“People instructed us it was a extremely arduous weekend,” says Matt Caines, a managing accomplice for the competition who additionally handles expertise reserving. According to him, the competition selected Thanksgiving weekend to keep away from conflicting immediately with both Art Week the next weekend or Miami Music Week in March, to say nothing of the off-season. Organizers fielded presents to high acts, solely to have them pull out due to the vacation.
“The problem with the date is that it is out of touring season,” Caines says. “At a sure level, you have to take what you will get.”
Still, the truth that the competition is even holding a second version will be seen as proof that they’ve risen to the event. It helps that, relatively than focusing on the Art Week fly-ins or the “all-night rave” crowd, they’re making an effort to drag in a wide-ranging, family-friendly viewers.
The music lineup in Art With Me is replete with each massive worldwide expertise and native favorites from throughout the style spectrum. Caines, who will himself play a DJ set beneath his personal identify, says he prioritized reserving acts with a “subtle, feel-good, timeless sound.” Top-line DJs corresponding to Jaime xx, SG Lewis, Moderat, and Bedouin will play alongside singer-songwriters like Vagabon in addition to local-origin bands Haute Tension and Magdalena Bay. Pretty good for “taking what you will get.”
And music is only one aspect of the competition. Art With Me boasts six “core pillars” that transcend music and humanities into life-style, wellness, and tech. “Dance With Me” is the musical element. “Breathe With Me” is a full slate of wellness applications that includes yoga, sound therapeutic, meditation, and related actions. There’s “Eat With Me,” the food and drinks program; “Care With Me,” the competition’s nonprofit basis; and “Play With Me,” the youngsters’s exercise part.
Then there’s the artwork. The competition guarantees loads of unbelievable interactions with immersive artworks, large-scale installations, an NFT gallery, dwell muralists, and even artwork courses. Last 12 months pulled in legendary native figures like Mira Lehr. This 12 months, works on show will embody Adelita, Chris Carnabuci’s large sculpture of a feminine determine breaking freed from chains that premiered this 12 months at Burning Man. Berlin-based Argentinian artist Marina Zumi will current a nighttime mild set up. Other contributors embody Daniel Jonathan Popper and Miami’s personal Moksha Arts Collective. Caines sees Art With Me as a chance to advertise artists who won’t get a look-in at Art Basel or its satellite tv for pc festivals.
Beyond these disciplines, there’s additionally the pure setting of Historic Virginia Key Beach Park, which Caines considers a necessary aspect of the competition expertise. “The park is a pleasure to work with,” he says. “We love being in nature, that is a element of Art With Me.”
Other festivals have additionally taken benefit of the island’s idyllic oceanside setting. The all-night dance music celebration Rakastella has taken place at Virginia Key each Art Week since 2017. Ultra Music Festival additionally held its chaotic 2019 version there after being quickly ousted from Bayfront Park.
Despite its recognition amongst occasion planners and the general public, the park, a neighborhood favourite that was a segregated, Black-only seashore throughout the Jim Crow period, has confronted threats from the town authorities as of late. On September 13, the City of Miami Commission voted to take management of the park from the majority-Black Virginia Key Beach Park Trust. The transfer got here after protests over embattled District 3 Commissioner Joe Carollo’s proposal to show the general public seashore right into a holding zone for the town’s homeless ended with the fee voting to terminate Esther Alonso’s lease on the Virginia Key Outdoor Center.
Art With Me could also be an opportunity to transcend these considerations, at the least for a weekend. Caines emphasizes it as an occasion for everybody and an opportunity for the neighborhood to attach and luxuriate in artwork, nature, and rather more in a setting that is so far as doable from the white tents and gallery partitions on South Beach.
“It was a problem to maneuver into the U.S. and begin a brand new competition, and this 12 months, beginning in 12 months two, we have gained a variety of momentum and a variety of development,” he says. “We’re going to ship an incredible expertise, and we’re simply going to continue to grow and gaining alternatives to realize extra over the subsequent couple of years.”
– Douglas Markowitz, ArtburstMiami.com
Art With Me 2022. 1 p.m. to three a.m., Saturday, November 26, and Sunday, November 27, at  Virginia Key Beach Park, 4020 Virginia Beach Dr., Miami; miami.artwithme.org. Tickets value $75 to $169.