Art Basel Miami
Art Basel Miami, as one would expect, was a total riot. No matter where you turned, the best of the best artists of Modern & Contemporary Art History had their place. If it’s someone who has been the subject of countless monographs, biographies, essays, and what have you, then you were likely to find them here, to name a few: Jean-Michel Basquiat (Van de Weghe Gallery, New York); H.R. Giger (Nanzuka, Tokyo); Peter Halley (Mitterrand, Paris); Romare Bearden (Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York); Lisa Yuskavage (David Zwirner, New York), et al.
But what I really want to talk about here are a few standout things beyond this summation of the famed who’s who of Basel: the underrecognized voices of the 20th Century; today’s major artists who are finally gaining traction; and the surprisingly strong presence of photography.
Berry Campbell Gallery (New York, New York) was a total winner in showcasing works by underrecognized names of 20th Century art, particularly among women, which is embodied in the curatorial philosophies of its founders Christine Berry and Martha Campbell. Lynne Drexler’s epic compositions of chromatically choreographed circles, squares, and rectangles that naturally give off a musicality to them would blow Kandinsky’s much earlier abstract paintings out of the water. Conversely, Bernice Bing and Ethel Schwabacher each zoomed out with their focus on much bigger expanses of shapes and more limited colors to pack one hell of a perceptual punch to the canvas.
—Liam Ottero, Whitehot Magazine
December 15, 2025