This year’s Art Kabinett program at Art Basel Miami Beach 2009, December 3 – 6, 2009 promises to be an exciting mix of tightly focused exhibitions within the show, including thematic group exhibitions and solo shows from both emerging artists and historical figures.

For Art Basel Miami Beach 2009 the Selection Committee has chosen 28 galleries to present Art Kabinett – separate areas within the booths of the Art Galleries sector, providing a space to exhibit single artists’ works and thematic group exhibitions, spotlighting the curatorial skills of the gallerists.

The 28 projects in this sector of the show feature a wide array of artists, ranging from emerging artists such as Jakub Julian Ziotkowski, Haegue Yang and Latifa Echakhch
to historical figures like Marcel Duchamp, George Grosz and Jack Tworkov. Further highlights include projects by Olafur Eliasson, Anish Kapoor, Richard Prince and Wim Delvoye. Group shows include exhibitions titled “Ninety years of Bauhaus” and “Aspects of Pop Art”.
Below, you can find all the 2009 Art Kabinett at a glance; a detailed description of each follows.

Gallery Bernier/Eliades, Athens / Ry Rocklen
Niels Borch Jensen Editions & Gallery, Berlin / Olafur Eliasson
Galeria Luciana Brito, São Paulo / Waldemar Cordeiro & Geraldo de Barros
Valerie Carberry Gallery, Chicago / Jack Tworkov
Galleria Continua, San Gimignano / Carlos Garaicoa
Maxwell Davidson Gallery, New York / Tom Wesselman
Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich/Zug/St Moritz / “Aspects of Pop Art”
Galerie Haas & Fuchs, Berlin / George Grosz
Hauser & Wirth, Zurich/London/New York / Jakub Julian Ziotkowski
francesca kaufmann, Milan / Latifa Echakhch
Galerie Kicken Berlin, Berlin / “Ninety years of Bauhaus”
Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich / Zilla Leutenegger
Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York / Cameron
Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles / Bruce Conner
Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna / Fluxus
Kukje Gallery, Seoul / Haegue Yang
Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris / Christian Vetter
Mary-Anne Martin / Fine Art, New York / Gunther Gerzso
Barbara Mathes Gallery, New York / Fausto Meloti
Galeria Millan, São Paulo / Mira Schendel
Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York / Jack Tworkov
Francis M. Naumann Fine Art, New York / Marcel Duchamp
Carolina Nitsch Contemporary Art, New York / Vera Lutter
The Paragon Press, London / Anish Kapoor
Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York / Amy Sillman
Sperone Westwater, New York / Wim Delvoye
Allan Stone Gallery, New York / Wayne Thiebaud
Two Palms, New York / Richard Prince

Gallery Bernier/Eliades (Athens) presents new works by Ry Rocklen (born 1978), who turns abandoned objects into sculptures. For Art Kabinett, Rocklen will create a set of “carpet tiles” in a mosaic pattern acting as pedestals for the sculptures.

Niels Borch Jensen Editions & Gallery (Berlin) presents the “Colour Circle Series,” a project by Olafur Eliasson (born 1967), that he has been engaged with for more than two years, and which has just been completed. The series is composed of three parts, and each part includes three circles that experiment with mixing colours. In this work, Eliasson draws
upon and combines several of the various media that have defined his opus to date.

Galeria Luciana Brito (São Paulo) will be showing pioneering works by two historic artists, who highly influenced Brazilian contemporary art history: Geraldo de Barros (1923-1998) and Waldemar Cordeiro (1925-1973). The show will present Geraldo de Barros “Fotoformas” (1946 – 1951), a pioneering series of experimental photography in which
he recreated scenes and images by layering the negatives, and digital art by Waldemar Cordeiro implying a social and political commentary.

In two separate Art Kabinett shows, Mitchell-Innes & Nash (New York) and Valerie Carberry Gallery (Chicago) focus on the work of Jack Tworkov (1900-1982), a central member of the New York Abstract Expressionists. The Mitchell-Innes & Nash Art Kabinett celebrates the publication of Tworkov’s collected writings, and will provide a small, focused preview of a major exhibition at the gallery in 2010. Valerie Carberry Gallery shows early works from his seminal “Women” series, a series of Cubist and Abstract Expressionist portraits and related drawings.

