The 15 Best Booths at Art Basel in Miami Beach

With 267 galleries spread over a single floor in a square format that most readily recalls a labyrinth, it’s easy to get lost or continually retrace your steps along a few familiar aisles at Art Basel in Miami Beach. Whether following the Miami Beach convention center’s unprecedented two-year renovation, starting in just over a week, this cumbersome quality will be addressed, remains to be seen. But, in the meantime, a little direction goes a long way. Here are 15 booths, from Mendes Wood DM to Mehdi Chouakri, well worth seeking out and stopping by for a lengthy look.

Galería Elvira González

Galleries Section, Booth D12

With works by Robert Mangold

Why You Should Stop

This retrospective of paintings by Robert Mangold spanning 1966 through 2005 is by far the biggest solo booth at the fair. (It’s a financial risk most dealers in the main galleries section of the fair aren’t willing to take these days, opting instead for diversification in their hefty Art Basel investment.) The show centers on the 78-year-old American minimalist’s large-scale Plane / Figure Series A (Double Panel) (1993), but the real treats are two earlier works that show how Mangold disrupted the continuity of the canvas: Four Color Frame Painting #15 (1985) with a void in its center, and Aqua/Green/Orange + Painting (1983), which, as the title suggests, takes the form of a plus sign. In light of recent up-and-comers like Justin Adian, Mangold’s influence on art history is becoming even more pronounced.

Supportico Lopez

Nova Section, Booth N33

With works by Charlie Billingham

Why You Should Stop

Men’s legs clad in knickers and buckled shoes, porcine people’s bellies and faces, and a few butts form the major subject matter of Charlie Billingham’s 35 paintings and a dressing screen. “They’re all based in satirical British illustration books that he collects from the 18th and 19th century,” said director Marie-Christine Molitor von Mühlfeld of the works. “But he distorts them or exaggerates the figures to place focus on grotesque aspects of the culture at that time that are still relevant today.”

Mehdi Chouakri

Galleries Section, Booth E12

With works by Saâdane Afif, John M. Armleder, Claude Closky, N. Dash, Philippe Decrauzat, Martin Disler, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Sylvie Fleury, Mathieu Mercier, Gerold Miller, Charlotte Posenenske, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Luca Trevisani, Peter Roehr, Salvo, Gitte Schäfer

Why You Should Stop

“It’s the first thing you see coming from the airport to Miami Beach,” says director Aurélien Calpas of Sylvie Fleury’s monumental neon Eternity Now (2015) currently installed on the face of the Bass Museum. Three of Fleury’s “crash test” works hang front and center in the stand of Chouakri, whose highlights also include the late Charlotte Posenenske’s Series B Reliefs (1967-2015) and untitled (2015), a “white painting” by the continually impressive N. Dash.

Galeria Nara Roesler

Galleries Section, Booth B29

With works by Antonio Dias, Artur Lescher, Vik Muniz, Abraham Palatnik, Virginia de Medeiros, Julio Le Parc, Tomie Ohtake, René Francisco, Sérgio Sister, Berna Reale, Paulo Bruscky, Lucia Koch, Marco Maggi, Bruno Dunley, Raul Mourão, Carlito Carvalhosa, Cristina Canale, Alice Miceli, Xavier Veilhan, Karin Lambrecht

Why You Should Stop

The booth centers on Trame en mouvement virtuel (1965/2015), a recreation by the 87-year-old art world rediscovery Julio Le Parc of a work he showed at the Venice Biennale in 1966 (when he went on to win the Biennale’s prize for painting). Also featured is a 1968 installation (Cabeças (Heads)) and 1999 wall sculpture (Manivelas (Cranks)) by Antonio Dias, as well as an arresting series of portraits by the video artist Virginia de Medeiros showing homeless individuals from Fortaleza, Brazil, portrayed as they say they would like to be seen by society. 

Peres Projects

Survey Section, Booth S11

With works by Dorothy Iannone

Why You Should Stop

In the second iteration of Art Basel in Miami Beach’s Survey section, the 82-year-old Dorothy Iannone continues to get long-overdue recognition in a solo presentation of pieces from the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. The Berlin-based Iannone left the States in the late ’60s to be with artist Dieter Roth, who became the muse for much of her erotic art. She has seen a solid uptick in support in recent years, led by a retrospective last year at the Berlinische Galerie as well as a 2009 survey at the New Museum.

Mathew

Positions Section, Booth P13

With works by Villa Design Group

Why You Should Stop

This solo show in the Positions sector sports five neon-lit gates by the buzzy Villa Design Group (a collective made up of Than Hussein Clark, James Connick, and William Joys), inspired by the murder of Gianni Versace, which the trio say was “a pivotal moment in their respective childhoods,” according to gallerist David Lieske. The pieces suggest that “although queer sexuality has been granted a place in public life, violence is often just on the other side of the door.” You might see one of Villa Design Group’s gates in your coolest collector friend’s home soon.

neugerriemschneider

Galleries Section, Booth C15

With works by Mario García Torres, Isa Genzken, Renata Lucas, Michel Majerus, Mike Nelson, Jorge Pardo, Elizabeth Peyton, Simon Starling, Ai Weiwei, Pae White, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Olafur Eliasson, Tobias Rehberger, Sharon Lockhart, Billy Childish, James Benning, Pawel Althamer, Noa Eshkol, Franz Ackermann, Thaddeus Strode, Keith Edmier, Antje Majewski

Why You Should Stop

A surrealist landscape unfolds at the eminent Berlin gallery’s Miami Beach booth. Olafur Eliasson’s moonlike Aurum Sphere (2015) hangs amid the branches of Ai Weiwei’s Goyaesque barren tree (one of a series most recently seen in the courtyard of the Royal Academy of Arts in London). Off to the side, Jorge Pardo’s untitled (2007) bed sculpture teases tired fair goers with the possibility of being transported via a dream to this other world.

