FAENA ART ANNOUNCES 2023 MIAMI ART WEEK PUBLIC PROGRAMMING WITH ‘SPACES OF
INFLUENCE: SHAPING COMMUNITY IN THE MODERN WORLD’ EXHIBITION FEATURING
INSTALLATIONS BY SEBASTIAN ERRAZURIZ, BEEPLE AND KELLY BREEZ

• Faena Art to exhibit MAZE: Journey Through the Algorithmic Self, a site-specific installation by Sebastian Errazuriz on Faena Beach, and accompanying book exploring the implications of AI on society
• A major new sculpture by Errazuriz, Battle of the Corporate Nations, will also be unveiled at Faena Cathedral
• Beeple to present S.122 sculpture in partnership with The Reefline at Faena Cathedral
• Local Miami artist Kelly Breez to present bar-inspired installation ‘Dirt’s Dive’ at the Faena Art Project Room, Faena Art’s permanent space in Miami Beach for artistic innovation and community-oriented exploration

Faena Art, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, announced further public
programming for Miami Art Week 2023, presenting four major installations, collectively titled ‘Spaces of Influence: Shaping Community in the Modern World.’ The exhibition unites provocative installations across the Faena District that explore the tension between community and individuality, technology and tradition, power and grassroots. From the AI-generated pathways of Sebastian Errazuriz’s maze to the nostalgic corners of Kelly Breez’s ‘Dirt’s Dive,’ to Beeple’s dystopian vision of climate change, and culminating in the epic struggle depicted in Battle of the Corporate Nations, this collective showcase invites viewers to navigate and question the evolving landscapes that define our sense of community in a rapidly changing world.
“We are elated to unveil ‘Spaces of Influence: Shaping Community in the Modern World’ at this year’s Miami Art Week,” says Alan Faena. “This ambitious exhibition brings together Sebastian Errazuriz’s pioneering explorations of technology, design, and community, which stand as a testament to Faena Art’s dedication to championing today’s foremost creative minds. Alongside him, we’re honored to showcase the work of local artist Kelly Breez, who captivates us with her vibrant and authentic tribute to Miami’s unique social fabric. We are also proud to present, in partnership with The Reefline, an important sculpture by digital artist Beeple, that highlights the threat of climate change. Collectively, their installations serve as an engaging lens through which we can explore and celebrate the evolving dynamics of community in our modern world.”
Opening on December 5, the centerpiece of this year’s Miami Art Week programming will be a newly commissioned and monumental maze installation by artist, designer, and activist Sebastian Errazuriz (b. 1977, Santiago, Chile) located at Faena Beach. Designed using popular artificial intelligence (AI) platforms Midjourney and DALLE2, the sand-covered labyrinth titled MAZE: Journey Through the Algorithmic Self invites visitors to explore its intricate pathways, eventually converging at a reflective monolith at the center. This monolith will serve as both an art piece and a gathering spot for performances and community interaction throughout Miami Art Week. The groundbreaking installation invites visitors to reflect on the ways in which AI is increasingly shaping the world, and the subsequent urgency for “IRL” human and community interaction. Erraruiz urges viewers to consider the ways in which communal interactions will help humankind navigate the ethical complexities and potential biases that come with AI, to ensure that technology serves humanity, not the other way around.
Concurrently, Errazuriz will release a new book titled AI MAZE, accessible via QR codes within the maze. This book delves into the transformative influence of AI on various aspects of contemporary life, from education and healthcare to the economy and warfare. Each page of AI MAZE features a unique QR code, encouraging reader engagement and gathering crowd-sourced opinions on the societal implications of AI. Errazuriz’s aim is twofold: to provide an escape into self-discovery through the maze and to create a communal platform for dialogues about our rapidly digitizing world.
“This is the first maze designed not to get lost, but instead to find ourselves,” says the artist Sebastian Errazuriz. “A small oasis to temporarily escape, disconnect and reconnect with what is important. A place to have conversations on society’s upcoming technological and environmental challenges. The public installation will be inaugurated in parallel with the launch of a book, AI MAZE, that helps society imagine our future interacting with artificial intelligence. The public art installation and book will be accompanied by a series of panel talks on AI, and its transformative role for the creative industries.” In addition, Errazuriz’s new marble sculpture, titled Battle of the Corporate Nations, will be showcased at the Faena Hotel Cathedral from December 5, 2023, to March 30, 2024. This work humorously casts tech moguls Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos in an epic struggle, reminiscent of the grand mythological battles depicted by early Italian Renaissance artists like Michelangelo.
Also on view in the Faena Cathedral will be digital artist Beeple’s groundbreaking sculpture S.2122 (2023), presented by Faena Art in partnership with The Reefline. The kinetic sculpture embraces blockchain technology, digital video and a three-dimensional sculptural form to offer a sci-fi inspired meditation on climate change and our place in an imagined future. The work depicts a decaying building complex set in the future, slowly being buried underwater as hypnotic drones circle overhead.
To raise awareness for climate change and rising sea levels, Beeple will raise the water levels in the work every five years until the building is completely submerged.
“Much like The Reefline, which bridges the realms of marine conservation with art, I have planned the evolution of S.2122: every 5 years, the water level inside this virtual ecosystem will rise by a quarter, leading to the entire structure being engulfed in a span of 25 years. The inhabitants will evolve and adapt, symbolizing not just the resilience of humanity in the face of climate change, but also our inherent ability to thrive amidst adversities,” commented Beeple.

