How do I characterize Day 3, Tuesday, at Art Week 2025? We spent our daytime at several fairs that had only just opened. Later, we answered the call from several galleries and we went. Again, our choices were based on the continual need to conserve our energy for the big days ahead … and traffic.

Constant Companion started at Untitled, one of two contemporary art fairs set in tents right on the beach. In the morning, I put on my museum hat and went to a conversation about how museums engage their communities at the Wolfsonian. Presented by the American Federation of Arts, the Director of the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami talked about changes overtime at the museum. One of her goals is to “help people see themselves in our spaces.”

I decided not to go to Scope, the other fair on the beach, and made my way to Untitled to meet Constant Companion. As usual, we went at our own paces. It was a morning of art and conversations with friends.

Wow, the first thing I saw was Tiff Massey’s installation featuring an oversized representation of gold earrings, as worn by Fullah women in West Africa. Massey is a metalsmith from Detroit known for scaling up her jewelry to celebrate the history of West African and Black American culture.

The collages of South Carolina’s low country Gullah artist, Leroy Campbell. Campbell is a self-taught artist, he uses paper and other found objects in combination with acrylic paint to create inspirational works of art.

I know there was much, much more art to take in, but my time in Untitled was short. I plan a leisurely afternoon to return and see more. Design Miami was calling my name and that was our next destination.

In the meantime, Miami Beach, somewhat recently, made the local – maybe national news – for standing up and refusing to remove our Pride Sidewalk on Ocean Drive. One Sunday evening a work crew showed up and ripped it out (https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/rainbow-crosswalk-removed-miami-beach-protests-rcna236113). The response of the city is to install banners such as this one.

The Collector’s Opening at Design Miami is always a delight. It’s a slower pace to take in all that is new and different in design. And also see some items that take you to your past! It’s also a time to enjoy Perrier-Jouët! Along with the bubbly, this company usually has an installation that inspires thought.

Maison Perrier-Jouët’s heritage is rooted in the Art Nouveau movement, which harmoniously linked nature, beauty and craftsmanship to create a connection between the natural world and human intervention. They take nature as an endless source of inspiration and share a positive and meaningful vision of the world.

Austrian studio Mischer’traxler created “Ephemera,” a mechanical ornamental garden whose plants retract when the viewer gets too close. It is “an allegory of the impact our presence can have on the balance of the ecosystem to which we belong.”

Next stop was at R & Company and this delicate beaded lamp by the Haas brothers.

The amazing early 20^th century baskets from the Pomo people of California at Arte y Ritual from Madrid drew me in. They took me back to an undergraduate research project on Native American basketry.

The innovative beadwork by Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota artist, Bobby “Dues” Wilson, illustrates innovation in the world of Native American artists.

Bobby Dues is also a comedian and his humor mixes with traditional Native American beadwork to offer “social commentary on the generic … landscapes of the USA.”

And then there was the Moss Girl by Finnish sculptor Kim Simmonson presented by Hostler Burrows. For several years, large scale installations of his Moss People graced Design Miami to the delight of the fair goers. I missed seeing them again, this year.

A few weeks ago, I was visiting a friend in Finland and saw Reading Sleeping Moss Girl in the WeeGee in Espoo.

Another installation at the 2022 Design Miami featured the sculptural piece, Shroom Cactus, designed by A$AP Rocky in collaboration with Italian design studio Gufram. To make a long story short, during 2022 Art Week, a small version of the “cactus” seemed to drop from the sky into our front yard; she lives on the kitchen windowsill and brings a smile to my face every day. I was so pleased to see an oversized version, mushroom coat rack as part of the display for Ray Phoenix.

This year’s Design District commission is Katie Stout’s “Gargantua’s Thumb,” a series of sculptural benches. A teaser in the form of a carousel was delighting Design Miami visitors.

Art Week is always a journey into art history. This day’s lesson was the immersive space created by Piaget. The metallic-gold walls of their Gold Factory are a tribute to Andy Warhol’s iconic studio The Factory, also known as The Silver Factory. The walls and ceiling of his 47^th street studiowere covered with aluminum foil. All surfaces from the toilet to the copy machine and the floor were spray painted silver creating a world of silver. Piaget reimagined Warhol’s world in gold.

Next stop was home and a rest before picking up the thread in the evening.

Under a very bright, full moon, we returned to Allapattah (see 12-2-25 for more about the neighborhood). There, right the Produce Market, the largest open-air food distribution center in Miami, curator Omar Lopez-Chahoud staged an innovative exhibition, “Fragments of Displacement.”

Imagine groups of well-heeled art lovers on the way to a nighttime of Art Week parties tromping around semis in a warehouse district! Lots has been posted on Instagram for the curious.

Next we made our way from warehouses to Miami’s destination for fashion and design, the Design District and the Juan Carlos Maldonado Collection (JCMC). Their offering for the season is “Urban Forms,” a series of recently acquired works by Paolo Gasparini, an Italian-Venezuelan photographer who documents some of the modern efforts in the field of architecture, especially in Brazil and Venezuela. The photos are displayed alongside a few works representing geometric abstraction that characterize the collection.  

Finally, we went next door to the David Castillo Gallery. The main exhibit was Landscapes from Studio Lenca. I was drawn, however, to a temporary wall filled with artwork created by children that illustrated immigration narratives from Central and South America to the US.

I guess, most of the people were talking after a long art day, very few seemed to notice these small works that captivated Constant Companion

I’m running a day behind … today is the start of Day 5, imagine that. I’ll get Day 4 in somehow. And as usual, I have been collecting images of art inspired attire. Today officially starts with another breakfast, a morning art fair, and the opening of Art Basel Miami Beach, the main attraction.