A 50-foot-wide rotating bookshelf planted in the sand in front of the Faena District is drawing crowds during Miami Art Week — a fitting backdrop for a mixed-use project that has, since it opened a decade ago, fused luxury real estate with the art world.
The installation, called The Library of Us, by Es Devlin, sits in a circular pool meant to invite viewers to linger. It also brings attention to the development behind it and Miami Beach’s most consistent selling point: the beach itself.
Across Miami and Miami Beach, developers and brokerages are taking advantage of the influx of art week attendees with special events, sponsorships and open houses. A number of firms and agents put out their own guides to the weeklong event, which includes Art Basel, Art Miami and dozens of other fairs.
It marks the official start of Miami’s high season, though deal flow picked up weeks earlier this year.
Brokerages have been sponsoring fewer major art fairs than in years prior, but they still have a presence. Sotheby’s International Realty is a show partner at Art Basel, and Miami-based One Sotheby’s International Realty is the real estate sponsor for the collectors’ lounge at the Miami Beach fair.
One Sotheby’s also partnered with the Bonnier Gallery in Miami Beach to host an art exhibit that features works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Willem De Kooning and Andy Warhol, said Daniel de la Vega, president of One Sotheby’s.
“This is one of the most important weeks in Miami,” he said. “It’s not the sale that happens while Art Basel is going on but it’s about the feeling people get when they start to understand our lifestyle.”
Here’s a smattering of what’s planned this week:
Listings and new developments
Agents Mick Duchon of the Corcoran Group and Dustin Nero of Douglas Elliman timed their launch of a listing at the Four Seasons Residences at the Surf Club to art week. The unit, asking $22.8 million, or $4,916 per square foot, includes a multimillion-dollar art collection with works that have been featured at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. and the Pérez Art Museum Miami. Interior designer Deborah Wecselman handled the renovation of the 4,640-square-foot, four-bedroom and four-bathroom unit in the south tower of the Surf Club, at 9001 Collins Avenue in Surfside. The artwork includes pieces by Michael Dweck, Cey Adams and photographer David Burdeny.
The developers of the planned Elle Residences Miami condo tower, led by S3 Capital Partners, UNCG and Vertical Development launched an exhibit by artist Daniel Orozco that’s on display this week at the project’s sales center, at 600 Northeast 36th Street in Miami’s Edgewater. The developers are hosting a private event this week with Orozco to discuss his sculpture collaboration with Elle.
North Development, the partnership between Ricardo Dunin’s Oak Capital and Juan Carlos Tassara’s Edifica, commissioned Miami artists Jonathan Gonzalez, Francisco Lo Castro, Regina Durante Jestrow and Johnny Robles to design artwork for Domus Brickell Park, a short-term rental friendly development planned for the site at 1611 Southwest Second Avenue in Miami.
Naftali Group tapped Italian artist Lorenzo Quinn to design a sculpture for JEM Private Residences, an apartment and condo tower under construction at Miami Worldcenter.
Carlos Rosso’s Rosso Development, Proper Hospitality and Alex Vadia’s Midtown Development are having two Hernán Marina sculptures installed outside of the sales gallery at Midtown Park Residences by Proper, a spokesperson said. The sculptures will serve as public art to help promote the planned 28-story, 288-unit condo tower in Midtown Miami.
William Ticona’s Grupo T&C, the developer of the planned Edge House Miami short-term rental-friendly condo project in Edgewater, unveiled an exhibit featuring works by Colombian sculpture artist Veronica Matiz.
Aside from the artwork announcements, new installations and murals painted in neighborhoods such as Wynwood and the Miami Design District, and the dozens of parties and private events, real estate brokers and developers’ group chats are buzzing — an indicator of the real estate activity art week generates.
“Many agents are talking about what they have available. Many are putting in requests,” de la Vega of One Sotheby’s said about some of the chats he’s in.
One such request he saw this week was a buyer looking to spend $100 million for a waterfront property on the open bay, somewhere between Coral Gables and Miami Beach.