The Maxwell Davidson Gallery (New York) mounts a solo exhibition of drawings and collages by Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004) that were created between 1959 and 1969. The exhibition will touch on central themes to Wesselmann’s work, such as “smoker studies,” still lives, bedroom themes and the nude. Many of the drawings are on view for the first time.

In their survey “Aspects of Pop Art,” Galerie Gmurzynska (Zurich/Zug/St Moritz) examines the masters of the Pop Art movement, such as Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004), Robert Indiana (born 1928), Jasper Johns (born 1930), Ed Ruscha (born 1937) and Andy Warhol (1928-1987). The works will be put in context with works by important precedents to the Pop Art movement, as well as more contemporary artists, to show the continued influence of this generation of artists.

The installation by Carlos Garaicoa (born 1967) at the booth of Galeria Continua (San Gimignano) “Las Joyas de la Corona” (2009) was conceived with its possible impact on
two audiences in mind: Those living under political systems where human rights are more obviously suppressed, and those in systems that claim to have solved such contradictions, as in the case of Europe. Without lecturing or moralizing, Garaicoa’s work strives to high-light the urgency of his most pressing concern: The need for humanizing our societies.

Galerie Haas & Fuchs (Berlin) presents early works by George Grosz (1893-1959), who was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity group during the Weimar Republic. In his merciless satirical drawings and watercolors, as well as his anti-war paintings, Grosz reflects on the energy and confusion of this period.

Hauser & Wirth (Zurich/London/New York) introduces a solo presentation of works by polish painter Jakub Julian Ziolkowski (born 1980), depicting a world rich with details and inhabited by emotions and obsessions. His canvases teem with motifs that generate a feeling of hallucinated multiplication and burst with a chain of references from modern abstraction’s geometry to Street Art, Philip Guston and Hyeronimus Bosch.

francesca kaufmann (Milan) mounts the installation “Erratum” (2004) by Maroccan artist Latifa Echakhch (born 1974). “Erratum” uses the quintessential Orientalist object – com-mercial replications of Moroccan tea glasses – which, following the example of Richard Serra’s seminal work “Throw Lead,” are flung against a wall to destroy their symmetrical decoration. Thus, the commonplace cultural objects are emptied of their form and function, appearing as a mass of silent violence.

In their Art Kabinett Kicken Berlin (Berlin) celebrate the ninety years of Bauhaus. No other school influenced twentieth-century art and design as did the Bauhaus. Kicken Gallery presents previously unpublished material, along with masterpieces by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), Walter Peterhans (1897-1960) and others.

Zilla Leutenegger (born 1968) presents a new 3-dimensional video installation at the Art Kabinett booth of Galerie Peter Kilchmann (Zurich). The installation comprises a sculpture of a drum kit, a single-video project and a wall drawing in a separate space.

Nicole Klagsburn Gallery (New York) presents a curated installation of drawings by vi-sionary artist Cameron (Marjorie Cameron Parsons Kimmel, 1922-1995). This presentation continues the gallery’s longstanding interest in the artists of the West Coast Beat Generation counterculture and will situate Cameron’s drawings as part of a wide-ranging mystical, performative, and literary practice that resonates within a more contemporary context.

Michael Kohn Gallery (Los Angeles) exhibits a selection of the rare “Inkblot Drawings” by Bruce Conner (1933-2008), a central figure of the Beat community in San Francisco, and a prolific and widely varied artist. Conner’s “Inkblot Drawings” were created in the last 18 years of his life under different pseudonyms. Many of them integrate collage elements and display an extraordinary level of intricacy and elegance.

Galerie Krinzinger (Vienna) mounts an Art Kabinett exhibition entirely dedicated to Fluxus. On view are films and documentations of performances that were staged in the gallery in Vienna in the early 1990s, a historic overview of Fluxus works, as well as important posters from the era. The exhibition will comprise pieces by important Fluxus artists such as Robert Filliou (1926-1987), Yoko Ono (born 1933), Nam June Paik (1932-2006), Carolee Schneemann (born 1939), Daniel Spoerri (born 1930), Emmett Williams (1925-2007) and others.

