MIA: Inside The Sagamore Hotel Art Events

On Dec. 5 the Sagamore known as the art hotel welcomed over 3000 of the world’s most prominent artist, curators gallerists and art lovers to the 14th Annual Art Basel Brunch. The following week they exhibited many artworks in collaboration with several artist and organizations.

At the entrance of the hotel was an interactive installation titled Portal that connected residents and guests to strangers in Portal locations around the world, including Afghanistan, Cuba, Honduras, Mexico and more. This work is a global public art initiative linking locations around the world through gold shipping containers equipped with immersive audio-visual technology. Inside the portal you come face-to-face with a life-size person in a distant location as if they were in the same room. Postals created by Shared studios and artist Amar Bakshi currently exist in seven locations, including a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan. More thanks 7,000 people have engaged with each other through Portals, artists have collaborated thorough and even families have been reunited.

A massive hotel-wide video installation was curated by Lori Zippay, EAI’s Executive Director. All media artworks were selected from the extensive EAI archive from several artist, and presented formal, conceptual or perceptual transformations of natural landscapes and environments. The works cover five decades and range from playful to socially resonant.

Another piece on display was a site-specific installation created by renowned sculptor, Alan Sonfist. The installation was inspired by the artist’s stay at the Sagamore and the natural beauty of the elements that surround the beautiful property. It features a metal frozen in time visualizing the invisible elements such as time and space, and creates a remarkable contrast between man-made objects and nature. A time-lapse video of the building of the sculptor was shown during the brunch and on the hotel televisions.

Some of the notable attendees included renowned art critic and curator, Jerome Sans; Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Bass Museum of Art Miami Beach, Silvia Karman Cubiña; Owner of the Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Fred Snitzer; philanthropist Griselda Breene; renowned photographer Robin Hill; Art Basel VIP Director Stephanie Reed and guest curator Lori Zippay.