On the occasion of Miami Art Week 2023, Faena Art will also present an immersive exhibition by Miami-based artist Kelly Breez (b. 1985, Lake Worth, Florida) in the Faena Art Project Room, Faena Art’s permanent space in Miami Beach for artistic innovation and community-oriented exploration. To celebrate the installation, Faena Art will host a special event during Miami Art Week on Wednesday, December 6, 2023, featuring gourmet culinary offerings by Chef Paul Qui, specialty cocktails, and live DJ entertainment.
Breez will transport visitors to the nostalgic, vanished bar scenes of old South Florida by creating ‘Dirt’s Dive’, a fantastical bar environment that will feature life-sized cut-out figures, dynamic sculptures, and drawings reminiscent of vibrant bar decor. Through playful manipulation of scale, Breez crafts an alternate universe that oscillates between the familiar and the fantastical. Born and raised in South Florida, Breez weaves her personal history and local lore into her distinctive aesthetic narrative.
“Creating an installation like Dirt’s is as much about story-telling as it is about art-making,” says artist Kelly Breez. “Old haunts like Dirt’s are teeming with history and stories, and I find them super inspirational. Creating an installation like this has been a dream of mine for years. I’m fascinated by relics and this space will be full of them.”
The artist shines a spotlight on the dwindling presence of the classic dive bar, a communal space where unplanned encounters and authentic experiences once thrived. Set against the high-octane backdrop of Miami Art Week, the exhibition offers a poignant commentary on the disappearance of Miami’s vintage watering holes, swallowed up by modern glitz. As one of the most archaic forms of communal spaces, the bar symbolizes a gathering place for exchanging experiences and tales. In this sense, ‘Dirt’s Dive’ is a vibrant tribute to bars as the enduring pillars of community and selfexpression.
In their respective works, Sebastian Errazuriz, Beeple, and Kelly Breez are focused on how communal spaces and shared experiences are evolving due to societal changes—whether it be the advent of AI and technology, the devastating effects of climate change and rising sea levels, or the transformation and disappearance of traditional social spaces like dive bars. Sebastian Errazuriz’s maze, with its AI elements and community engagement via QR codes, questions how technology impacts our self-perception, communal interactions, and even our collective future. Beeple’s kinetic sculpture reflects the alarming effects of climate change on our existing infrastructures. On the other hand, Kelly Breez’s ‘Dirt’s Dive’ is a tribute to a vanishing element of local culture and communal space—the dive bar. While one looks forward and the other looks back, both artists examine the essence of communal spaces and interactions, inviting visitors to question and understand the changing nature of community in a rapidly evolving world.
Faena Art will also present an exhibition by local Miami artist Liene Bosquê for the 2023 edition of No Vacancy, in partnership with the City of Miami Beach. No Vacancy is a juried art competition that supports and celebrates mainly local artists, provokes critical discourse, and encourages the public to experience Miami Beach’s famed hotels as temporary art destinations in their own right. This year, 12 artists created 12 installations across iconic Miami hotels and will be on view from November 16 through December 14, 2023. Bosquê will present Before Miami Design Preservation League, a sitespecific installation based on the now demolished and lost building silhouettes of Miami Beach before the 1980s.

