Day 1: Hit the Fair

Day 2: Satellite Art Fairs

Liste

VOLTA

Basel Social Club

Day 3: Hit the Museums

Kunstmuseum Basel

Fondation Beyeler

Favorite Collateral Exhibits

Don’t miss this! Tucked away at Palazzo Rota Ivancich this show is awe inspiring.

“For centuries we thought we were alone. We imagined ourselves at the centre of all things—the measure of progress, the author of peace, the keeper of paradise and the pinnacle of evolution. As the exhibition unfolds, the animals reveal themselves, not as metaphors or relics, but as messengers of a different truth. In their gaze, we confront the price of our domestication—how we tamed the world and, in doing so, lost our own wildness. This is not nostalgia for a lost Eden, but a confrontation with the limits of human exceptionalism. Nature does not need our pity, only our willingness to coexist. The minor key of survival is not conquest, but reciprocity and hybridity.”Koen Vanmechelen, artist

If you got the opportunity to be in Miami for art week…lucky you, this is just a review. But if you missed it here’s our quick breakdown of some of our fave fairs!

The Beach

Art Basel

Vibe: The flagship fair — cosmopolitan, commercial, and huge.

Basel feels like the super bowl of art – and can be overwhelming in its vastness, but it provides moments of joy and wonder throughout. This year was no different, so much to see, so much to ponder, and art that was talked about all through the town. Beeple’s “Regular Animals” installation was a smash hit with it’s not so subtle criticism of celebrity, power and maybe even robots. This is the place where major acquisitions and cultural conversations happen.

Untitled

Vibe: Curated, thoughtful, international.

I get excited when I put in the address to the beach in my Uber app. And even more excited when I get to the Untitled tent! It’s all part of the art week experience! Its layout and programming are designed to encourage discovery with depth, making it a favorite for visitors who want art that’s intellectually engaging and globally resonant. I love the feel of this fair and particularly enjoyed the Nest section of the fair which “bridges social and cultural divides within contemporary art”.

Scope

Vibe: Energetic, playful, and often edge-pushing.

Scope brings a youthful, vibrant energy to the Miami art fair scene with experimental contemporary art, immersive installations, and a strong presence of performance and new media work. Less formal than the major fairs, Scope’s atmosphere encourages exploration and interaction.

Wynwood + Downtown

Art Miami

Vibe: A curated, collector-focused atmosphere.

Known for blending accessible presentation with serious content, at Art Miami you can engage with significant historical names as well as discover exciting contemporary work. The fair strikes a balance between commercial dealings and aesthetics, which resonates with seasoned collectors and curious first-time attendees. A busy opening night and lots of sales and networking make this a definite must-attend fair.

CONTEXT Art Miami

Vibe: A curated and discovery-oriented fair.

CONTEXT creates an atmosphere where collectors, curators, and art fans can engage directly with innovative, cutting-edge work — including solo artist presentations, special exhibitions, and fresh projects created just for the fair. A friendlier smaller venue that enables more chats and engagement than some larger fairs.

NADA

Vibe: Vanguard, experimental, discovery-driven.

This is widely known as a hotspot for emerging and experimental art, with a focus on innovative galleries, nonprofit spaces, and artist-run initiatives. It’s less commercial than the big fairs, and often the place where fresh voices and bold curatorial experiments first make their mark. Take your time here and listen to a panel or presentation and enjoy the lovely outside lounge.

Spectrum Miami

Vibe: An artist driven art fair/experience.

Spectrum is an art party. From the Art Theater presentations to Jason Perez’s Street Art booth, this fair blends approachable accessible art with collectors from far and wide. You get to see the whole process here in some cases. Art being made, exhibited, and sold all in one venue. Come and meet all the up and coming artists here.

Red Dot Miami

Vibe: International scope with a strong focus on high-quality gallery presentations.

Red Dot looked great this year, with familiar names and new exhibiting galleries all reporting success. Red Dot had a huge opening night with attendance up all weekend and lots of sales. It celebrated its 20th edition in 2025, making it one of the longest-running and most respected satellite fairs of the week.

It seems like after a slight downturn last year the art market is getting some momentum. Collectors and galleries reported solid engagement all week, particularly in fairs that focus on emerging and mid-career artists. And 2025 continued to solidify Miami’s role as a vibrant, dynamic center of contemporary art and culture each December.

Planning your Miami Art Week? Don’t forget to add these unmissable fairs to your itinerary.

