Nicole Martinez

MIAMI BEACH — A year ago, when the unthinkable happened and the world first stood still, Sasha Wortzel would take a walk down to the beach every day at sunset. “It was one of the only things I could bring myself to do, but it also became a ritual or meditation each day,” they explained to Hyperallergic from their studio in Miami Beach. Like so many others, Wortzel was looking for ways to process the grief of lost connections, lost souls, and a loss of certainty. The sunset, with its habitual ...

By exposing the underlying systems that govern our society, the artist uncovers what is hiding in plain sight in a new work on view during the show

For Spanish King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Christopher Columbus' arrival in the Americas in 1492 represented an incredible opportunity to cement their legacy. If they could colonize this previously unknown part of the world -- rich with natural resources and inhabited by indigenous peoples -- they could create an empire the likes of which the world had never seen.
But to lay claim to these lands, the monarchs had to abide an edict from the ruling Pope Alexander VI, who, in a papal bull is...

Profile on shoe designer Gianvito Rossi

Art
“It’s been a very long day,” Paola Pivi exhales as we grab an outdoor table at a well-appointed café in Miami’s Design District. Though the nomadic artist hasn’t lived in her native Milan for some time, she effortlessly retains a Milanese sensibility. Dressed in a jacket and skirt by Maurizio Pecoraro and metallic Jimmy Choos, her warm eyes framed by large Thierry Lasry glasses, Pivi explains that she has spent the afternoon installing one of her iconic feathered bears in the Margulies Wa...

Fempower takes us inside its art slash fashion show exploring the future for black and brown people in a transforming world
The year is 2040. The world’s largest economic powers failed to heed the UN’s warning, in 2018, that we had 12 years to mitigate a climate change catastrophe. The atmosphere has warmed by 1.4 degrees Celsius, and in Miami, the effects are devastating. Heat and humidity have swelled to unbearable temperatures. Ninety per cent of the city’s vibrant coral reefs have vanishe...

Wilfredo Prieto's public art comes out of his nomadic life as an artist
The Cuban artist Wilfredo Prieto has broken ground on his most ambitious public art project—a road in the shape of an infinite loop. The 1km-long highway, Viaje Infinito (infinite journey), on 490 acres in Prieto’s hometown, Sancti Spiritus, in central Cuba, was announced at the 13th Havana Biennial in April, and is expected to be completed within two years.
The work is being constructed in a largely rural area, with seve...

In a strip of untamed wilderness lining one of the most affluent neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, the Argentine artist Eduardo Basualdo led a group of collectors to his monumental public installation Perspective of Absence. After trodding down a shoddy wooden dock for nearly half an hour, his guests arrived to what felt like the edge of the earth, where a giant revolving door loomed over a blue horizon. If any of those guests stepped through the portal, they would have fallen into another realm...

Supplement Projects is a communal home and a studio, alternative art space & community meeting point. The project explores ideas of domesticity with the urban landscape. As a place of comfort, communication, gathering and rest, it offers a provocative alternative to the often commercialized, hyperreal spaces of art galleries and institutions.
The space is run by Miami/Berlin based artist and arts organizer GeoVanna Gonzalez and represents artists Mahogany L. Browne (NYC), Lizania Cruz (NYC), ...

Cuba’s highly anticipated biennial, which kicks off this week, explores the future amid a turbulent present
Salvadoran performance artist and activist Alexia Miranda spent several weeks in Havana, weaving large, looming nets out of gauze and inviting seamstresses, artists, and even tourists to join her throughout the process. The socially engaged installation, titled Tejido Colectivo and shown at the Centro Contemporaneo Wilfredo Lam, was just one of the works produced specifically for the 13...

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that many private art collectors are also among the world’s wealthiest individuals: Art, after all, is often a high-worth commodity traded among storied institutions, private investment funds, and historically wealthy families. As a $71 billion industry, the art market has often served as both a vehicle for investment and an instrument of charitable giving – one that, in many cases, can lead to a significant tax break.
It’s embedded in United States tax law tha...

Dealers mount work that responds to political tensions while noting art is a 'difficult business' in Havana
The Havana Biennial opens on 12 April after its last edition was cancelled due to Hurricane Irma. In that time, the city’s gallery scene has weathered significant change since the show’s launch in 2015.
“A lot of new spaces popped up with President Obama’s announcement [to normalise US and Cuba relations in 2014],” Lida Lilian Sigas Nieto, the director of Havana’s El Apartamento gallery...

Paulo Nazareth believes his social art practice is driven by an innate thirst for rebellion. “Sometimes we don’t choose, we are chosen instead,” he says. “It’s difficult to escape the suffering, the ugly history and an ugly present; watching police brutality, seeing and feeling racism, feeling them watching you and following you all because of the color of your skin and the texture of your hair. This is the place from which I’m creating, using the gifts I have to hopefully change something wh...