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NOTES TO EDITORS
Special thanks to Chase Sapphire for their generous support of Faena Art’s projects at Miami Art
Week 2023.
About Faena Art
https://www.faenaart.org/
Faena Art is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that commissions, produces, and houses crossdisciplinary artistic experiences with an emphasis on cultivating community and supporting artists locally and abroad. A catalyst for innovative, site-specific, and immersive practices, Faena Art bridges the popular and the experimental making art accessible to all. Faena Art fosters new models for social interaction transcending the traditional boundaries of art, science, philosophy, and social practice.
Established in 2011, Faena Art continues to commission major installations and exhibitions that are a major highlight of Miami Art Week and the city’s vibrant cultural scene at large. Over the past 12 years, their programming has expanded to include a biannual art prize, permanent exhibition spaces, and residencies across both Miami and Buenos Aires.
Follow @FaenaArt on Instagram and Facebook.

FaenaArt #FaenaArtProjectRoom

Faena Art Project Room
3420 Collins Ave Miami Beach, FL 33140

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Jareh Das

Azza El Siddique’s worlds between worlds

Backed by research and using sight, scent, sound, and time, the artist’s multilayered environments are sensory studies in ephemerality

Azza El Siddique builds worlds that hover between the states of life and death, growth and decay. Her site-specific installations are room-sized sensory environments – often infused with the intense fragrance of incense – that set sculptures, screens, masks, or vessels into architecturally minimalist steel frameworks. Custom-engineered systems modulate natural elements like water, light, and heat to create material and metaphorical circles of life: Clay objects appear in states of disintegration; dripping water transforms the materials it touches; and heat diffuses scents. Embodied and ephemeral, these installations address impermanence and mortality, but also transformation and rebirth.

Born in Khartoum, Sudan, and now living in New Haven, Connecticut after earning an MFA at Yale University in 2019, El Siddique’s work draws upon her Sudanese heritage and, more recently, her research into ancient Egyptian and Nubian architecture and funerary traditions. ‘My research operates from a space where I can play around with movement and the sensorial,’ she explains. ‘This also stems from being a queer woman of color, an immigrant, and the sense of awareness I have navigating the world within these built environments.’

The artist’s recurring use of heady aromas like sandalwood, amber, and musk creates a sanctuary atmosphere for viewers and pays homage to her East African heritage. These fragrances are prominent within the diasporic Sudanese community, which uses scents and rituals to retain tradition and identity in the places Sudanese have migrated to (in El Siddique’s case Canada, where she spent her youth). As the artist explained in a Zoom call: ‘Scent is a material that embeds itself within spaces and envelops the viewer whilst having the ability to make those who experience it time travel, in a sense.’

Memory – a kind of time travel – also plays a role in El Siddique’s installation Final Fantasy (2023), to be presented by Montreal-based gallery Bradley Ertaskiran in Art Basel Miami Beach’s Positions sector (the fair debut for both artist and gallery). Like her previous installations, the structure resembles a sacred space like a pyramid or temple, but also evokes the feeling of, say, a laboratory. ‘The installation reflects my younger years, when I played role-playing PlayStation games with my late brother,’ El Siddique explains. ‘These games feature narratives that remain relevant in our contemporary world: overconsumption, corporate greed, exploitation of natural resources, religious extremism, oppressive governments, natural disasters, pandemics, and so on.’

The installation’s two sphinx-like cement dog sculptures are based on 3D scans of the artist’s own Doberman Pinscher, Sunny. Dobermans were bred in the late 19th century as protective dogs, and the sculptures guard a large square steel fountain with a central column framed by four monitors playing looped video text of spells from ancient Egyptian and Nubian funerary texts including The Book of Two Ways. Presented here as a continuous flow resembling a scrolling stock-market ticker, the scripts once served as guides to the afterlife, providing instructions to the deceased for encounters with gods, demons, and deities, alongside strategies for progressive rebirths. The fountain’s cascading platform holds bisque-fired vessels and is surrounded by metal scaffolding: The latter erodes over time, while water that slowly drips from the scaffolding stains the vessels. The effect is tomblike, reliquary.

El Siddique’s fascination in the changeable materiality of objects is evident in her work, which blends storytelling with science, and traditional making methods with industrial production. ‘My main interest is in the way that these ancient architectures were built in metaphorical ways, and how they address narratives centered on the journey that takes the deceased to another world. This is a beautiful way of storytelling, and forms the basis of my practice,’ she says.

