Miami Art Week: A Prizeworthy Moment

"This year's unparalleled programming during Miami Art Week 2022 is a testament to our long-lasting commitment to innovative cultural production," said Alan Faena.

 During Faena Art’s Annual Gala on November 10, the winner of the highly coveted 2022 Faena Prize for the Arts was announced in Miami for the first time since its launch in Buenos Aires more than a decade ago. Internationally recognized for encouraging post-disciplinary artistic exploration, the Faena Prize for the Arts, presented by Bombay Sapphire, serves as a platform for continued reflection on the present moment and its ever-changing nature. This year’s open call championed multidisciplinary artists to imagine site-sensitive, temporary works in dialogue with Faena Beach while engaging with the cultural and urban landscape of the city of Miami.

The winning proposal Paula de Solminihac’s Morning Glory— chosen by a jury of art world luminaries including Cecilia Alemani (curator of the 59th Venice Biennale); Caroline Bourgeois (chief curator of the Pinault Collection); cultural place-maker Ximena Caminos; artist Alexandre Arrechea; Chus Martínez (Director Art Institute at the FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel); and José Roca (artistic director of the 23rd Biennale of Sydney)—is a completely immersive and community driven art installation that will debut on Faena Beach during Miami Art Week 2022. People will be able to activate it in unique ways and there will be plenty of programming and workshops that use the artwork as a space for community engagement. T

he gala, whose theme this year was “Patterns of Paradise, “featured an artistic intervention by Xander Ferreira that transformed the night into an all-encompassing performance that explored the interconnectivity between all cultures. There was also a performance by Kiani del Valle, a Puerto Rican-born, Berlin-based transmedial movement artist, choreographer, director and performance curator. Selling out shows at Berlin’s prestigious Funkhaus venue, del Valle’s work combines an assortment of disciplines but ultimately aims to disrupt classical notions of dance and explore authentic movement as a means of expression. ADJ set by Ibiza-based Pascal Moscheni closed out the night.

On the occasion of Miami Art Week 2022, Faena Art brings Quayola’s Effets de Soirto the Faena Art Project Room. Presented in partnership with Aorist– a next-generation cultural institution supporting artists creating at the edge of art and technology–Effets de Soiris a video-based series that explores a new form of digitalized Impressionism. The painting-like video is created through digital manipulation of ultra-high-resolution photographs of flowers from the lush gardens of Château de Chaumont-sur-Loire, a 10th-century French Castle, photographed at night under artificial spotlights. Aorist is also partnering with Faena Art to showcase Living Room, a newly commissioned project by revolutionary collective Random International.

Bridging large-scale experiential art with web3 technology, the ambitious project invites visitors to experience a labyrinth-like installation, representing an architectural organism composed of shifting lights, fog, and sound elements that respond to the audience’s movements in unpredictable ways. Living Room’s motion sensors and complex software constantly capture and record data as people move through the installation in real time, which generate unique digital assets that visitors can mint on Aorist’s marketplace as unique NFTs of their pathway through the installation by using their entry ticket ID.

Within Faena Miami Beach’s Cathedral, The Reefline will feature the unveiling of British artist Petroc Sesti’s arwork,Heartof Okeanos, in collaboration with Faena Art and Carbon Xinc. The sculpture is a life-size replica of a beached Blue Whale, which the artist will return to the ocean, transforming it into an artificial reef seeded with living corals, as part of the ambitious new public art project, the ReefLine—an artificial reef and seven-mile snorkel trail that will start construction early next year.

Another highlight of the week is Patria y Vida, a large-scale light sculpture by Antonia Wright and Ruben Millares, presented in collaboration with No Vacancy from November 17 to December 8 at Faena Beach. Inspired by the events that occurred last year in Cuba on July 11th, when Cubans were imprisoned after protesting illegally for the first time in almost 30 years, and the Pro-Democracy protests in Hong Kong, the artwork uses 18 crowd-control barricades with LED lights bound together in a disorderly composition to memorialize nonviolent resistance. The work marks Faena’s second collaboration with the City of Miami Beach and the Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority (MBVCA), where local artists are paired with hotels to showcase their art during Miami Art Week