The city's&nbsp;capacious and conversation-setting private collections unveil their latest acquisitions

A resilient Miami Art Week forges forward 

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Although this year’s Art Basel Miami Beach show has been recast as a virtual experience – ‘OVR: Miami Beach’, running December 4–6, with preview days on December 2 and 3&nbsp;&nbsp;–&nbsp;the city itself is still rolling out the red carpet for the art-starved, with exhibitions in institutions, nonprofits, and private collections. This dramatic turn recalls 2001, when the inaugural Basel fair was postponed a year, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Disappointed but undeterred, Miami’s art community rallied, staging a robust slate of events. A similar resilience permeates Miami Art Week 2020, which will proceed with elaborate caution and art that aims to engage.These ten days won’t be anything like the usual Miami Art Week, says entrepreneur and Miami native Craig Robins. ‘It’s not going to be about the parties, the large social gatherings. We expect to have socially distanced events. Lots of people still want to engage with life as long as they know protocols are observed.' Read on for highlights from these private collections and pop-up presentations.

De la Cruz Collection“A Possible Horizon”, 2020–2021<a href="http://www.delacruzcollection.org/">www.delacruzcollection.org</a>‘We have deliberately focused on art that questions issues relevant today,’ Miami patrons Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz have said of their extensive collection of modern and contemporary works. This year’s theme is “A Possible Horizon”, featuring&nbsp;works&nbsp;by&nbsp;such names as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/search?q=tauba%20auerbach" target="_blank">Tauba&nbsp;Auerbach</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7636/Mark-Bradford" target="_blank">Mark Bradford</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7658/Sterling-Ruby" target="_blank">Sterling Ruby</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/19477/Dana-Schutz">Dana Schutz</a> spread over three stories of the collection's&nbsp;building near the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami. The&nbsp;idea&nbsp;derives from poetic lines accompanying a photograph of the sky given to the de la Cruzes by the late&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8552/Felix-Gonzalez-Torres" target="_blank">Felix González-Torres</a>.Gonzáles-Torres has always been a touchstone for the Cuban-American couple, who have been collecting for several decades. At the entrance are two quietly powerful works created by the artist years apart, but nevertheless resonating with an acute awareness of life’s fragility and fundamental needs for human&nbsp;touch.&nbsp;Untitled (1992) by Gonzalez-Torres is his small photograph of the hand of the nurse caring for his partner Ross, suffering from AIDS; on this photograph the artist used a pencil to lengthen the lifeline of the hand, as if forestalling death. Extending the resonance, that photograph is the creased palm of a hand outlined in the larger work in neon and paint by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8036/Glenn-Ligon" target="_blank">Glenn Ligon</a>, Notes for a Poem on the Third World (Chapter 2) (2018). A similar&nbsp;homage to the body’s intimate presence is the&nbsp;gallery dedicated to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8008/Ana-Mendieta" target="_blank">Ana Mendieta</a>.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;

Margulies Collection at the WarehouseOctober 2020–April 2021<a href="http://www.margulieswarehouse.com/">www.margulieswarehouse.com</a>On view are ongoing and new exhibits overseen by Katharine Hinds, with works by&nbsp;<a href="http://Magdalena Abakanowicz" target="_blank">Magdalena Abakanowicz</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8508/Doug-Aitken" target="_blank">Doug Aitken</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8384/Olafur-Eliasson" target="_blank">Olafur&nbsp;Eliasson</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/30488/Kota-Ezawa" target="_blank">Kota Ezawa</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7286/Ernesto-Neto" target="_blank">Ernesto Neto</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/41603/Mary-Obering" target="_blank">Mary Obering</a>, Nancy Rubins,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/12852/George-Segal" target="_blank">George Segal</a>,&nbsp;<a href="http://Carrie Mae Weems" target="_blank">Carrie Mae Weems</a>, and Yukinori Yanaki. In one particularly compelling passage,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/30374/Ibrahim-Mahama" target="_blank">Ibrahim Mahama</a> and Jennifer Steinkamp&nbsp;–&nbsp;two artists&nbsp;not typically considered together&nbsp;–&nbsp;are paired here in a meditative experience. Recalling a threatened environment and the inequities of global trade, one side of&nbsp;Mahama’s&nbsp;monumental stacked sculpture Non-orientable&nbsp;Nkansa (2017) is installed opposite Blind Eye (2018), Steinkamp’s&nbsp;roughly three-minute animated video installation.Mahama worked with&nbsp;migrant workers from his native Ghana&nbsp;to create a towering wall made of 2,000 shoemaker boxes, originally used for containing tools for polishing and repairing shoes. This&nbsp;rough-hewn massing creates a sculptural tapestry composed of hundreds of dark, empty spaces, likely signifying wasted economic potential while possessing a resilient, vernacular beauty. Blind Eye, on the other hand, captures the ebb and flow of seasons with a stand of birches swaying slightly almost as if breathing, leaves growing greener in spring and summer, turning gold in the fall, and falling away in winter. Today, it reads as an elegy for a squandered natural world.&nbsp;

