Art Basel Miami Beach: Mural wars

Each year, for roughly two weeks culminating in early December, a battle erupts on the streets of Wynwood. Paint is the weapon of choice, and from ceilings to sidewalks, no surface stands unscathed as mural and graffiti artists from around the world form ranks during the frenzy leading up to Art Basel and Miami’s Art Week.

Stand beside them on the sidewalk, and pigment drips into your hair. Colors run in the gutters. Overspray seeps into your lungs. It’s a decidedly active spectacle unlike any other public art experience, demanding a heroic amount of hustle and labor from those who participate.

For any artist up to the challenge, “this place is magical,” said Sebastian Coolidge, arguably our most prolific Bay area mural-maker (CL graced him with a “Best Holy Shit This Guy is Everywhere” award in 2014’s Best of the Bay). Coolidge, 27, returned to Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood this year to make his mark, joined by a crew of artists from St. Petersburg and Tampa.

Formerly home to a bustling garment industry, Wynwood slipped into economic decline in the 1980s, and developers snapped up vacant warehouses just in time for Art Basel Miami Beach to arrive on the scene in 2002. While the featured event and its satellite fairs set up oceanside, independent exhibitions pepper the mainland region now known as the Wynwood Arts District, and its roughly 16 blocks are home to dozens of galleries, art studios, retail spaces, and restaurants.

Described by the district association as “one of the largest open-air street art installations in the world,” the walls of Wynwood inspire a nigh-mandatory annual pilgrimage for any professional (or would-be) muralist looking to get noticed. Every available surface provides a potential opportunity to get your style and message seen by masses: Basel attracts more than 75,000 collectors, artists, dealers, curators, critics, media, and art enthusiasts to Miami annually.

“The best of the best come down here for this,” said Elijah Barrett, 29, a painter and advocate who helps Coolidge with location scouting, color mixing, and “just about any and everything else.”

Carlos Culbertson – a mixed media powerhouse known on the local scene as Zulu Painter – signed on for his first Basel trip this year. Returning artist James Oleson is a metal sculptor, mural painter, and the driving force behind Bloom Art Center, St. Pete’s fast-growing DIY arts hub.

(Disclosure: Oleson and I share a romantic relationship, and I assist him in the management of Bloom Art Center.)

The Miami experience offers an uncommon opportunity to meet and learn from peers, but there’s not much time for networking, or for any of Basel’s storied parties. For this crew, it’s brush-to-the-wall 12 to 20 hours a day.

On Sunday morning, November 29, after Cuban cafecito and breakfast, they rolled out armed with three sketchbooks, two ladders, and a few hundred cans of paint.

British artist Phlegm was spotted, balancing his lift along a narrow ledge to paint an outsized linear work. Mural making is an often dangerous art, and it’s not unusual to spy an intently focused painter extending his or her reach above a precarious rig incorporating ladders, lifts, milk crates, or whatever is handy. “It’s all about making do with what you’ve got,” Culbertson said.

Barrett and Coolidge made calls trying to confirm the day’s location while peering through fences at three prospective sites. The crew then settled into a midtown hotel to sketch collaborative ideas and crack each other up listening to Drake’s “Hotline Bling” on repeat.

Talk jumped from the importance of drop shadows to the rapid-fire changes played out on city walls as murals are buffed from existence or defaced by graffiti. Coolidge got straight to the bottom line: “It happens. Welcome to Art Basel.”

It seemed to happen more than usual this year, and tensions built between muralists and graffiti writers. New tags of every shape and color, from inexpertly scrawled obscenities to carefully wrought wild style letters, appeared daily to obscure murals in progress, slowing work as artists painstakingly repainted wall sections layer upon layer.

A 100-foot-long stretch got tagged and retagged until rendered unrecognizable. While some of the graffiti appeared local in origin, word on the street linked Los Angeles-based graffiti crew Metro Transit Assassins to the heaviest activity. “It’s pretty incredible, the amount of tagging this year,” Barrett said. “A lot of amazing things aren’t protected the way they should be.”

As with any battle, there were bound to be casualties. During his stay, Oleson lost an extending pole and a ladder to thieves. Sessions were cut short by cops who failed to differentiate between illegal tags and permitted murals.

“A lot of people are scared of risk or putting themselves out there,” Barrett said. “To me it’s always been the opposite. I have faith in what we’re doing. I would rather throw it all to the fire every year and see. That’s how it’s meant to be. You take those risks and you’ll be rewarded.”

Back on the street by late afternoon, Coolidge stopped to talk with two young kids bouncing a basketball back and forth. In a flash, everyone pulled into an overgrown vacant lot, a little urban meadow adjacent to Iglesia de Dios Pentecostal MI, at 36 NE 29th Street across from the Rubell Family Collection.

Pastor Ricky Fuentes leads the church, which has been in the neighborhood since the early ‘80s. He gave permission for a mural to be painted over graffiti marking its exterior wall.

“We are called to be part of the community,” Fuentes said. “People really respond to the art. This whole area is going to be renovated within the next two years.”

There was an easy flow between the four painters, everyone doing their part without too much talk. You could hear wet rollers pushing paint into the textured wall. Extending poles were maneuvered high into the air for sketching the first freehand drafts. This crew is adamant about not using projectors – all their art comes “straight off the dome,” Oleson said. “You’ve got to go out there and find it raw.”

They shared equipment and opportunity in equal parts, getting further by working as a team. As dark set in, cords were passed across fences and under doors. Fanciful characters took shape in the spotlights: A gnarled toothy lady, a geometric dog walker and his Swiss-cheese puppy.

A group of young musicians from a sister church in Hollywood, Florida, saw the work in progress after coming to perform at a local homeless shelter. Andrew Rivera, 24, has watched layers of graffiti cover the building over time. “I hope your work stays up for years,” he said.

Fuentes also favors his new neo-surrealist mural over the former tags. He outspent his maintenance budget this year repairing graffiti as required by the city.

“It’s all a form of expression,” Fuentes said. “But to me, it has to say something, there has to be a message to what you’re expressing.”

By early morning, before sunrise, the crew had painted the finishing details. Across the street, fresh tags had appeared on a neighboring building that Fuentes said had already been hit with thousands in city code violation fees.

On Monday, the streets of Wynwood came alive once more. After a few hours of sleep, the artists returned with their eye on the next wall. The assault was back on, and for those who wanted a piece, it was time to seize the moment.

This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2015.