Art Basel Miami Beach 2011

Art Galleries Sector, Booth K3
Miami Beach Convention Center
Miami Beach, Florida

Alexander Gray Associates participates in the Galleries sector of Art Basel Miami Beach 2011 art fair. The Gallery will showcase the multidisciplinary practices of six Gallery artists. Included are a cross-generational array of historically relevant works from the past 50 years, including painting, sculpture, works on paper, photography, and installation.

Art Kabinett: Joan Semmel
(b. 1932, New York)
The Gallery’s booth includes an Art Kabinett presentation of Joan Semmel’s painting, including seminal works from the 1970s. A leading figure of the Feminist art movement in New York, Semmel’s figurative paintings radically have challenged traditional representations of sexuality and gender since they were first shown in the early 1970s. Today, alongside recent self- portraits exploring aging and allegory, her bold colors, deft brushstroke and evident politics reinforce the permanence of painting and its role in shaping social and cultural perceptions.

Luis Camnitzer
(b. 1937, Germany, raised Uruguay)
A pioneer of Conceptual Art in Latin America, Luis Camnitzer is represented by iconic text-based graphics from the late 1960s, including works that have not been publicly exhibited. Playing with language and visual form, these works engage the viewer with wry humor, transliteration and shifting expectations about communication. Camnitzer’s work is the subject of a traveling retrospective, organized by the Daros Latinamerica Museum, currently on view at the Belkin Art Gallery, University of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Melvin Edwards
(b. 1937, Houston, TX)
Sculptor Melvin Edwards’ welded steel artworks are celebrated for their political references and densely packed forms. Works on view at the fair include a selection from the renowned Lynch Fragments series. Edwards is a central figure in the exhibition Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960–1980, on view at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.

Lorraine O’Grady
(b. 1934, Boston, MA)
Crossing disciplines including performance, criticism, photography and video, Lorraine O’Grady’s meditations on Black identity and women’s representation have positioned her as a fore-bearer of conceptual and activist practice. In addition to photo-based works in the booth, O’Grady’s video, Landscape (Western Hemisphere) (2011) will be screened in the Art Basel Video program, on Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 8PM, at the New World Center’s Soundscape Park Video Wall.

Hassan Sharif
(b. 1951, Dubai, United Arab Emirates)
Emirati Hassan Sharif’s experiments with conceptual art, criticism, performance, drawing and assemblage have impacted subsequent generations of artists emerging from the Gulf region. In 2011, Sharif was the subject of a retrospective exhibition, Hassan Sharif: Experiments & Objects 1979–2011 curated by Catherine David and Mohammed Kazem, presented by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture & Heritage/Platform for Visual Arts. Photo- documentation of early 1980s performance will be a highlighted in Sharif’s forthcoming 2012 show at the Gallery, the artist’s first solo exhibition in the United States.

Jack Whitten
(b. 1939, Bessemer, AL)
Four decades of Jack Whitten’s experiments with paint will be represented over the course of the fair. On view is an important early abstraction, first exhibited in Whitten’s 1974 solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Whitten’s work is currently featured in The Bearden Project at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York.

About the Fair
Miami Beach, Florida, hosts the 10th edition of Art Basel Miami Beach, the most prestigious art show in the Americas. More than 260 leading galleries from North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa will take part, showcasing works by more than 2,000 artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.

To mark its 10th edition, Art Basel Miami Beach will inaugurate a new collaboration with the Bass Museum of Art on the Art Public sector, which will transform Collins Park with unique artworks and performances by renowned artists and emerging talents. For the first time, Art Video will be presented on the large-scale outdoor projection wall of the New World Center, designed by Frank Gehry. The free public viewings will be part of a number of special events and performances taking place across Miami Beach for the duration of the show to celebrate the 10th edition.

The exhibiting galleries are among the world's most respected gallerists, offering exceptional pieces by both renowned artists and cutting-edge newcomers. Special exhibition sections feature young galleries, performance art, public art projects and video art. The show will be a vital source for art lovers, allowing them to both discover new developments in contemporary art and experience rare museum-caliber artworks.

Top-quality exhibitions in the museums of South Florida and special programs for art collectors and curators also help make the event a special time for encountering art. And every year, a greater number of art collectors, artists, dealers, curators, critics and art enthusiasts from around the world participate in Art Basel Miami Beach - the favorite winter meeting place for the international art world.