‘I’m challenging the narrative’: what to expect at this year’s Art Basel Miami

The annual gathering of artists and those within the art world takes place at a precarious time politically

Art has a very inconstant relationship with politics – ask an artist if they want to make a political statement and they are likely to bristle. Yet, look beneath the surface of any interesting piece, and you’ll almost certainly find definite connections to larger social structures and conversations that are in fact very, very political.

Scanning the offerings of Art Basel Miami Beach this week, one finds much art that is political in precisely this way – not so much so on the tip of the iceberg, but very much in the intellectual and artistic inspiration beneath. Take, for instance, the gorgeous bronze floral mask exhibited by the mixed media artist Allison Janae Hamilton – at first it comes off as a stunningly beautiful piece of layered flower blooms, but look deeper into the origins of this piece and a different story surfaces.

In an interview, Hamilton said the series this piece comes from originated with fencing masks worn by Black soldiers during the second world war. The pieces come from a larger project in which Hamilton envisions a vertical continuum between earthy materials like bronze and what is ethereal and skyward, placing them into a complex, cyclical set of interrelationships. It is a part of creating Hamilton’s own discourse of Black feminism.

 

“My experience of Black girlhood and womanhood always was and still is really anchored in the land,” she said. “It’s not something that’s always thought of first and foremost in our discourse of Black feminism. For me it’s the core because of how I grew up with my family in Tennessee.”

Land and origins are important to Hamilton, and for her exhibiting art in Florida is not a neutral act. A longtime Floridian who has transplanted herself to New York City, she is aware of the need to represent her Florida – a place that’s very different from the one that emerges in the national news. “As a Floridian, I’m very proud to be from my state. I try to present Florida in a way that’s very different from how it’s talked about politically. I think there’s almost an erasure of Black life in Florida, and I’m challenging the narrative of those who live there.”

The Korean-American artist Ken Gun Min also challenges perceived narratives with his art. Seeing himself as a storyteller and a sifter of the material of urban environments, he integrates into his elaborate creations materials that he garners from thrift stores, estate sales, the streets, neighbors and friends. The resulting works do not necessarily reflect their humble origins, as Min’s scenes radiate hope, fantasia, and a baroque beauty – even as they also contain feelings such as melancholy and a wary reserve.

Min’s intricate contribution is centered around an elaborate folding screen and an enormous painting situated across a corner of his exhibition space, both depicting a dense imaginary landscapes that might be termed “queer fantasia”. Another of his works, a portrait of a transgender woman clutching her chest amid windswept trees, rolling tides and a breathtaking sky, brings elements of the heroic and the mythical. It is one in a series of paintings of trans people, inspired in part by his walks around the West Lake neighborhood in his home city of Los Angeles, where he would meet potential subjects. “When making the body of work based on West Lake, I gathered the stories from many different people, while I also gathered my materials. I think the story and the person come first – I try to find the connection to that person and where I am, and I weave those things into my creation. And then I send it into the world.”

The painter Ebun Sodipo was very clear about what inspires her to create: “Being able to talk about myself and other Black trans women is probably what drives me to make this work,” she said. This year, Sodipo is exhibiting from a series of collages built up from a personal archive of Tumblr images. She covers these collages with mylar, a shiny, lustrous material; the partial reflections that audiences can see of themselves when viewing her work are to her point, as is the material’s connotations with water. “Glittering surfaces remind us of water, in a lizard-brain sort of way,” she told me. “They bring this drive out of us, a need for survival, to quench a thirst – one that’s been with you for longer than you’ve known. I was relating this to transition, to things that would pull my body in a direction.”