8 Standout Artworks to Discover at Art Basel Miami Beach

The mood in the opening hours was jubilant with a buzzy energy pervading through the aisles and in the first few hours, many of the top blue-chip galleries reported strong and swift sales, reflecting a much-needed energy injection after a sluggish market of late. “After a dark and nervous season, it feels like the clouds have broken and the perfect blue-sky weather here in Miami is reflecting the art world’s mood—buoyant and fully engaged minus the overly frantic energy of the past,” says Marc Payot, President of Hauser & Wirth, who chose to focus on American talent from their expansive roster, selling pieces by Charles Gaines, Christina Quarles, and George Condo among others. “The robust sales on this first day prove the art market is in a brighter place as this year ends.”

“We are in unknown times,” says the renowned New York-based advisor Erica Samuels, who was bringing a group of clients through the fair on opening morning, sharing how artists use the unknown to push the boundaries of art and culture. “I am excited to see the works on view today and to help make sense of this moment.”  

New York collectors Danielle and Matt Greenblatt were on the hunt for up-and-coming talent for their thoughtful and steadily growing collection of emerging artists. “It is a beautiful fair this year” says Danielle, who was excited about a few female painters including Emily Kraus at Luhring Augustine and Ambera Wellman, as well as a new discovery, Nino Kapanadze, a young artist from Tbilisi, Georgia.

Below, we share some of the highlights.

1. Danielle Orchard at Perrotin Gallery 

Perrotin gallery is presenting a solo presentation of new paintings by Massachusetts artist Danielle Orchard, who revisits the history of paintings and the bather motif to propose new representations of womanhood, with her signature Cubist lines. Inspired by the experience of having her first child, her presentation in Miami simultaneously reveals both the expectations of pregnancy and the reality of motherhood. “Painting for me has always been a means to observe my life and my position in the world, while also combing through art history for connections and insights into the work and lives of other artists,” Orchard tells Galerie. “I hope these works might resonate with anyone who has been pregnant or had a child, but also demonstrate that pregnancy and postpartum health are vital parts of the human experience that shouldn’t be flattened or minimized for political gains.” Priced between $40,000-95,000, all four works had sold by the end of day, with one piece going to a major institution. 

2. Olga de Amaral at Lisson 

With a major retrospective currently on view at the Cartier Foundation in Paris, the 92-year-old Colombian artist Olga de Amaral is a standout at Lisson Gallery’s booth. Since the 1960s, the trailblazing talent has been pushing the boundaries of fiber and textile art with her magnificent, three dimensional creations crafted with a variety of materials such as linen, cotton, horsehair, gesso, goldleaf, and palladium. The piece on view at Lisson is from a 1980s series created with goldleaf titled “Alquimias,” which came about through an encounter with the ceramist Lucie Rie and her kintsugi practice. De Amaral soon began to transform the surface of her textiles with shimmering shades of gold. “As I build surfaces, I create spaces of meditation, contemplation, and reflection,” the artist said in a statement. “Every small unit that forms the surface is not only significant in itself, but is also deeply resonant of the whole. Likewise, the whole is deeply resonant of each individual element.”

3. Keith Haring at Gladstone Gallery

A key piece at the dynamic booth of Gladstone Gallery is a historic glass panel work by legendary New York artist Keith Haring. Originally painted by Haring on the window of Dalton’s Bookstore on 6th Avenue and 8th Street in New York City, this striking piece is filled with the artist’s signature visual motifs including a snake and a baby and dancing figures pulsating within the frame. The panel captures both the lively performative elements of his early subway drawings as well his astounding technical skill as a painter most seen in his later works. The piece sold for $2 million on the first day.

4. Jordan Nassar at James Cohan Gallery 

Best known for his exquisitely embroidered landscapes exploring his Palestinian roots, Jordan Nassar’s star is firmly on the rise. This monumental hand-embroidered piece was featured in a solo museum exhibition at the ICA in Boston in 2023. Titled Song of Flowers, it draws on traditional Palestinian craft techniques to explore themes of home, land, and memory. Created in collaboration with Palestinian craftspeople, the painterly textile work features geometric patterns with abstracted landscapes that pull the viewer in. The work sold to a foundation in Asia for $220,000.

5. Emily Kraus at Luhring Augustine

After joining Luhring Augustine’s roster just last month, Emily Kraus’s painting was a standout at the New York gallery’s booth. Her unique works are made by looping raw canvas around four stainless steel struts that function as rollers while anchoring the corners of her cube-like apparatus. She then applies paint, pulling the canvas around the structure, which spreads the pigment. While working, Kraus is only able to view a small section of the composition at a time, forcing her to reply on her visual memory. A delightful exchange of chance, memory, and machinery, Kraus’s rhythmic painting can be considered a fascinating documentation of the present moment that they were created.

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6.  Kim Dacres and Melissa Joseph at Charles Moffett 

 Making his Art Basel Miami debut, Tribeca gallery Charles Moffett presents a selection of new works by two New York-based artists, Kim Dacres and Melissa Joseph. Dacres, who is an artist of Jamaican descent, creates powerful figurative sculptures out of found tires and rubber coated in sleek black spray paint; their hair beautifully braided and knotted in elaborate styles to explore themes of identity and self expression. Joseph’s unique visual language, meanwhile, is textiles. A rising figure in the world of fiber and textile arts, Joseph creates vibrantly-hued work in felt and found objects that touch on memory and personal family histories. She had a recent solo exhibition in Rockefeller Center by Art Production Fund and has work currently on view at the Brooklyn Museum’s 200th anniversary exhibition. “We wanted to shape a presentation of work that was of course visually engaging, but also felt genuinely singular in a material and narrative sense as well,” Moffett tells Galerie. “Both artists’ careers are really hitting a stride, so now feels like a strong moment to showcase their art on the kind of stage that Art Basel offers.” Four works by each artist had sold on the first day marking a successful fair debut. 

7. Nina Surel at Spinello Miami Beach 

Nina Surel is a Miami-based multidisciplinary artist from Argentina who uses materials like clay, plants, and raw canvas to explore such themes of transformation, aging, resilience, and fragility. The packed booth included a monumental ceramic wall relief, Greta Chamotta (2024) depicting two nude goddess-like figures as well as a selection of ceramic tablets, sculptures, and hand-built vessels. Surels 2023 work Allegory of Florida was selected by the Miami Beach residents for the Legacy Purchase Program, which is an annual initiative to add works to the city’s public art collection. The wall relief is composed of over 100 pieces of stoneware ceramic and imagines Florida as a goddess of feminine fertility, filled with references to native flora and fauna. “It’s my pleasure to represent and place the second work into the Legacy Collection by a woman artist,” says gallery director Anthony Spinello. “This acquisition and recognition hits differently considering women artists are still underrepresented, undervalued, and especially at a time when women’s rights are being challenged.”

8. Justin Caguiat at Modern Art

Born in Tokyo and now living in California and New York, Justin Caguiat is a fast-rising artist and poet whose recent solo exhibitions include Wesleyan Center for the Arts, Middletown (2024); Modern Art, London (2023); and Greene Naftali, New York (2022). His mesmerizing, dreamlike paintings depict otherworldly realms where figures and patterns recede into stretches of kaleidoscopic pattern and color which seems to seem out the confines of the canvas. “This painting by Justin Caguiat at Modern Art was one of my favorite works of the fair,” says Greenblatt. “He’s truly in a league of his own and his work looks and feels of a bygone era.”