‘It’s about time’
Miami artists are ‘ascendant’ on international scene this Art Week
How did a pair of twins from Westchester go from taking photos of friends to post on MySpace to capturing Bad Bunny for the cover of TIME magazine?
Elliot and Erick Jiménez did what many local artists are advised to do: Leave your hometown and go to New York City. It worked.
The twin brothers found a “floodgate of opportunities” there and made a name for themselves as fashion photographers.
But when the pandemic brought them back to their hometown, a new kind of opportunity arose. They could create exactly the type of art they wanted to create, not for a luxury brand or fashion magazine, but for themselves.
The floodgates opened again in Miami. The Cuban-American duo’s signature saturated colors and Lucumí religious references caught a TIME editor’s eye. The rest is literally history. It was the publication’s first Spanish-language cover story. And this Miami Art Week, the duo’s work is even bigger with their first public art installation, a 100-foot-wide billboard of a sequined mermaid on the side of the Moore Building in the Design District.
The international acclaim has been overwhelming in a good way, they said.
“It literally feels like it’s happened all at once, like the last couple of months,” Elliot said. “But we’ve been doing this for so long . ... It is a hustle. It is not easy. It’s persistence and working hard.”
The Jiménez twins aren’t alone in their career’s trajectory. Over the last couple of years, Miami-born and based artists have reaped the benefits of their hard work, talent and hometown’s art hub status as they enjoy national and international attention now more than ever before.
Historically, there has
Local artists have seen their careers soar in the past year, confirming Miami’s position as an arts influencer.
been a common local gripe that Miami’s homegrown talent gets overlooked during Miami Art Week, but that sentiment seems to have diminished as artists outgrow Art Basel Miami Beach’s shadow. International and national galleries,
collectors and arts institutions have a magnifying glass over South Florida as they tap local artists for solo and group exhibitions, prestigious museum collections, residencies and awards.
“We’ve been always not
considered. People would come here and kind of look over us and act as if we haven’t been creating art this whole time,” said Reginald O’Neal, a prominent emerging artist from Overtown. “I don’t know what is making the shift
happen for people to start paying attention to us now, but I feel like it’s about time.”
The shift is very real, said Dennis Scholl, a longtime Miami art collector and artist.
“Miami artists are ascendant right now,” he said. “Even in an art market that is starting to mature a little bit, slow down a little bit, Miami artists are not doing that because people are really interested in them. Miami artists are finally getting their due, if you will.”
The consensus is clear. All eyes are on Miami — Miami Art Week or no.
WHAT’S BEHIND THE BOOM?
If you ask Miami’s museum directors, collectors and gallerists to name one artist whose career has taken off lately, they’ll rattle off a list of names.
Established, mid-career and emerging artists who have called Miami their home are well represented