What’s Happening: Enthusiasm was strong at the marquee art fair, which heralded a milestone year with new leadership, strong sales, and a focus on emerging artists.

The Download: Shortly after the VIP opening day of Art Basel Miami Beach drew to a close, the fair’s crowd of collectors and dealers gathered outside and fixed their gaze on the roof of the Miami Beach Convention Center. A swirling fleet of luminous drones—a “self-organizing swarm” called Franchise Freedom by the incisive Dutch collective DRIFT—flew from behind the building and through the night sky for eight minutes, soundtracked to a piano score by composer Joep Beving. After forming amorphous shapes and a double helix, the fleet gathered into one of its final formations: spelling out “20 Years: Art Basel Miami Beach,” heralding a milestone year for the country’s largest contemporary art fair.

For the marquee event of Miami Art Week, the past two decades were of transformative growth. Things got off to a rocky start when the fair’s inaugural edition launched a year late after 9/11, but the momentum quickly began to build as it galvanized a “creative ecosystem” that now encompasses a weeklong frenzy of satellite fairs, brand activations, pop-up exhibitions, and riotous parties. At the same time, Miami’s art-world profile matured as major institutions such as The Bass and Rubell Museum spread their wings and newer ones like Superblue and Artechouse settled in. The past few years under outgoing director Marc Spiegler saw rapid expansion with the creation of two fairs in Hong Kong and Paris, though the pandemic’s virtual viewing rooms and the advent of NFTs disrupted those plans.

If this year proves anything, enthusiasm has remained strong—even if an early app crash and midweek downpour briefly dampened the mood. Art Basel recently drew the curtain on its largest and most ambitious Miami Beach edition yet, at 282 galleries and 76,000 (mostly maskless) attendees. Eager to celebrate 20 years of the fair’s presence in Florida, dealers brought heavyweight works by blue-chip names and rising stars alike. Demand for the latter held strong—works by Curtis Talwst Santiago (pictured above), Lauren Quin, Kamrooz Adam, and Gideon Rubin all fetched five figures, echoing the sentiment felt at concurrent fairs Untitled and NADA. (A Jeff Koons sculpture of a yellow basket filled with giant eggs, meanwhile, remained unsold at $7.5 million.)

Despite the intense focus on NFTs at last year’s fair, crypto’s footprint was noticeably smaller—no doubt a consequence of its volatile market. That’s not to say crypto was absent, with proof-of-stake blockchain Tezos once again allowing visitors to mint their own NFTs. But satellite activations were far more crypto-friendly, perhaps reinforcing Wynwood as the movement’s nexus after Solana and Blockchain.com set up offices there. Mana Common, NFT Now, and MoonPay’s sprawling festival “The Gateway: A Web3 Metropolis” returned for round two, taking over 12 buildings downtown with Web3 projects by Porsche, Art Blocks, RTFKT, and Pace. (Surface also led the charge, partnering with Polygon to transform a bungalow at the W South Beach with art-meets-Web3 programming throughout the week.)

The fair’s most powerful statements came from the Meridians sector, which places compelling performance pieces next to towering sculptures that all respond to timely themes. The showcase “brings together the work of historical artists and groundbreaking feminists, major representatives of Latin American art, and a younger generation of artists whose practices are giving visibility to obscured and marginalized voices,” said Magalí Arriola, director of Mexico City’s Museo Tamayo, who curated the section. Among the highlights: Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds’s Columbus Day, which wields protest posters to decry colonialism; and María José Arjona’s sculpture of a sideways chair suspended from above, which speaks to how the body influences political choreography.

In Their Own Words: Even though incoming CEO Noah Horowitz described this year’s edition as “particularly exceptional” and signaling Miami’s emergence as a world-class cultural destination, some critics think dealers didn’t quite bring out their best. “Art Basel is a big buffet of artworks, but compared to years past the works are less spicy, easier to digest, and are much more pitched to the taste of a general audience,” Tom Danziger, a lawyer who specializes in art transactions, told Artnet News. “Lots of pretty pictures.”

Surface Says: Art Basel may have been easier to digest, but the week’s utterly chaotic party scene sure wasn’t.

