Art Basel Miami Beach 2022:
Advisory Selections

Sigmar Polke at Thaddaeus Ropac

Curious by nature, Sigmar Polke often used unconventional materials like meteor dust, bubble-wrap and arsenic-based paints in his practice. In this work, Polke used synthetic and natural resin on canvas to create an infinite collision of gestural brushstrokes.

Katastrophentheorie II (1983) is part of Polke's 'Katastrophentheorie' series, a group of four paintings the Polish-born artist made in the 1980s that were dedicated to unpacking 'Catastrophe Theory'.

Using the canvas as a vessel for his own ordered vision of chaos, Polke's painting features veils of black and purple pigment, layers of abstract form and visceral line drawings. Polke's sublime painting is deeply textured, exemplified by his use of splattered paint and sensuous scrapes and stains of resin.

Lynne Mapp Drexler at Berry Campbell Gallery

Lynne Mapp Drexler's brightly coloured composition reveals the American artist's mastery of Abstract Expressionist painting. Inspired by her life-long observation of East Coast landscapes, Drexler's remarkable work features a depth of mark-making made from planes of thick impasto rendered in kaleidoscopic colour.

'Drexler's best paintings achieve that quality rarely found in abstraction, by which our initial perceptual reaction begins to slowly unravel, revealing memories wrought from the natural world whilst stirring the inner parts of our subconscious', remarked Ocula Advisor, Rory Mitchell.

Drexler's presentation at Art Basel Miami Beach coincides with the display of her work in the exhibition Lynne Drexler: The First Decade (27 October–22 December 2022) at Mnuchin Gallery and Berry Campbell Gallery in New York.

Mark Bradford at Hauser & Wirth

conflagration (2022), which depicts orange flames devouring facets of green form alluding to the wildfires prominent in Southern California, illustrates Mark Bradford's exploration of the breakdown and deconstruction of familiar environments.

The Los Angeles-born artist's painting exemplifies Bradford's instinctive use of mixed-media materials. His powerful composition portrays a multitude of layers that give way to unusual abstract forms. Wrinkles, stains, and scratches melt into the canvas to burst forth a heavily textured mass of energy that licks every fibre of the canvas.

Hauser & Wirth will present Mark Bradford's painting at Art Basel Miami Beach alongside work by artists George Condo, Allison Katz, and Louise Bourgeois, among others.

Nan Goldin at Marian Goodman Gallery

Regarded as one of the most influential photographers of her time, Nan Goldin's work David by the pool at The Back Room, Provincetown (1976) captures a candid portrait of her friend David Armstrong.

After meeting in the 1960s, Goldin and Armstrong began to document their friendship by photographing each other in everyday scenes for over twenty years. In Goldin's photograph, the American artist shows her unique eye for capturing spontaneous snapshots of the people and the places around her.

The stripped back portrait presents her friend in a moment of quiet. We see a vulnerable side to David, revealing Goldin's extraordinary ability to capture her subjects in a raw and honest light.

Goldin's presentation with Marian Goodman Gallery coincides with the artist's retrospective This Will Not End Well (29 October 2022–26 February 2023) at Moderna Museet in Stockholm.

Adrián Villar Rojas at kurimanzutto

Rendered from carrara marble and steel, From the series 'The Theater of Disappearance' (2019) combines the classical aesthetic with contemporary technologies.

Adrián Villar Rojas's marble work evokes the form of a classical sculpture. The work portrays a pair of muscular legs stood on a plinth featuring intricate contoured lines gliding throughout the figurative form.

The labyrinthine detail of Adrián Villar Rojas's sculpture transforms the work from something seemingly antiquated to something unfamiliar and perhaps unsettlingly futuristic.

The Argentinian-born artist's exhibition The End of Imagination opens at the Tank at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney on 3^rd December 2022.

Wilhelm Sasnel at Sadie Coles HQ

In this oil on canvas work showing with Sadie Coles, Wilhelm Sasnel uses a reduced colour palette to frame the feet of a gathering of people from contemporary life. His unusual point of focus recalls framing devices often used in photography, and contributes a cinematic quality to the painting.

The Polish-born artist's dramatic use of shadow and spray paint background of faded blue and orange demonstrate how Sasnel distorts everyday scenes into alluring abstract compositions.

Interested in the way we consume mass media, Sasnel's oeuvre warps representation into abstraction while exploring how the image is perceived in painting.

Rose B. Simpson at Jessica Silverman

Using materials such as ceramic, clay, glaze and twine, Rose B. Simpson makes sculptures that are informed by indigenous traditions and examine the impact of colonialism in the postmodern world.

Sip A (2022) depicts a sculptured figure bound by flat squares of clay and weighted down at the waist by ropes attached to hoops of red clay and a stack of heavy rocks. Rose B. Simpson's creation evokes the trauma experienced by indigenous women as a consequence of ongoing settler colonialism in contemporary society.

Jessica Silverman will present Rose B. Simpson's sculpture in a group presentation entitled Cosmic Bodies and will feature work by several artists including Sadie Barnette, Judy Chicago, and Woody De Othello.