For those of us stuck in the slushy northern reaches of the country, the first weeks of December are always painful — for the internet (and Instagram, and Twitter) is full of interesting art on view at Design Miami and Art Untiled. Here’s some of the best of what we’re missing out on (or, if you hate Miami, narrowly avoiding).
There was plenty to see at all three concurrent shows this year. But for starters, these are the pieces — from solar-powered sculptures to chairs built out of salvaged circuitry — that stood out.
Björn Schülke’s Kinetic Sculptures
New York’s Bitforms Gallery put on a lovely mini-show at Art Untitled, including work by Björn Schülke, a German media artist whose work knits engineering and technology into incredible kinetic installations. For example, one piece called Luftraum is a mobile whose whirrs and clicks are powered by solar panels, motor, wood, aluminium, carbon fibre, custom circuits, and motion sensors — it’s like a mini ISS, hanging in the middle of a gallery. [Image: ArtNet]
Pavilion by Formlessfinder
One of the coolest parts of Design Miami/ wasn’t actually on view inside the tent — it was the tent. The pavilion was designed by Bronx-based architects Formlessfinder, who cantilevered an aluminium roof on a huge pile of sand trucked in from the beach. [Images: Design Miami/; Azure]
Phare No. 1-9 by Simon Heijdens
Dutch designer Simon Heijdens spent a year creating this Perrier-Jouët-sponsored installation, which looks deceptively simple: A simple white room is hung with nine hand-blown glass vials, each filled with mixture of water and photo-sensitive dye. Using wind sensors on the roof of the pavilion, a bulb at the top of each vessel activates the dye, creating billowing abstract patterns on the floor based on the weather. The piece’s inscrutable name — Phare No. 1-9 — makes much more sense in context, since phare is French for lighthouse. [Images: Archiexpo]
Binary Collection by Benjamin Rollins Caldwell
Benjamin Caldwell makes each of his pieces from discarded electronics, salvaged from local warehouses. At Design Miami/, the South Carolina-based artist is showing a few new pieces — including textiles woven from circuitry. [Images: PSFK]
Occupant by Daniel Arsham
The Greenpoint-based Arsham — who is one half of architecture firm Snarkitecture — debuted a new piece at Design Miami/ that meditates on abandoned or obsolete product design: Dozens of objects, from Polaroid cameras to ghetto blasters, are cast and moulded in volcanic ash. In a dance piece that also debuted in Miami, performers used the same objects — these ones cast in chalk — to make marks a the stage floor, leaving a human-sized drawing in their wake. [Images and video: Crane.TV]