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.”

Gary Nader Fine Art’s collection of Botero monumental sculptures is also a spectacular site. About 50 Botero sculptures of various sizes will take part in the show, including Male Torso, which has been exhibited in more than 20 cities worldwide since 1992. Botero’s children, Juan Carlos and Lina, will attend the opening exhibition show on the great artist’s behalf.

The gallery celebrates the master artists, like Botero, Picasso, Matta, Matisse, and Lichtenstein, but it also represents the upcoming, notable artists as well. Thus the grand show may be Botero, but the gallery will also highlight Enrique Martinez Celaya: Selected Work 1992-2010, which is a broad survey of work by the Cuban-born artist who works in various medias like painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, and installation and is most known for his large-scale paintings made from tar and other materials.

“Celaya is incomparable to any other artist at his age (46),” Nader explains. “If you look at his curriculum, the collectors who praise him, his museum showings, it’s an amazing array of achievements for such a young man in the arts. He’s a critic’s artist, which makes him a very valuable artist in the contemporary world.

Enrique Martinez Celaya: Selected Work 1992-2010 will follow Celaya’s commissioned installation of four paintings for the world’s largest cathedral, the Church of St. John the Divine in New York City, and his works at the Museum of Biblical Art in New York City. Gary Nader Fine Art will publish a 180-page hardcover book of Celeya’s works, which will be available for purchase during Art Basel along with a 250-page hardcover book of Botero’s masterpieces.

Nader was following Celaya’s work for a few years before the artist opened his Whale & Star studio here in Miami. “I went to visit him and I was amazed. Not only by his quality of work but also by his conviction as an artist. The way he conducts himself and the ways he conducts his profession are unparallel.”

But the didactic gallerist was most impressed by Celaya’s own commitment to art education. “He teaches to underprivileged children in the studio. He give talks to fellow artists, art critics, and the public.” Celaya capitulates everything Nader respects in a young artist: “the quality, the force, the willingness to do something different.”

Not that Celaya needs Gary Nader Fine Art as a platform to jumpstart his worldwide acclaims. “He’s already there,” Nader says. “But there is always room for growth.” And there’s no better exposure than a spectacular showcase at the Gary Nader Fine Art gallery during Art Basel Miami Beach.

As an art dealer for more than 30 years, Nader was not only “born with the eye,” he’s also studied the subject since he was a little boy growing up in his father’s gallery. His work desk is not a desk, but a library of art books, magazines, and journals piling high on the table and the floor surrounding it. “You have to go to the museums and the art shows and fairs. You have to read the books, search the Internet, and study new artists every day.” Nader opened his first gallery at the mere age of 19 in the Dominican Republic and by age 23, he had his first art gallery in Miami located in Coconut Grove.

“It’s been a long road, but people have responded. I have collectors all over the world who trust my eyes and my judgment. It’s very hard to keep a gallery open. So I’m really proud of what I do.”