Mendes Wood DM

Galleries Section, Booth E16

With works by Celso Renato, Paulo Nazareth, Solange Pessoa, Paulo Monteiro, Sonia Gomes, Neïl Beloufa

Why You Should Stop

Up-and-coming artist Solange Pessoa’s untitled bronze moss wall sculpture from 2008 steals the show at the Brazilian gallery’s booth. “She uses earthen materials to reference that primordial earth-animal kingdom connection,” said international head of sales Martin Aguilera of the work. Pessoa has two works in the Rubell Family Collection’s all-female show “No Man’s Land,” which opened on Wednesday; one is a 100-meter span of human hair, which Aguilera says, “she’s been collecting for 13 years, both hers and other peoples’.”

Cherry and Martin

Nova Section, Booth N34

With works by Bernard Piffaretti and Nathan Mabry

Why You Should Stop

New sculptures by Nathan Mabry, which are vaguely redolent of those by the late Anthony Caro, foreground a slew of Bernard Piffaretti’s signature split-abstractions in Nova’s most seamlessly integrated duo presentation. The 60-year-old Piffaretti has been a slow burn for some time but maintains a fanatically loyal collector base—and deservedly so. This prominent stage for 11 works fresh from the studio is sure to see that pool increase.

Tanya Bonakdar

Galleries Section, Booth E6

With works by Charles Long, Rivane Neuenschwander, Susan Philipsz, Peggy Preheim, Tomás Saraceno, Sarah Sze, Gillian Wearing, Nicole Wermers, Olafur Eliasson

Why You Should Stop

Passersby might first notice Gillian Wearing’s new Rock 'n' Roll 70 (2015)—a haunting self portrait of the artist at three phases: at the age of 50 in 2014, a makeup-induced prognosis of what she might look like at 70 taken this year, and an empty spot where, in 2034, a picture of her when she hits 70 will presumably be placed—as well as her corresponding wallpaper on the booth’s exterior. Around the corner, however, Olafur Eliasson’s 2015 interlocking circles touching (wt) proves to be bait for the selfie set, its shape resembling an infinity sign. Sarah Sze’s Sunset Standing (Fragment Series) (2015) from her recent solo at the gallery plays a much quieter wingwoman.

Esther Schipper

Galleries Section, Booth G6

With works by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Tomás Saraceno, Yoshitomo Nara, Philippe Parreno, Martin Boyce, Matti Braun, Nathan Carter, Jean-Pascal Flavien, Ryan Gander, Liam Gillick, Raimer Jochims, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané

Why You Should Stop

Daniel Steegmann Mangrané’s pair of rose-gold chain curtains divide Schipper’s booth. Matti Braun’s colorful gradient paintings and a Liam Gillick in matching orange hold court on one side, while on the other, a more subdued Gillick wall piece accompanies Philippe Parreno’s fuschia “Speech Bubble” mylar balloons and survival blanket set with aluminum tableware by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster. Works by Martin Boyce and Yoshimoto Nara (both formerly of Johnen Galerie, which Schipper acquired this spring) sits in the middle, with Boyce’s book shelves available in three varied sets of dimensions a particularly worthy choice.

Paul Kasmin Gallery

Galleries Section, Booth A5

With works by David Hockney, Frank Stella, Constantin Brancusi, Peter Hujar, Robert Polidori, Tina Barney, Mark Ryden, Robert Motherwell, Iván Navarro, Simon Hantaï, Saint Clair Cemin, James Nares, Jules Olitski, Jiří Georg Dokoupil, William N. Copley, Nyoman Masriadi

Why You Should Stop

Frank Stella’s three-meter tondo Sinjerli III (1967) anchors the fair’s most aesthetically pleasing square of space on the left side of Kasmin’s booth. The piece, from the artist’s “Protractor Series,” is flanked with works by Hockney, Motherwell, and Kenneth Noland—with a Brancusi head blissfully eyeing them all in its foreground.

Galerie Gmurzynska

Galleries Section, Booth B2

With works by over 100 modern and postwar masters

Why You Should Stop

The gallery tapped legendary curator Germano Celant to assemble its booth to celebrate 50 years of dealing art. The salon-style hanging brings together more than 100 works by such artists as Kasimir Malevich, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Robert Motherwell, Jean Dubuffet, and Yves Klein for a visual “avalanche,” as Celant put it, meant to make collectors “look for ideas rather than value.”

Galería OMR

Galleries Section, Booth B19

With works by Julieta Aranda, Troika, James Turrell, Jose Dávila, Theo Michael, Torolab, Gabriel de la Mora, Jorge Méndez Blake, Pia Camil, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Rubén Ortiz Torres, Daniel Silver, Candida Höfer, Atelier Van Lieshout

Why You Should Stop

Atelier Van Lieshout’s Mother Earth (2015), which was snagged by Eugenio López, founder of the Jumex Contemporary Art Museum in Mexico City, carries this tranquil booth, which is heavy on works that have a strong geometric component. Also noteworthy is a set of prints by Jorge Méndez Blake, as well as James Turrell aquatints (First Light Blonde/ meeting (1989/1990)) and sculptures by Jose Dávila.

Lia Rumma

Kabinett Section, Booth H7

With works by Marina Abramović, Joseph Kosuth, Thomas Ruff, Ettore Spalletti, Gilberto Zorio, Haim Steinbach, Tobias Zielony, William Kentridge, Alfredo Jaar, Victor Burgin, Ugo Mulas, Peter Halley, Vanessa Beecroft