The Top Nine Trending Artists Under 40 in Miami
Artsy asked Lisa Schiff, an art advisor with over 10 years experience working with private collectors and foundations—and co-founder of VIA Art, a philanthropic contemporary art fund dedicated to supporting new art—to offer her insights on the top nine trending artists at the Miami art fairs. Given Artsy’s list of the top three most-followed artists under age 40 at the Miami editions of Art Basel, NADA, and PULSE, Schiff offered the following takeaways.
The art world is changing. Our worldview is changing. And it’s all apparent in Miami this week—and on Artsy’s trending list.
Let me back up. Today marks the kickoff of Art Basel in Miami Beach and its satellite fairs. It is the single most overwhelming week of art exhibitions, fairs, events, parties, promotions, talks, and full-on Vegas-style art insanity. It is a week that I both anticipate and dread. I was born in Miami on December 2nd, 1969, and while I love visiting home, and birthdays, I am now realizing that I am a full 20 years off from Hans Ulrich Obrist and Simon Castets’s 89 Plus artists. Alas...
Miami 2014 is set to become the time and place for two historical shifts: the full-on convergence of art/fashion/entertainment and the commercial viability of internet-based art. For one, in a 2008 talk at the New School about art and money, the prescient genius Jeffrey Deitch predicted the art/entertainment collapse which seems to be in full throttle with the Deitch, V Magazine, and Hilfiger party featuring Miley Cyrus. But the more relevant marker as indicated by Artsy’s trending list would be the commercial viability of internet art.
Photography was invented in 1839, though it took until the 1980s for it to gain acceptability in the commercial world of fine art. The fear of collecting something that was inherently reproducible was quelled by the implementation of limited editions. Despite the constant hailing of the end of uniqueness and authorship, the lynchpins of monetary value in Western art remain as relatively unchanged. Performance, performative sculpture, certificate-based art, video, digital, new media, and the internet have posed further problems to acquisition and collectibility as well as commercial viability. It is only a matter of time before a major ephemeral or performative work by Lawrence Weiner, Tino Sehgal, Allora & Calzadilla, Ryan Trecartin, JODI, or a Petra Cortright earn a huge price at auction.
Of all of the artists under 40 trending on Artsy that will be showing at Art Basel, NADA, and PULSE, I would highlight one of them in particular, Petra Cortright. Petra’s work in Miami is brought by one of my favorite galleries, Foxy Production. Founded and directed by Michael Gillespie, Foxy Production has been around for a while and has a notable history of debuting great new talent, such as Sterling Ruby. The gallery is definitely one to watch. Petra is under 30 years old and her name has been buzzing in my ear for a few years now. I was fortunate enough to buy a work for my personal collection from a group show in Los Angeles at Aran Cravey Gallery, curated by Marisa Olson, who is known for coining the term post-internet art (for better or for worse!). Petra’s work is often derived from or activated on the internet. It confronts a new visual terrain and how we function within that terrain. What does it do to us ontologically? Where do we begin and end within it? To bring it back to Jeffrey Deitch, just look at his seminal 1992 exhibition “Post Human.” Petra’s work continues to uphold and develop the ideals manifested in that show. While I think some of her best works intervene on the web and exist on YouTube, when she brings this experience of self, space, subjectivity, and cyborgia to the more physical realm, she creates stunning objects that seem to float as if they still exist in the virtual. Be sure to visit Foxy at NADA to see for yourself.
The nine trending artists follow:
9. Lauren Fensterstock, PULSE Miami Beach
8. Genevieve Chua, PULSE Miami Beach
7. Matthew Brandt, PULSE Miami Beach
6. Petra Cortright, NADA Miami Beach
5. Sara Cwynar, NADA Miami Beach
4. Chris Succo, NADA Miami Beach
3. Sam Moyer, Art Basel in Miami Beach (you can also see his work at NADA Miami Beach with Rachel Uffner Gallery)
2. Richard Mosse, Art Basel in Miami Beach
1. Kadar Brock, Art Basel in Miami Beach (you can also see his work at Untitled with Vigo Gallery)
Explore Art Basel in Miami Beach, NADA Miami Beach, and PULSE Miami Beach on Artsy.
