you why you walk through art fairs in heels for six hours.

Keith Haring’s Subway Drawings

De Buck | Wood-Smith brought the real thing. Original Subway Drawings from the early 1980s. Chalk on matte-black paper. The radiant babies. The barking dogs. The dancers.

I stood there longer than I stand anywhere.

Haring drew these in New York subway stations, fast, on expired advertisements he covered with black paper. Commuters watched. Some understood. Most didn’t. He didn’t care. He made art public before “public art” became a budget line item for real estate developers.

These pieces are history. They’re also beautiful. The two don’t always go together.

Martin Schoeller in the VIP Lounge

CAMERA WORK Gallery placed Martin Schoeller’s Human Voices series in the VIP Lounge, which is either very clever or very confident. I’ll say confident.

His Close Ups of Michael Jordan, Meryl Streep, Oprah, Viola Davis, Dr. Jane Goodall, Bono, Anne Hathaway, Adrian Brody. The concept is philanthropy — these are people who use their influence for something beyond themselves. Ten percent of each sale goes to their chosen charities.

The portraits are what you expect from Schoeller: uncomfortably intimate, every pore visible, nowhere to hide. That’s the point. Celebrity without the soft lighting. Influence without the filter.

I respect it.

Alex Katz at 98

Adamar Fine Arts — a gallery that’s been showing at Art Miami since the very first edition in 1991 — brought a never-before-seen Alex Katz piece. Ten feet wide.

Alex Katz is ninety-eight years old. Ninety-eight. And he’s still making work that fills a wall and holds it.

There’s something profound about that. While everyone debates AI-generated art and digital collectibles, here’s a man who has been painting for seven decades, still working, still relevant, still commanding the room.

That’s the career. That’s the life.

The Italians

Galerie Von&Von presented Casagrande & Recalcati, the Italian duo known for their refined realism and past collaborations with Dolce & Gabbana. Their booth sold out completely last year. This year they debuted a monumental 80 x 120-inch centerpiece made exclusively for Art Miami.

The craftsmanship is undeniable. Every detail rendered with a precision that borders on obsessive. For collectors who want mastery — technical, visible, unapologetic mastery — this is where you stop.

Lucio Fontana, 1960

Artnew Gallery from Montpellier brought a 1960 red canvas by Lucio Fontana.

I won’t explain Fontana to you. Either you understand why a slashed canvas changed everything, or you don’t. This one is museum-quality. The red is the red that makes other reds look like they’re trying too hard.

Giacometti’s Newspaper Drawing

Also at Artnew: a rare newspaper drawing by Alberto Giacometti.

Not a bronze. Not one of those elongated figures everyone recognizes. A drawing. On newspaper. Intimate. Almost private.

This is the kind of piece you find at a fair and then spend years telling people about.

For the Interiors

Now. Let’s talk about what actually goes on walls in homes where people live.

Lucy Sparrow at TW Projects London. Her soft sculpture installations — everything hand-sewn, recreating retail spaces and cultural objects in fabric — are genuinely delightful. They photograph well. They live even better. For a client with humor and taste, this is a statement.

Antonio Sannino’s seascapes at Liquid Art System. The circular spatula strokes create texture you want to touch. Mediterranean light captured in a way that doesn’t feel like a postcard. These work in a room. They elevate it.

Willy Verginer’s linden wood sculptures — children interacting with symbolic spheres, painted with vibrant acrylics. Tender without being sentimental. The craftsmanship is exceptional. For an entry, a living space, a collection that values figurative work with emotional weight, this is correct.

The Casagrande & Recalcati pieces I mentioned earlier. Hyperrealism that rewards close looking. Clients who appreciate precision will understand immediately.

Manolo Valdés at Bogéna Gallery and Opera Gallery. His textured portraits in burlap, string, and mixed media — reinterpreting classical iconography with materials that have weight and presence. The Met has his work. The Pompidou. The Guggenheim Bilbao. You could do worse than follow their lead.

What I Noticed

The crowds at Halim Flowers’ paintings at DTR Modern. His story — wrongfully sentenced to life at sixteen, twenty-two years incarcerated, now exhibiting at Venice Biennale and MoMA PS1 — brings people in. The work keeps them there. That’s the test.

The interest in Peter Tunney’s EXCERPTS FROM THE TAJ MAHAL at Chase Contemporary. Eight years since the original installation drew a million visitors. The pieces have aged into something more resonant. Or maybe we have.

The serious collectors moving quietly through the Artnew Gallery booth. When people don’t perform their looking, they’re actually buying.

CONTEXT

The sister fair, one pavilion over. Emerging and mid-career artists. I walked through.

David Yarrow’s wildlife photography at HILTON CONTEMPORARY stopped me. The scale. The drama. Nature as epic narrative. He’ll be there doing book signings if you want to meet him.

Wolfgang Stiller’s Matchstickmen at Chic Evolution in Art — charred wood and wax transformed into figures that explore fragility and survival. Striking. Original. The kind of work that announces itself.

Alessio Ceruti at Cinq Gallery — immersive pieces using layered plexiglass and recycled metals exploring ocean conservation. For clients who want their values visible, this works.

The rest you can discover yourself.

Final Word

Art Miami at thirty-five is what it has always been: a serious fair for serious collectors during the most important week for contemporary art in America.

The Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) benefits from the VIP preview — fourteenth consecutive year, over $350,000 donated cumulatively. The partnerships are blue-chip. The galleries are vetted. The work ranges from museum-quality historical pieces to the emerging artists everyone will be talking about in five years.

I don’t tell you what to like. I tell you what I noticed.

Now go see for yourself.

Art Miami + CONTEXT Art Miami December 2-7, 2025 One Herald Plaza at NE 14th Street, Downtown Miami Tickets exclusively at artmiami.com