Miami Art Walk: Wynwood Design District

Gold Shoes by Adam Boot (2009). Adam shot this at the Art Walk last night. I think it belongs in a frame and on a wall.

When living in Grand Rapids, I was always fond of the Division Avenue area and the quest to create a thriving hub for artists to live and work and display their art. The Avenue for the Arts concept and events prove it can be a successful model, even in a conservative area, like West Michigan.

It's not fair to compare Grand Rapids to a city the size of Miami, but last night, during my first excursion to the once-a-month art walk in Miami's Wynwood Art District, I couldn't help it. People were out in droves. Trendy young mothers with strollers, tourists, flashy dressed older men and more hipsters than you can shake an ironic mustache at. My friend, K.B., had told me about the event beforehand, saying it's flooded with interested young art fans and serious buyers. If only every city were fortunate enough to have such a strong show of support for new and mid-career artists.

Here is a description of the area, pulled from a gallery guide site:

"Wynwood Art District is the favorite hub of emerging artists, art galleries, project spaces, artists studios, experimental venues, and world class private collections that have turned into modern museums. Margulies, Rubell Family and Scholl Collections are in this District, and they are open to the public on preset seasons. Check their listings in our Museums and Collections section. The second Saturday of each month, galleries and art studios in Wynwood as well as the Design District, are open to art lovers until 10 pm. Wynwood is the only Circuit where walking is an issue, since galleries are far apart from each other, therefore, take your car."

We didn't know the district layout, and thus, missed a lot of the galleries. Because I am new to the scene, I'm not 100 percent on which galleries we visited, but I recall Gallery Diet, Linda Copeland Studio/Gallery, Punk Rock Bourgeoisie, David Castillo Gallery and Lyle O. Reitzel. My favorite was Chelsea Galleria, which had a nice mix of artists and media, including some beautiful black and white images of Paris and Coney Island. I'm a sucker for carnival imagery.

I was less enthralled with the show at Diet, which looked like a collection of manuscripts hung on walls. I'm sure it symbolized something intriguing, but I didn't have the patience to dig through the layers. Another gallery (name?) was showing video art, including some pretty raw sex scenes, shot in night vision, a la Paris Hilton. Thankfully, I saw no mothers steer their strollers through those gallery doors.

One of the galleries had a painting of Philippe Petit (of "Man on Wire"), which instantly caught my eye. Adam made a good point in that the artist seemed overly fixated in making the wire walker's face recognizable, instead of capturing the essence of his faithful act. The final product was too flat to convey the magic of what Petit did on that day. For now, I will stick with the amazing photographs:

People's mode of dress was nearly as intriguing as the art. Miami is a city where anything goes, and the style abounds. This is people watching at its finest. Add to that, DJs, free booze and police that facilitate the process of revelers meandering down the street with glasses of wine, and you've got some wonderful free entertainment. Looking forward to next month's round.

Wynwood District Art Walk. Photo by A.B.