Yesterday I had the privilege to attend NADA one of the better satellite art fairs, running simultaneously during Art Basel Miami week. There are now over 20 such fairs of varying quality, offering everything from Outsider Art to 20th Century modern masters. Art Basel Miami week is a random overload of fairs, events and pop-up exhibitions. You never actually know what to expect when you walk through the door of some of these events, however, there are relevant artists to discover at most of them.
NADA is a reliable trend barometer which always delivers quality in the area of emerging art. It is a non-profit organisation which brings together international galleries exhibiting under one roof. NADA’s Miami venue is located in the wonderfully faded Deauville resort hotel, an oversized mid-century modern kitsch carbuncle located in North Miami Beach. The hotel’s publicity material proudly states that it was ‘once host to celebrity guests like the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Junior and Dean Martin’ which says it all.
As an overview, the fair was heavy on graphics and works on paper but it also had its fair share of large abstract canvases. The high points of the fair this year were a large papier mache and wood oversized totem by Joanna Malinowska from Canada, New York, Graham Collins’ large shiny bubbled up paper from The Journal Gallery, Brooklyn and Florian Baudrexel’s cardboard cubist sculpture from Linn Luhn, Dusseldorf which was sold to a collector in San Francisco. There was a strong UK presence with Seventeen, Rob Tufnell, Josh Lilley, the House of Voltaire, Kinman and Jonathan Viner from London and Kendall Koppe from Glasgow.
NADA was founded in 2002 as the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA). It is a not-for-profit 501(c)(6) collective of professionals working with contemporary art. Their mission is to create an open flow of information, support, and collaboration within the field and to develop a stronger sense of community among their constituency. They believe that the adversarial approach to exhibiting and selling art has run its course. They believe that change can be achieved through fostering constructive thought and dialogue between various points in the art industry from large galleries to small spaces, non-profit and commercial alike. Through support and encouragement, they facilitate strong and meaningful relationships between their members working with new contemporary and emerging art; while enhancing the public’s interaction with contemporary art.