Art Basel Miami Beach

Japan is a wonderland of sites, sounds, smells and tastes. But save some time in your day after wandering the temples and shrines to see some truly exceptional art. Recently I had the privilege of exploring Tokyo and Hakone, and discovering some of the art destinations they have to offer.

The National Art Center, Tokyo

The exhibition traces how Japanese art evolved during a pivotal 20-year period—from 1989 (the end of the Shōwa era) through to 2010—when Japan and the world were undergoing rapid globalization, social shifts and the breakdown of old certainties.

It features the work of over 50 artists from Japan and abroad, examining how artists in Japan engaged with new international currents while also reflecting on Japan’s own history, identity and cultural transformation. As someone who wasn’t that familiar with modern Japanese art this exhibit felt like a crash course. And left me doing my own research on different artists I had just discovered.

The exhibition fosters a dialogue between Italy and Japan, between tradition and innovation, between craft and contemporary art. The show highlights the interplay of Italian (Roman) jewellery heritage and Japanese aesthetics—how craftsmanship, design culture and color sensibilities intersect across cultures. For example, the scenography is a collaborative effort between Italian and Japanese studios.

It also emphasises craft: the high-jewellery techniques, the bold gemstone combinations in Bvlgari’s history. All in all a very fun way to discover an iconic brand in an unusual setting, that revealed the truly museum worthiness of this jewelry.

MORI Art Museum

https://www.mori.art.museum/en/
A breathtaking view of Tokyo and a very interesting modern art museum. The exhibit I got to see was:

The Architecture of Sou Fujimoto: Primordial Future Forest

July 2 – Nov. 9, 2025

This is the first major survey exhibition of Sou Fujimoto’s architectural career, covering roughly 30 years of his work—from early projects to future-oriented concepts. Fujimoto’s architecture often explores the boundary between nature and the built environment: he uses metaphors like the forest, openness, many layers and ambiguous boundaries.
As a former art school student it was fun to watch his foam core concepts become immense buildings and see his process from start to finish.

Yoyoi Kusama Museum

The exhibition “Fighting Woman / Painting Girl” at the Yayoi Kusama Museum in Tokyo (October 16, 2025 – March 8, 2026) explores two contrasting yet complementary identities in Kusama’s long career: the “fighting woman” and the “painting girl.”

The exhibition assembles early drawings, sculptures from her “Accumulation” phase confronting her fears around sexuality and form, archival documentation of performances and bold fashion projects, along with more recent painting series and 3-D works of girls and flowers. It also includes a world-premiere small mirror room. Check this out if you can tickets are limited and not sold at the door!

teamLab Borderless: MORI Building DIGITAL ART MUSEUM

The museum offers a truly immersive digital-art experience. Visitors wander through large, darkened spaces filled with floor-to-ceiling projections, motion-sensors, mirrors, and light installations that respond to movement and presence.
If you’re in Tokyo and you have time, this is well worth visiting — especially if you enjoy light, technology, interactive art and want something different from the standard museum.

The Hakone Open Air Museum

The museum’s location is so lovely — tucked in the mountains of Hakone, one hardly knows where to look first, the art or the scenery.

The sculpture park is large and maze-like with a winding path that trails lead off of. Stay focused and meander through large‑scale works by very famous sculptors (e.g., Henry Moore, Pablo Picasso).

There are indoor offerings as well including the Picasso Pavilion featuring an impressive collection of his works across media in a single museum. There is something here for everyone from children to art aficionados. I keep thinking of this lovely place all the time. It’s well worth the trek!

Art Santa Fe

https://redwoodartgroup.com/art-santa-fe
July 11 – 13, 2025

IFAM

https://folkartmarket.org/
July 10-13, 2025

IFAM 2025 featured  approximately 150 master folk artists and cooperatives from 57 countries. Artists achieved $3.88 million in sales, setting an organizational record and underscoring the market’s global economic impact. The market feels like a fun art party and has something for everyone.
IFAM 2025 was a powerful celebration of global folk art—blending cultural exchange, economic empowerment, and creative education in a festive, inclusive atmosphere. With immersive programming and significant sales success, it underscored the potential of folk art markets to transcend commerce and foster connection.

