The Most Bizarre Events at Miami Art Week 2023

Miami Follow +

We receive a lot of press releases in the lead up to art fairs. For whatever reason, the most unusual all arrive in anticipation of Art Basel Miami Beach.

Last year, Arkive celebrated the acquisition of cloth fans used by pop star Madonna with a voguing performance, NFTs of Andres Serrano‘s Piss Christ (1987) went under the hammer at Christie’s, digital art project Doodles opened a nine-hole mini-putt course, and Lucy Sparrow served up hand-sewn McDonald’s at the SCOPE Art Show.

This year’s events are just as novel.

In addition to the fairs—including Art Basel Miami Beach, CONTEXT, NADA, SCOPE, and UNTITLED—and our pick of five must-see art exhibitions, UFC octagon girl Brittney Palmer will unveil an augmented reality mural created for the OnlyFans’ Global Mural Project on 5 December. The mural, which will be realised using app-less augmented reality platform Art House, will also feature octagon girls Arianny Celeste and Brookliyn Wren.

Staying in the world of fighting, Japanese women’s wrestling league Sukeban will make its Miami debut during Miami Art Week. The highly physical, theatrical fights, which go down at Lot 11 on Wednesday 6 December, will feature costumes by designer Olympia Le-Tan and looks by Isamaya Ffrench. The event will be hosted by writer and actor Kunichi Nomura, who is credited as a co-writer and casting director on Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs (2018).

Daniel Arsham, Jen Stark, and Kenny Scharf will show works in a sculpture garden as part of the MAKING MIAMI exhibition—held across four non-profits in the city’s design district—from 6 December.

The Museum of Graffiti will celebrate its fourth anniversary with a solo exhibition by L.A.-based artist MEAR ONE from 6 December. Berlin’s 1UP Crew will show blown-up Polaroids of street artists including Vhils and Futura, who are then encouraged to draw on their portraits.

And Swedish homeware store IKEA is taking over an old nightclub at 430 Lincoln Road from noon to 4pm on Friday 8 and Saturday 9 December.

The event aims to ‘inspire the imagination with themed rooms that completely immerse attendees with custom set pieces, new furniture collections, and even unique sound designs.’ —[O]

Main image: MEAR ONE, Destroy Your Illusions (2022). Oil on canvas, 4 x 5 inches. Courtesy the Museum of Graffiti.