Public: 26 works by international artists will transform Collins Park

Nicholas Baume, Director and Chief Curator of Public Art Fund, returns for his second year curating Art Basel’s Public sector. Under the theme Fieldwork, Public will transform Miami Beach’s Collins Park into an outdoor exhibition space with 26 large-scale and site-specific installations by leading and emerging artists from 13 countries. Produced in partnership with the Bass Museum of Art for the fourth consecutive year, the sector will include work by Georg Baselitz, Lynda Benglis, Matthias Bitzer, Sarah Braman, Ana Luiza Dias Batista, Sam Ekwurtzel, Elmgreen & Dragset, Faivovich & Goldberg, Nuria Fuster, Ryan Gander, Jeppe Hein, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Alfredo Jaar, Gunilla Klingberg, Jose Carlos Martinat, Justin Matherly, Olaf Metzel, Sam Moyer, Ernesto Neto, Ugo Rondinone, Nancy Rubins, Yinka Shonibare MBE, Jessica Stockholder, Barthélémy Toguo, Tatiana Trouvé, and Hank Willis Thomas with Ryan Alexiev and Jim Ricks.

Public will open on Wednesday, December 3, with a special evening program of live performances by Ryan Gander, Christian Falsnaes, Liz Glynn and Dawn Kasper, and Alix Pearlstein.

Focusing on the potential for public art to challenge artists and viewers, Nicholas Baume’s curatorial premise of Fieldwork will center on the idea of experimentation. In Collins Park artists will try out their ideas and verify them 'in the field'.

Public will include several site-specific works conceived especially for the exhibition by Ryan Gander, Sam Moyer and Jessica Stockholder. Some of the selected works will engage with the architecture of Collins’ Park, like Ugo Rondinone’s intervention on the Bass Museum façade or Alfredo Jaar’s on the park’s rotunda. This year, the sector will extend beyond Collins Park to include a performance-installation by Gunilla Klingberg on the nearby beach, where an intricate geometric pattern will be imprinted into the sand every morning, gradually being erased over the course of the day.

Both Lynda Benglis and Tatiana Trouvé will be represented with works that reconceive the classical fountain, while Nancy Rubins' and Nuria Fuster's works will give new meaning to found objects and scrap materials. Familiar images will shift scale and significance in sculptures by Yinka Shonibare MBE and Barthélémy Toguo, while perceptions of space and form will be challenged by Matthias Bitzer, Sarah Braman, Jeppe Hein and Jessica Jackson Hutchins.

On display will be one of Georg Baselitz's rare bronzes; Ana Luiza Dias Batista's scaled replica of a popular 1980's Brazilian amusement park attraction; and Elmgreen & Dragset’s formal golden-bronze equestrian statue of a young boy riding a rocking horse, a scaled version of the artists' Fourth Plinth commission in London's Trafalgar Square.

Also on view will be nós sonhando (2014), a sculpture by Ernesto Neto that functions as a playful double hammock for two, giving visitors the opportunity to slow down and pause. Sam Ekwurtzel’s mole tunnels cast in aluminum and Jose Carlos Martinat’s cacophonous audio-mechanical installation will reflect on art history. History and politics will come together in Faivovich & Goldberg’s 3.6-ton sculpture composed of 12 fragments that render the contour of the Chaco province of Argentina, as well as in Olaf Metzel’s sculpture revolving around recent American history. Meanwhile, Hank Willis Thomas and collaborators from the Cause Collective will invite visitors to record their own truth within a portable and inflatable Truth Booth in the shape of a giant cartoon speech bubble.

As in the past two years, a selection of artworks will remain installed in Collins Park through March 2015 as part of tc: temporary contemporary, which is present by the Bass Museum of Art in partnership with the City of Miami Beach.

A series of live performances will be presented on Public’s Opening Night on Wednesday, December 3. Alix Pearlstein will invite actors carrying illumination panels to circulate amongst the crowd, at times spotlighting artworks and other objects. Ryan Gander will equip curator Nicholas Baume with two bodyguards, heightening the visibility and the actions of the curator. The boundary between stage and audience will be disrupted with Christian Falsnaes’ participatory collective performance, in which a large-scale structure is continuously spray painted, torn down, displayed and subsequently rebuilt. Liz Glynn and Dawn Kasper will transform the Collins Park Rotunda into a pulsating and animated geodesic planetarium, questioning how we locate ourselves within the vast universe of seen and unseen forces.

Public Opening Night, which is free and open to the public, will take place in Collins Park on Wednesday, December 3, from 8.30 pm to 10pm. The Public sector is free of charge and open to the public from December 4 to December 7. Tours will be offered daily at 10.30am, 11.30am and 12.30pm.

Collins Park is located between 21st and 22nd Street, in close proximity of the exhibition halls within the Miami Beach Convention Center and adjacent to The Bass Museum of Art.

On Friday, December 5, from 5pm to 6pm, Art Basel's Salon program will see Nicholas Baume in conversation with Ryan Gander, Lyz Glynn and Nicolás Goldberg. Art Basel entry tickets include admission to Salon.

More information on the sector is available in the full press release attached and at artbasel.com/miamibeach/public.

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