The Most Important Art Dealer

For Art Basel Miami Beach, Gary Nader Fine Art gallery will present Fernando Botero: The Grand Show, Enrique Martinez Celaya: Selected Work 1992-2010, and Miami’s first sculpture BIENNALE.

Gary Nader Fine Art is the largest and most important private fine art gallery in the world, with 55,000 square feet of space to display the greatest Modern, Contemporary, and Latin American artists. This naturally makes Gary Nader himself one of the most important gallerists of this region. With his great influence in the Miami art community that extends beyond to the international art world, Nader brings to the city for the first time ever an unprecedented cultural opportunity. From Dec. 2 through Jan. 20, when you stroll along the Biscayne Boulevard corridor in downtown Miami, starting from the Intercontinental Hotel to the American Airlines Arena, you will pass more than 50 sculptures ranging from medium to monumental scale from renowned modern and contemporary artists of 22 different countries.

This is the first edition of the non-profit Miami/Miami Beach Sculpture Biennale, which according to Nader, has been a long time coming for the scenic city that boasts sunny weather year-round. “One of the most important and most sought-out art event in the world is the biennale,” Nader explains. Biennales are an almost century-old tradition in which countries send in their best artists to display contemporary art in outdoor pavilions or plazas, attracting hundreds of thousands of people every two years to major world cities like Venice, Sao Paulo, Istanbul, and New York City to name a few. Nader chose to focus this year’s inaugural event solely on sculptures because, “three-dimensional art calls to me,” he says.

Nader estimates the Biennale will draw a crowd of 200,000. “I will expose the people of Miami and all over the world to an experience they’ve never had before, and I chose downtown because it’s one of the most beautiful places in the city,” he says. “We have received incredible responses for this non-profit show of sculptures. We thought we would only start with 15, and now we have 50 major pieces coming.” The Biennale will start inside the Intercontinental Hotel, which will host some of the medium-size sculptures as well as expose people to the hotel’s 70-ton Henry Moore sculpture. “I want people to know that we have one of the most important Henry Moore sculptures in the world already here in Miami,” Nader says. In fact, there are many sculptures scattered around the city’s public and corporate spaces that people may or may not be aware of. To highlight this legacy, a video installation on display at the Biennale will survey the 60 or so sculptures positioned around Miami and Miami Beach.

Most importantly, Nader, who considers himself an educator and the Gary Nader Fine Art gallery a didactic institution, hopes school busses of children will make their way to Bayfront Park. “I want children to be exposed to the sculptures,” he explains. “When I lent my Fernando Botero monumental sculptures to the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, they called me in desperation that the children were climbing the sculptures. I said, ‘Let them climb! We can always clean the sculptures later.’ To be able to touch artwork is a beautiful thing.”

Back at the gallery located in the Wynwood arts district, Gary Nader Fine Art will offer two can’t-miss exhibitions during Art Basel Miami Beach. The gallery kicks off ABMB with an exclusive dinner and exhibition opening, sponsored in part by Haute Living, of two significant collections on Tuesday, Nov. 30 for private collectors and media only. The main fanfare is Fernando Botero: The Grand Show, a comprehensive collection of more than 100 paintings, sculptures, and drawings from the most celebrated living Latin American artist. About 80 percent of Botero’s work on display will be for sale.

This will be the fourth Botero show at Gary Nader Fine Art, but it is by far the biggest. The exhibit intends to showcase Botero’s different subject matters over the last six decades, such as the circus personages, bullfighting, and life in Latin America. “Botero’s corpulent style has become the most recognizable signature in the world as well as the most published,” says Nader. “We know his work very well and consult him in everything that we do. I’m proud to say we have the largest and most important permanent collection of Botero paintings, sculptures, and drawings in the world.”

The gallerist’s relationship with Botero is a personal one. “Our families are very close. It’s very rewarding to have a good, personal relationship with an artist of that caliber. It’s one of the most exciting experiences for an art dealer to socialize and exchange ideas with a living artist. Everybody knows a significant artist always needs an important dealer or gallery.”