Every year in December, the art world descends on Miami for the bacchanalia that is Art Basel Miami Beach and its dozen or so competing fairs. Always game for a sun-drenched art overdose, the TOKION staff donned our best cabana wear and joined the caravan heading south from LaGuardia to check out the goods. As we made our rounds of the fairs—from Basel to Aqua to Scope to Nada to Pulse to Fountain—we started losing our bearings in the dizzying sea of overstuffed gallery booths, each calling out with their shiny objects for our fleeting attention. In search of a foothold and surrounded by artists and art fans, we picked a few of the more intriguing faces out of the crowd to get their takes on the trends and highlights of the fairs—and to get their take on the wheeling and dealing that drives them as well. The best way to make sense of Art Basel Miami Beach, we found out, is through the eyes of many.

JENNIFER GARCIA
ARTIST, NEW YORK

What brings you here to the Fountain Fair? I’m here with the We-Are-Familia collective. I’m one of the founders.
Tell me about We-Are-Familia. We’re joining the forces of art, design, illustration, photography and video. Whenever I go to a museum or gallery that I really like, I feel like I’m at home. So the project is in that collective spirit. Our main project is this series of keepsake boxes.
So, what’s in the boxes? There are about fifty of us in the collective, and each box contains about forty or forty-five pieces of artwork, so it’s a collaboration of the entire collective. All the work inside the boxes is based on the idea of family and each box has totally unique contents..
How did you find fifty people? Friends, friends of friends, and also I just contacted people through email—people I’ve seen featured in magazines, work I’ve liked.
Are you enjoying the Fountain Fair so far? Fountain is amazing. The people that are running it are amazing—super nice, easy to work with. They kind of let you run free and express yourself however you see fit.
Do you feel and tension between art and commerce here? No, it’s great to make a living doing what you love.
What is the We-Are-Familia code? Be in the collaborative spirit, and use whatever you have around you, including yourself, to make beautiful things.