Art Basel Miami Beach is Scaling Up in 2019

Art Basel Miami Beach, one of the most comprehensive art fair in North America with over 260 galleries from 33 countries, just announced a new sector called Meridians. The new area will receive large-scale projects in the Grand Ballroom of the Miami Beach Convention Center, home to the event each year.

The idea is similar to the Unlimited section at Art Basel’s fair in Switzerland, and it will be curated by independent curator and critic Magalí Arriola, who will request works from galleries and artists before a selection committee picks which pieces will be in the exhibition this year.

In a statement to the press, Arriola said: “Meridians brings enormous possibilities to Art Basel in Miami Beach, creating a vibrant platform for large-scale sculptures, installations, and moving image works, as well as performance—which did not have a dedicated space at the fair until now.”

The new ballroom at Convention Center sits over 60,000 feet and is connected to the main exhibition area; this amount of space will allow bigger art pieces to be showcased that would be too big for a conventional booth size.

Noah Horowitz, Art Basel’s director of the Americas, said: “The sheer scale of the Grand Ballroom and its immediate proximity to the show floor give us unprecedented opportunities to present ambitious artistic projects that go far beyond the limits of the conventional art fair layout.” He completed that the project “heralds an exciting new chapter for Art Basel in Miami Beach.”