Public at Art Basel in Miami Beach
2016 marked the fourth year that Nicholas Baume, director and chief curator of Public Art Fund, New York, curated Public at Art Basel in Miami Beach. The theme ‘Ground Control’ framed this year’s selections, which included more than 20 site-specific works by established and emerging artists spanning 10 countries.
Produced in collaboration with The Bass for the past six years, the sector transformed Miami Beach’s Collins Park into an outdoor exhibition space with significant works by Magdalena Abakanowicz, David Adamo, Jean-Marie Appriou, Eric Baudart, Huma Bhabha, Yoan Capote, Claudia Comte, Matías Duville, Camille Henrot, Glenn Kaino, Alicja Kwade, Sol LeWitt, Wagner Malta Tavares, Tony Matelli, William J. O’Brien, Anthony Pearson, Norbert Prangenberg, Ugo Rondinone, Tony Tasset and Erwin Wurm.
Nicholas Baume’s curatorial focus for the 2016 show was ‘Ground Control’, inspired by David Bowie. Under this theme, the Public sector examined ways in which artists invent and imagine new kinds of space: physical, social and psychic.
Interpreting ‘Ground Control’ literally, the works invited viewers into new relationships with familiar surroundings and reframed Collins Park into a site for transformational experiences with contemporary art.