SITE Santa Fe

https://www.sitesantafe.org/en/
https://www.sitesantafe.org/en/once-within-a-time/
Once Within a Time
June 27, 2025 – January 12, 2026
 
Once Within a Time is a meandering narrative collage that reimagines Santa Fe as both artifact and stage—a living archive of stories, mythologies, and artistic interventions. Whether discovered within the SITE building or in unexpected local storefronts, each stop offers a glimpse into how personal histories loop into collective memory.
The exhibition foregrounds storytelling—both oral and visual—by pairing contemporary artworks with historical or fictional characters connected to Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico. Many commissions are site-specific, activating the distinctiveness of each venue with immersive installations and narrative encounters

Museum of New Mexico Foundation

Vladem
https://www.museumfoundation.org/

Timeless Mucha: The Magic of Line
June 20, 2025 – September 21, 2025
Timeless Mucha: The Magic of Line is a beautifully curated, historically rich retrospective celebrating Mucha not only as an emblem of Art Nouveau, but also as a pioneer in mass‑visual communication. The exhibition’s layout bridges early works and global legacy, making it both informative and immersive. If you can’t make it to Santa Fe, its next stop will be  Nelson‑Atkins Museum, Kansas City (April–August 2026).

Organized by the Mucha Foundation, this ambitious show features over 100 works from the Mucha Trust Collection, highlighting Alphonse Mucha’s development—from student drawings and book illustrations to his iconic posters and designs that created the Art Nouveau movement.

And in a fun twist it also explores the 1960s–70s revival of his aesthetic, showing its influence on psychedelic rock posters (e.g., Grateful Dead, Rolling Stones), comic books, and Japanese manga.

Museum of New Mexico Foundation

https://www.museumfoundation.org/
Eugenie Shonnard: Breaking the Mold

March 8 – September 1, 2025
“Eugenie Shonnard: Breaking the Mold” marks the inaugural posthumous exhibition of Eugenie Shonnard (1886–1978), a pioneering woman sculptor whose career carved a place for itself in American Modernism—especially within the artistic landscape of the Southwest

Breaking the Mold is a compelling and deeply research-driven exhibition that reclaims Eugenie Shonnard’s place in American art history—especially within the Southwest. It reveals her convergence of European Modernist training with local iconography and forms, and showcases her inventive spirit through material innovation and formal sensitivity.

Georgia O’Keefe Museum

https://www.okeeffemuseum.org/
A Circle Nothing Can Break
November 11, 2024 – March 1, 2026
This exhibition begins with a quote from a letter to her future husband Alfred Stieglitz, with Georgia comparing their relationship to “a circle that nothing can break”.  This quote shows the importance of one of O’Keeffe’s most evocative motifs—the circle. It surveys key moments in her career when circular shapes and spirals emerge in her abstractions—first in the formative 1910s, and again in her late-period work during the 1970s, after a long hiatus from such themes.

The show features early works created under Alfred Stieglitz’s influence in New York and those from later challenging periods—including post-Stieglitz grief and her late creative revival—offering emotional and formal continuity through this simple but expressive geometric form

A trip to Chicago this summer proved to have an amazing array of varied art exhibitions. With something for everyone…If you find yourself in the midwest anywhere near these institutions be sure to check these out for yourself.

Chicago Art Institute

Frida Kahlo’s Month in Paris: A Friendship with Mary Reynolds
https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/10397/frida-kahlo-s-month-in-paris-a-frie…
Mar 29–Jul 13, 2025

Did you see it? Maybe you missed it — but this great exhibit on Kahlo was a very intimate show that outlined a friendship and leaves one wondering the influence this connection had on the future work of both artists. The exhibition centered on a specific era: Kahlo’s brief stay in Paris in early 1939, where she became ill and stayed with Mary Reynolds, an avant-garde American bookbinder and partner of Marcel Duchamp. Much of the show was comprised of approximately 100 objects, including seven major self‑portraits by Kahlo, Reynolds’s unique bookbindings, letters by Kahlo, photographs, works on paper, and prints.

The beautifully staged objects and letters offered a glimpse into Kahlo’s mindset and community during a transformative period.

For more on the exhibit check out:

Book: Frida Kahlo’s Month in Paris — A Friendship with Mary Reynolds

Click here for an excerpt.

Gustave Caillebotte: Painting His World

https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/10068/gustave-caillebotte-painting-his-wo…

Jun 29–Oct 5, 2025

This major review of over 120 works—paintings, drawings, and photographs—shows Caillebotte’s creative evolution from the mid‑1870s through his death in 1894.  Previously the exhibition was at Musée d’Orsay in October 2024 and then toured the Getty before opening in Chicago. At first the work seemed familiar but I couldn’t place anything specific I had seen before but as the show progressed I kept stumbling upon Caillebotte’s very familiar masterpieces. Including: Paris Street; Rainy Day (1877), Floor Scrapers (1875) and the recently acquired Boating Party.