And as the work honors the archaic, it recasts how we perceive the present. In a review of scholar Katherine McKittrick’s Dear Science and Other Stories, a 2020 study on Black and anti-colonial strategies, writer Anna Nguyen noted that the author ‘positions Black storytelling as a way to hold on to the rebellious methodological work of sharing ideas in an unkind world, in exploring how Black creatives have always used such interdisciplinary and rebellious methodologies to invent ways of living outside of prevailing knowledge systems.’ El Siddique’s deeply poetic, research-led work embodies the interdisciplinary and defiant methodologies McKittrick writes of, unraveling past disciplines and imagining new ways of being in and experiencing our current world.

Azza El Siddique is represented by Bradley Ertaskiran (Montreal). Her work will be on view in the Positions sector at Art Basel Miami Beach in December. 

Jareh Das is an independent curator, writer, researcher, and occasional florist based between West Africa and the UK.

Published on November 13, 2023.

Captions for full-bleed images, from top to bottom: 1. Azza El Siddique, that which trembles wavers, 2023. Installation view at Bradley Ertaskiran. Photography by Paul Litherland. Courtesy of the artist and Bradley Ertaskiran. 2. Azza El Siddique, Solar Evocation, 2022. Installation view at Centre Clark, Montreal. Photography by Paul Litherland. Courtesy of the artist and Bradley Ertaskiran.

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Miami Art Week: Women Art Dealers in Miami Story Idea

Miami Art Week is approaching, and it is time to celebrate the city’s vibrant art scene. As the art world gears up for the event, it is important to recognize women who have significantly contributed to the art business.
Four female entrepreneurs who run their art galleries in Miami are Alicia Restrepo, the owner of Etra Fine Art located in Little River; Payal Tak, the owner of Lucid Design District, which is situated across from ICA; Daisy Diaz, the owner of Frascione Arte in Florence; and Sylvie San Juan, the owner of Saladrigas Art Gallery at Belen Jesuit in Miami.
According to a recent report by Artsy, women dealers are 28% more likely to exhibit female artists, while male-run galleries tend to showcase more male artists. The report also found that younger galleries are likelier to have female leadership. This data suggests that women play an increasingly important role in art as artists and business leaders.

Alicia Restrepo, Owner of Etra Fine Art (Little River Art District)

Alicia Restrepo (born in Medellín, Colombia) graduated first in Economics and then later in art history. She has been in the art business since 1983, first as co-owner of one of the most important galleries in Soho in the 80’s and 90’s. In 2003, she relocated to Miami following Art Basel Miami Beach’s debut in 2002 when Miami quickly became recognized as a global cultural destination.

Ms. Restrepo is an expert in Latin and South American art and has an impressive collection of contemporary art by mid-career to established artists from those regions, as well as Europe. Etra Fine Art has survived Miami’s gentrified neighborhood shifts. The gallery’s first location was in the Design District (before it became a luxury retail hub); followed by Wynwood (in the days when the area had Art Walks); and currently, in Little Haiti/Little River Art District (the new home of Oolite Arts).

In addition to promoting and exhibiting artists, Ms. Restrepo works with private collectors, corporations, and interior designers to build collections by researching, locating, acquiring, and installing an array of artwork.

Payal Tak , Owner of Lucid Design District

Payal Tak (born in India) is the former President and CEO of her self-made, Virginia-based IT services company. She opened Lucid Design District during Art Basel Miami Beach / Miami Art Week 2022. For over three decades, while focusing on executing a business in Information Technology, Ms. Tak relied heavily on creating art as her go-to activity to re-energize at the end of her day. She would often paint late into the night while listening to Sufi music.

The 3,700-sf gallery is located on Miami’s “art corner” (10-12 NE 41 St. at Miami Ave) next to Museum Garage and across the street from the de la Cruz Collection and ICA Miami. The idea of Lucid Design District was born from Ms. Tak’s desire to connect with the community through collaborative art exchanges. She hosts regular exhibitions, educational art talks, and artist networking events.

CHROMA 2023 – Art Week Exhibition Opens Tuesday, December 5th at 5 p.m. EPK link for images, artist bios, and exhibition description.
Payal Tak, Owner of Lucid Design District (Miami Design District) ©. Armando CollsDaisy Beatriz Diaz, Cultural Director of Frascione Arte (Italy/South Florida)

Daisy Beatriz Diaz, Cultural Director of Frascione Arte (Italy/South Florida)

Daisy Diaz was born in Miami to Cuban American parents. Her father’s passion for antiquities ignited Daisy’s lifelong commitment to the arts. After graduating from Boston College, she set out to complete a master’s degree in industrial design in Florence, which led to a career at Lungarno Alberghi (the Salvatore Ferragamo family’s hospitality and interior design group). Soon after, she formed her own distribution company. Ms. Diaz’s unwavering appreciation of the arts would lead her to meet Federico Gandolfi Vannini (4th generation art dealer and owner of Frascione Arte), and, for more than a decade, the couple has expanded their private collection.