Kukje Gallery (Seoul) presents a new installation by Korean artist Haegue Yang (born 1971). Yang creates a tableau of light sculptures that will function both in two and three dimensions. Anchored on the wall and exploiting the architectural structure of the booth, the work confronts the viewer by cascading from the ceiling and spooling on the floor. The piece is a continuation of a long-running series of works the artist calls “A Series of Vulnerable Arrangements.”

Galerie Yvon Lambert (New York/Paris) presents a solo show of paintings by Swiss artist Christian Vetter (born 1970). On view will be a series of abstract melancholic paintings in Vetter’s signature grey, black and white palette.

The one-man show at Mary-Anne Martin Fine Art (New York) focuses on Gerzso (1915-2000) in his Surrealist period. Included are an arresting self-portrait from 1945 and “Naufragio” (Shipwreck) from the same year. Also featured is the melancholy allegory, “La Barca,” a 1941 painting from the artist’s estate, which has rarely been illustrated and never before been exhibited.

Barbara Mathes Gallery (New York) mounts an exhibition of the work of Italian sculptor Fausto Melotti (1901-1986), fusing Constructivist technical rigor with the Surrealist fantastical and biomorphic vocabulary. Melotti’s finely wrought sculptures, all from the seventies, highlight the artists unique sculptural idiom and virtuosic command of line, light and space.

The Art Kabinett of Galeria Millan (São Paulo) features a never-before-exhibited series of colored drawings by Mira Schendel (1919-1988), one of the most significant Latin-American artists during the second half of the 20th century. The exhibition highlights a rare body of work from the seventies.

“Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Chess” at Francis M. Naumann Fine Art (New York) is the first exhibition devoted to exploring the influence of Duchamp’s activities as a chess player on his artistic production. The exhibition features the magnificent early Cubist drawing “Study
for Portrait of Chess Players” (1911), the readymade “Trébuchet” (1917/64), a number of photographs of Duchamp (1887-1968) either playing chess or seated before a chessboard, and works by a number of Duchamp’s contemporaries – Man Ray, Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí, Arman and Sarah Austin – and chess-related pieces by contemporary artists such as Yoko Ono, Jennifer Shahade, Diana Thater, Douglas Vogel – some of whom have made works specially for inclusion in this show.

Carolina Nitsch Contemporary Art (New York) stages a digital slide projection “Samar Hussein” (2003-2009) by Vera Lutter (born 1960), presenting 500 images in an endless loop. The works commemorates the estimated 100,000 civilian deaths caused by the American-led occupation of Iraq since March 2003. Using information obtained from the Iraq Body Count project, names of the dead were applied to the sequence of projected images of blooming Hibiscus plants.

The Paragon Press (London) presents a series of nine etchings by Anish Kapoor (born 1954). Anish Kapoor’s work explores the artist’s fascination with the ambivalence between depth and surface, presence and absence, darkness and light. In his latest series of etch-ings – Kapoor’s largest to date – two main strands of his oeuvre – the pigment and the void-theme converge.

Sikkema Jenkins & Co. (New York) presents an Art Kabinett with new works by Amy Sillman (born 1966). Silman’s drawings diagram pure information in lists and charts on the psychological and physical body. The paintings extend those drawing by combining various forms found in those drawings with paint.

A one-man exhibition featuring “Gothic” sculptures by Wim Delvoye (born 1965) is on view
at Sperone Westwater (New York). Delvoye’s work celebrates paradox and builds on the Belgian surrealist tradition of combining two seemingly unrelated elements into a single work of art, like using the elegant style of gothic cathedral architecture to create models of functional equipment such as caterpillars, cement mixers and others.

The Allan Stone Gallery (New York) features figurative paintings and drawings by Wayne Thiebaud (born 1920). Thiebaud’s figure paintings have rich paradoxical properties: They seem to suggest a completeness of physical being, yet painted as they are against a backdrop of colorless emptiness, evoke a feeling of isolation within the viewer.

Two Palms (New York) installs one of Richard Prince’s new “After Dark” miniature library sculptures. Prince (born 1949) is best known for his critique of the insidious myths of American consumer culture. The “After Dark” book collection is based on a series of sixties era pulp fiction paperbacks by the same name. The collection is part Minimalist homage, part consumer culture critique, part interrupted absurdist American male fantasy.