Rubell MuseumOngoing exhibitionswww.rubellmuseum.orgThe conversation-setting Rubell collection, which unveiled a new, Annabelle Selldorf–designed home in Allapattah last year, continues to refresh its hangings. Some of the most recent works on display include&nbsp;the paintings in “Genesis Tramaine: Sanctuary”. The Brooklyn-based artist produced them during her six-week residency at the museum this year. The portraits bristle with abstract gestural strokes and graffiti marks&nbsp;while layering multiple facial features and emotions. They convey Tramaine’s devout spirituality and immersion in Biblical stories, as well as challenging the absence of Black faces in white Western religious-themed paintings. During the residency,&nbsp;Tramaine was particularly inspired by the Biblical tale of Rebeka and her husband Isaac to paint Mother. Saint.&nbsp;Rebeka&nbsp;(2020).According to the story, after many barren years, Rebeka became pregnant with twin boys. They fought in her womb, foretelling their battles in life. ‘I was fascinated by this woman born with trouble,’ Tramaine says. ‘During this tumultuous season, I’m watching us fight, Muslim, Christian, but we are all in the same womb together. We will make it through this, but we have to rely on each other.’“Sanctuary” complements portraits by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/49084/Amoako-Boafo" target="_blank">Amoako Boafo</a>, who reimagined&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/11446/Egon-Schiele" target="_blank">Egon Schiele</a>’s expressionistic style for renderings of Black men and women painted during his 2019 Rubell residency. Additional artists represented in the current hanging include&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7848/Hernan-Bas" target="_blank">Hernan Bas</a>, Naomi Fisher,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/20763/Tschabalala-Self" target="_blank">Tschabalala Self</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/55214/Purvis-Young" target="_blank">Purvis Young</a>.

Miami Design District&nbsp;&amp; Craig Robins CollectionWEBSITE/RESERVATIONSThis year’s Design District events promise safe, in-person experiences adhering to COVID-19 protocols, including copious hand sanitizing stations, implemented in consultation with the University of Miami Health System. Twenty-five international galleries–including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1358/L%C3%A9vy-Gorvy" target="_blank">Lévy-Gorvy</a> collaboration with Salon 94 Design,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1223/Mitchell-Innes-Nash" target="_blank">Mitchell-Innes &amp; Nash</a>,&nbsp;will be joined by Jeffrey Deitch, a second Miami outpost of David Castillo Gallery, as well as Ramiken and design galleries Todd Merrill Studio and R &amp; Company in partnership with Cultured Magazine, which would normally&nbsp;exhibit at Art Basel and Design Miami–are now occupying roomy spaces in the Design District, many staying through winter 2021. In lieu of its usual tent, Design Miami&nbsp;launches Design Miami Podium in the historic Moore Building. Conscious Actions (2020), the fair’s annual commission, features interactive devices inspired by playgrounds, as imagined by Chilean collective gt2P (all touchpoints will be continually sanitized). Filmmaker Harmony Korine&nbsp;is collaborating&nbsp;with the hybrid retail-exhibition platform Basic.space to produce a limited-edition mask.For his part, Robins will open the Craig Robins Collection, located in the Design District headquarters of Dacra, the development company he founded in 1987, by reservation only.&nbsp;His wide-ranging collection embraces art as well as design and architecture. This year, featured artists include Karon Davis,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8307/Sayre-Gomez" target="_blank">Sayre Gomez</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7509/David-Hammons" target="_blank">David Hammons</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/10885/Simone-Leigh" target="_blank">Simone Leigh</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8817/John-Outterbridge" target="_blank">John Outterbridge</a>, and Rick Owens.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/10076/Jana-Euler" target="_blank">Jana Euler</a>’s Close Rotation (Left) (2019), shown at New York’s Artists Space in February, was among the last works Robins acquired before the lockdown.&nbsp;Now, the claustrophobic, grotesquely cramped portrait seems oddly prescient of the lonely isolation experienced by so many this year.&nbsp;

Elisa Turner is a Miami-based writer and critic.Plan your visit to these and other Miami art landmarks with our new&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/ovr/miamiartweek#51002" target="_blank">interactive Miami Art Week 2020&nbsp;map</a>.Top image:&nbsp;Top image: Still from Kota Ezawa's single-channel video National Anthem (detail), 2018. On view at the Margulies Collection, Miami.

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