Since 2020, Federico and Daisy have lived in Miami while continuing to run Frascione Arte. They hope to make a lasting impact on South Florida’s arts and culture scene.

Sylvie Daubar-San Juan, Humanities Department Chairperson and Director of the Olga M. & Carlos A. Saladrigas Art Gallery at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School

Ms. San Juan alongside Daisy Diaz and Federico Gandolfi Vannini curated the “Faith, Beauty, and Devotion: Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque Paintings” exhibition that opened on September 14th. There will be special programs and Art Week hours, plus a significant Art Week announcement. The exhibition features thirty paintings by Italian and Flemish Masters, from the 13th – 17th centuries.

Faith, Beauty, and Devotion: Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque Paintings 
The Miami Art Week Hours are:

• Saturday, December 2nd, “Italian Wine Event” from 7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. (A ticketed event.)
• Thursday, December 7th from 7:30 – 9:30 p.m. (Public hours. Free admission.)
• Saturday, December 9th from 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. (Public hours. Free admission.

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Claire Breukel

Sasha Gordon paints to process the pains of prejudice

The figurative painter’s first solo museum exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, showcases her hyperreal self-portraits

Two years after graduating from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), American artist Sasha Gordon’s solo debuts at Jeffrey Deitch in New York and Matthew Brown in Los Angeles are followed by her first solo museum exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (ICA Miami). The ground-floor exhibition features seven existing and new oil paintings that venture into the imaginary of a young queer Asian American woman, and the 25-year-old’s observations and experiences of the world. Manifesting across the canvas in theatrically expressive yet pristinely detailed and hyperreal forms, Gordon’s fleshy self-portraits offer windows into worlds where pervasive archetypes are questioned, dismantled, and ridiculed. Presented through imagined personas depicted as in her body (often naked and exposed), as animals and as objects, Gordon empowers these self-characterizations with the criticality needed to challenge the status quo.

‘Gordon’s new paintings demonstrate meticulous detail and extraordinary inventiveness as she navigates complex personal narratives through universal concepts of identity and objectification,’ shares Alex Gartenfeld, the exhibition’s curator, and ICA Miami’s Irma and Norman Braman artistic director.

At a time when figurative painting and the exploration of identity politics is center stage, Gordon’s work and voice is poignantly positioned. Yet her early success can be contributed to the exquisite exactitude of her paintings combined with witty and candid compositions that augment contemporary sociopolitical subject matter. In Volcano (2023), a personified volcano explodes in brilliant yellow and orange light, as lava sprays and flows down the mountain to form tendrils of fiery long hair. The dark gray rock doubles as a face equally explosive with anger – eyes glaring, nose scrunched, and teeth clenched – hostile in monumental eruption. Recalling Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus (1480), Gordon’s painting Like Froth (2022) perches a female figure on a rock, naked and frontally exposed. Set amid stormy seas and blood-red skies, the character bluntly and perceptively stares back, creating an unnerving loop of looking. Contradicting painting traditions that positioned women as objects to be consumed, the female forms in these works are object and protagonist, subject and voyeur – unapologetic in their rage.

Colorful and sweetly detailed imagery is curious and uncomfortable, turning humor into satire and titillation into confrontation. Like a carnivorous Venus flytrap plant, the artist’s multidimensional role-play as creator, character/subject, and audience/onlooker invites close observation, dominates the interaction, and ingests the viewer within the outcome.

Born and raised in New York, Gordon’s mastery stems from her fascination with archetypes and prejudices perpetuated throughout the history of portraiture. By assuming avatars, Gordon constructs interactions and exchanges that appear dreamlike and fantastical yet underpin ardent feelings and truths about homophobic, racist, and gendered interactions.

Sasha Gordon is represented by Matthew Brown (Los Angeles). ‘Sasha Gordon’ will be on view at ICA Miami from December 4, 2023 to April 28, 2024.

This article was originally published in the Art Basel Miami Beach magazine 2023.

Published on November 10, 2023.

Caption for full-bleed image: Sasha Gordon, Pluck, 2022 (detail). Courtesy of the artist and Matthew Brown. Photograph by Genevieve Hanson. A dark filter was applied over this image for readability. 

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