Caillebotte’s private world—his family, social circle, athletic pursuits, and the city he loved all come into beautiful focus here. If you enjoy Impressionism and someone who sees the beauty in everyday things this is a must-see show.

Museum of Contemporary Art

https://mcachicago.org/

Paul Pfeiffer: Prologue to the Story of the Birth of Freedom
May 03, 2025 – August 31, 2025
https://visit.mcachicago.org/exhibitions/paul-pfeiffer-prologue-to-the-stor…

Paul Pfeiffer: Prologue to the Story of the Birth of Freedom is a compelling, conceptually rich exhibition that invites the viewer into a critical re-examination of mass media. Each space the show exists in creates new ways to confront a viewer. As you try to understand what is being shown to you, one often finds the humor in the sad concepts explored. Whether through disembodied basketball players, floating trophies, or erased celebrities,  It’s an immersive journey into media criticism—and an aesthetic experience that redefines what a video‐centric retrospective can be.

Wafaa Bilal: Indulge Me is a provocative and haunting career survey that leverages immersive design and media to expolore war, surveillance, and cultural exploitation. Whether examining geopolitics through paintballs, implantable cameras, or orbiting busts, the exhibition forces viewers to confront their role in global systems of power. It’s a bold reflection on how art can engage, implicate, and subvert. Don’t miss the game Bilal developed, that let’s one decide who to shoot as you wander a compound.

If you’re wandering in the South this Spring looking for an amazing art experience look no further than the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. I had heard of it and still was not prepared for how interesting and frankly breathtaking the museum itself is. As we pulled into park…I wondered “is this a museum?” Surrounded by lovely walking trails and a sculpture park, the museum is nestled almost underground, so your journey begins with an elevator ride down. The collection sprawls through a series of interconnected buildings hovering over a lake. By all means explore, take a walk on one of the gorgeous trails, and have a delicious meal in the cafe while you’re here.

But whatever you do — don’t miss the “KAWS: FAMILY” exhibit. It offers a compelling and expansive look into the world of contemporary artist KAWS. This U.S. premiere builds upon its initial showing at the Art Gallery of Ontario, presenting an enriched collection that spans the artist’s career.

A Journey Through KAWS’ Artistic Evolution

The exhibition is anchored by the 2021 sculpture FAMILY, depicting four of KAWS’ signature characters in a familial arrangement. This piece sets the thematic tone for the show, exploring complex and heartfelt human emotions through the lens of pop culture-inspired figures . Visitors are guided through a series of “families” of works, showcasing KAWS’ evolution from his early graffiti and altered advertisements to his more recent large-scale sculptures and installations .​

Curated by Alejo Benedetti, the exhibition underscores Crystal Bridges’ commitment to bringing significant contemporary art to the region. The museum’s unique architecture and natural surroundings enhance the visitor experience, creating a narrative journey that reflects KAWS’ own storytelling through art .​

“KAWS: FAMILY” is on view through July 28, 2025.

Wandering the west coast and love art? Here’s what’s been going on at museums from Seattle to San Francisco!

FOG San Francisco 2025: An Extravaganza for Contemporary Art Lovers

As an art fair junkie who just happened to be in San Francisco this January, I felt it was my duty to check out the 2025 FOG Art Fair. The day was bright and windy and I set off to the Pier to see the fair for the first time. This fun event is held on the waterfront, with a charming farmer’s market happening outside. But inside the fair immersive experiences and cutting-edge art was everywhere. A unique selection of high-end galleries, designers, and artists, abounded.

I strolled the fair enjoying the energized vibe of a quite busy Sunday afternoon with people of all ages thoroughly engaging with the art. In the Focus section of the fair, children participated in activities, while adults watched an experimental film. I pressed onward, enjoying the collection of futuristic furniture and design objects that used sustainable materials in innovative ways. A delightful lunch in the pop up restaurant was just what I needed, before meandering my way through the crowd and on with my day.

Overall FOG was an exciting collection of galleries and artists with a perfect balance of sophistication and approachability. The fair also hosted numerous panel discussions, artist talks, and hands-on workshops for those wanting a more in-depth experience. I highly recommend this fair for travelers like myself and Bay Area locals looking for a fun weekend or an amazing work of art.

FOG Design+Art

fog@fogfair.com
@fogfair
#fogfair

January 22-25, 2026
Fort Mason Center