Snapshots: Art Basel Miami

Photos by Saul Sudin. Comments by Elke Reva Sudin.

We traveled to Miami for Art Basel, one of the biggest festivals for the contemporary art market in North America.
Here are some things we saw that made us question how people look at religion in contemporary art:

Art Basel is made up of a main fair and several smaller fairs that are scattered around Miami and Miami Beach. Shown above is Scope Fair where we met Jewish artists showing from New York and Israel.

The neighborhood of Wynwood was covered in murals for the fairs. Here we saw a futuristic take on “The Creation of Adam” while it was being created.

A little obvious, but maybe we’ll see something more creative next year.

Maybe this is why religious people have a stigma towards artists…

When it comes to man-made art or nature. God’s art always wins!

Disturbing. But perhaps that is the point.

This is kind of how I imagine a revelation through the “cloud of glory” happening. But with more graffiti action.

What is a spiritual gangster? Whoever buys the artwork gets to decide!

Found this card. As much as Miami is covered with Jewish influences, kosher restaurants, Jewish people of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds walking around, you don’t often see something explicit in the fairs. Perhaps the illusions to the Holocaust is what gave this piece attention. Still, it would be nice to see something more contemporary… but such is the dilemma of the contemporary art world. Lots of Jews, very little recognition of their people.