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Since their invasion of Ukraine in February, the Russian army has perpetuated countless atrocities and injuries against Ukrainian people. Lately, Ukrainians are volleying back an insult: chlopok. When the word’s second syllable is stressed, it means a small pop or bang; when the emphasis is on the first, it means cotton. Russian media is apparently trying to minimize damage done against them in the war by using the word regardless of an explosion’s intensity. In turn, Ukraine is mockingly using their own word for cotton, bavovna, to describe their self-defense.

Serhii Makhno was already an accomplished graffiti artist by the time he became an architect and designer to help rebuild Ukraine when it left the Soviet Union. Now, his Makhno Studio is making light of the current situation—and the bitter bavovna wordplay—literally. His new lamp takes its name from the joke and its form from the fluffy nature of cotton itself. Each is finished with gold and copper detailing, bringing to mind the glowing lines that replicate an incendiary spark. And a portion of its proceeds go directly to Ukrainian soldiers. It’s a bright idea for dark times.

A former car garage in Greenpoint can now take you all the way to Japan, courtesy of new occupant 50 Norman, a marketplace for a trio of spaces offering the best of the country’s design and cuisine. Jo Nagasaka, founder of Tokyo’s Schemata Architects, worked with that city’s TANK group of craftspeople and Brooklyn-based Japanese design and construction team BLANK to refit the garage for retail using reclaimed wood from demolished Kyoto abodes. Graphic designer Rikako Nagashima of Village conceived the sandblasted signage.

The industrial minimalism is a good match for Cibone Brooklyn, the Japanese design destination’s first US location, and its collections of Yoshinori Takemura ceramics and Oigen cast iron kettles. Need tea? Nearby, Dashi Okume offers Ume Kombu varieties, along with custom-made dashi packs and other delectations. And in the back, House Brooklyn shows how the experts do it: Chef Yuji Tani’s seven-course tasting menu combines French technique with Kyoto flavors, in New York City at last.

Hailing from a long lineage of wood experts, Moroccan talent Hamza Kadiri has apprenticed worldwide to perfect time-honored marquetry and cabinetry techniques in pursuit of wood artistry that’s deeply personal while steeped in classical art and mythological lore. Because he’s learned to meticulously observe each piece of wood based on its singularity and essence, his sculptural pieces—a charred-finish rendition of his poetic Eros Table among them—are striking in their grace and poetic appeal.

For the Cultivist’s sixth annual artist lunch at the Setai Miami Beach, the global arts club teamed up with Maestro Dobel tequila to gather its members, along with collectors, patrons, curators, and artists, to honor Dominican multidisciplinary artist Lucia Hierro. To mark the occasion, Hierro worked with the Cultivist to create custom tablescapes, which guests took in over a menu of seafood and, of course, tequila.

When was it? Dec. 1

Where was it? The Setai Miami Beach

Who was there? Kennedy Yanko, Hannah Traore, JiaJia Fei, Maya Crowne, Justine Ludwig, and Marlies Verhoeven.

Hannah Polskin is perhaps best known for her amorphous paintings and mirrors, but the artist-designer and SCAD alum has also built a cult following around her marble and resin menorah sculptures. Each medium of her practice embodies a different kind of energy, with her menorahs in particular calling to mind the undulation of rolling peaks and valleys. One of her favorite ways to enjoy the sculpture is, of course, during Hanukkah in the holiday season, but collectors can also enjoy the piece as a tabletop sculpture all year long.

On Sept. 16, Mahsa Amini was detained by the Tehran morality police, allegedly for not properly wearing her hijab. She died in police custody. Protests in her memory have gripped the country since, leading to the arrests and reported abuse, sexual and otherwise, of thousands of citizens. On Thursday, Nov. 24, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said the country is in “a full-fledged human rights crisis.”

For Freedoms believes artists belong in public conversations about politics; as the world trains its focus on the Iranian uprising, the collective has assembled a coalition of artists to broaden perception. Recently, co-founder Eric Gottesman seized the format of television news to launch the For Freedoms News network at the Brooklyn Museum. “We’re appropriating the form and aesthetic of broadcast news,” he told the New Yorker, “as a way to build greater civic engagement through art.”

Henrybuilt was founded in 2001 to create the first American kitchen “system.” The winner of more than 20 international design awards, the company’s primary goal is to produce the best kitchen and house furniture and storage systems in the world, based on an ideal combination of system development, personal tailoring, craft quality, and design service.

Surface Says: Henrybuilt’s kitchens and storage systems are contemporary without being cold or impersonal. The Opencase wall system is particularly impressive in both its aesthetics and customizability.

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