Miami Art Week 2024: The Latino artists to watch

The cultural agenda during Miami Art Week is overwhelming, frenetic, and filled with overlapping events. Navigating it all is a challenge, as the limits of time and space make it impossible to attend everything. The key, therefore, is to prioritize — and doing so in advance is highly recommended to avoid missing the most exciting showings.

In this article, we focus on essential Latino artists, though the offerings span a broad and diverse range. At Art Basel’s Galleries section, located in the Miami Beach Convention Center, the French gallery Mor Charpentier stands out with an impressive presentation of eight contemporary Latin American artists. These include Colombians Daniel Correa Mejía, Carlos Motta, Noemí Pérez, Daniel Otero Torres, and Óscar Muñoz; Mexican artist Teresa Margolles; Salvadoran Guadalupe Maravilla; and Argentine Liliana Porter. This curated selection explores the dynamic relationship between nature and humanity through lenses such as migratory currents, Indigenous communities, and environmental activism. For art enthusiasts eager to experience an exceptional cross-section of contemporary Latino creativity, stand E28 is an unmissable stop.

For those seeking fresh perspectives from emerging Latino talents, Pinta Miami is an essential visit. This satellite fair focuses exclusively on multidisciplinary contemporary art from artists across Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula. Its 12th edition features 45 gallery stands and includes a captivating sculpture garden designed by Rafael Barrios and Rafael Rangel Serrano. A standout exhibit, To Paint the Forest Beings, showcases paintings by Indigenous artists of varying generations from the Shipibo-Konibo community in the Peruvian Amazon. Pinta Miami is located in The Hangar in Coconut Grove, one of Miami’s most verdant and affluent neighborhoods. This adds a unique dimension for visitors looking to experience a broader view of the city beyond the neon glow of South Beach.

Zilia Sánchez

With a career spanning 60 years, Zilia Sánchez stands as a monumental figure in the art world. At 98 years old, she is the oldest artist participating in this year’s fair. Born to a Spanish father and a Cuban mother, Sánchez has long been based in Puerto Rico. Her work seamlessly integrates the principles of Latin American modernism with geometric abstraction and minimalism.

One of her most iconic pieces, Erotic Topology, was titled with the help of her friend, Cuban poet Severo Sarduy, and perfectly captures her understated yet profoundly evocative style. Remarkably, Sánchez was 92 years old when her first retrospective was held in the United States at The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., in 2019 — a testament to the delayed recognition often experienced by women artists throughout history.

At the 22nd edition of Art Basel Miami, Galerie Lelong & Co. highlights Sánchez’s contributions in the Kabinett section. The gallery presents two sensual sculptures in marble and bronze, both created in 2019 and inspired by the female form.

Where to see her work: Art Basel. Miami Beach Convention Center. Kabinett Section, Stand E16.

Federico Herrero

Born in 1978, Costa Rican artist Federico Herrero had his first exhibition at just 20 years old. Despite his relative youth, his career is already extensive. For Herrero, painting is not flat but comes alive through the senses. His work — ranging from vivid murals to the monoprints he began creating three years ago — blends abstraction and figuration, characterized by an exuberance of color and dynamic forms.

Herrero’s international career has flourished over the years. In 2013, he created an artwork on the roof of La Casa Encendida in Madrid, and his commissions have spanned Japan, Canada, Switzerland, and the U.K. Considered one of the most significant Latin American artists today, Herrero’s work has been showcased in major institutions, including the MoMA and the Guggenheim. He has also participated in prominent biennials, notably the São Paulo Biennial and the 49th Venice Biennial, where he was awarded the Special Prize for Young Artists in 2001.

At this year’s Art Basel Miami, the Sies + Höke gallery from Düsseldorf presents Night Blue, a series of Herrero’s paintings accompanied by a floor painting designed specifically to create an immersive experience. This ephemeral installation is intended to vanish once the fair concludes.

Where to see his work: Art Basel. Miami Beach Convention Center. Kabinett Section, Stand C9.

Óscar Munoz

Born in 1951, Colombian artist Óscar Muñoz invites viewers to actively engage with his work, uncovering layers of meaning in his enigmatic creations. His art confronts themes of identity and mortality, often depicting ghostly, mist-like bodies and faces that challenge conventional description. Through these haunting images, Muñoz provokes questions about perception: who is observing, and who is being observed?

His poetic charcoal drawings carry a deep atmospheric narrative, prioritizing sensation over presence. With these works, Muñoz subverts assumptions such as defining or recognizing someone based on their photographic representation — a resource often institutionalized in forms like ID cards and passports. His art delves into dichotomies like reality versus illusion and reality versus perception. Echoing Roland Barthes, he questions how photography, with its definitive and unchanging nature, can represent a person who is fluid and ever-changing.

Muñoz’s work has been exhibited globally in institutions such as the Centre Pompidou, MoMA, MALBA, La Caixa, Museo Tamayo, the Cartier Foundation, and Tate Modern. His pieces are also part of numerous prestigious collections. In 2022, after numerous solo exhibitions worldwide, Muñoz had his first retrospective in the United States. Titled Invisibilia, the exhibition at the Blanton Museum of Art (Austin, Texas) covered his 50-year career.

At this year’s Art Basel Miami, the Parisian gallery Mor Charpentier has chosen Muñoz for the Kabinett section, which is dedicated to monographic exhibitions. His video Sandman explores themes of disappearance and impermanence through a silhouette that moves and appears intermittently on sand — an evocative meditation on the human condition.

Where to see his work: Art Basel. Miami Beach Convention Center. Kabinett Section, Stand E28.

José Parlá

Art extends far beyond the South Beach Convention Center, and for those eager to explore, the Pérez Art Museum (PAMM) in Downtown Miami offers an exceptional exhibition: Homecoming, a solo show by José Parlá, the 51-year-old, Miami-born artist of Cuban descent. The title of the exhibition reflects not only Parlá's first solo show in his hometown, but also his personal return to himself. In 2021, Parlá spent four months in a coma, after being hospitalized with Covid-19 and suffering a stroke. During this challenging time, he underwent extensive physical therapy to regain strength and mobility, as his body had atrophied to the point where he could no longer hold a paintbrush. “Homecoming is about exploring what home is,” the artist explains.

Parlá — who currently resides in Brooklyn — has earned global acclaim for his monumental murals. Among his most famous works is the one that has adorned the lobby of One World Trade Center in New York since 2014: ONE: Union of the Senses, which stretches over 27 meters, making it the longest painting on display in the city. Another notable piece is the Diary of Brooklyn mural, which stands 21 meters long and three meters high at the Barclays Center in New York. Completed when Parlá was only 39, it features words like “immigration,” “Brooklyn is,” and even “Jay-Z.” The rapper Jay-Z, a long-time admirer of Parlá's work, was instrumental in commissioning the mural.

The Homecoming exhibition is divided into two parts. In the first, visitors can see Parlá in the act of painting a mural. The second part showcases his finished works in a room transformed into the artist’s studio, along with a display of his vinyl collection and other memorabilia.

Where to see his work: Pérez Art Museum, PAMM, and Meridians at Art Basel.

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