The art and design exhibition brings influential collectors, gallerists, designers, curators, and critics from around the world to Miami, and to your own home.
Aerial view of The Moore Building, in Miami Design District featuring billboard artwork by Adler Guerrier, in partnership with For Freedoms.
Design Miami returns to the Miami Design District for its sixteenth edition, November 27 –December 6.
Taking advantage of the recently launched Design Miami/Shop, the 2020 edition of Design Miami rolls out a new curated concept Design Miami/Podium, which will be more accessible than ever, with multi-channel sales efforts facilitating participation from regional collectors and international clientele.
The Moore Building exhibition marks a return to the same venue that launched the fair in 2005,
this time bolstered by the dynamic surroundings of the architecturally-led Miami Design District,
throughout which Design Miami’s programming will extend. The central Design Miami/Podium
exhibition will be housed throughout the historic building’s four floors which surround "Elastika," the
striking architectural intervention by late architect Zaha Hadid and commissioned by Dacra
president and Design Miami/ founder Craig Robins.
Girl with Fans, Jolie Ngo, 2020: Courtesy of NGO Studio.
The fair is a cornerstone of the diverse cultural programming slated for the Miami Design District during this vibrant week in Miami. To ensure the wellbeing of its staff, exhibitors, and guests, Design Miami/ has implemented health and safety protocols in consultation with the University of Miami Health System and has extended the runtime to ten days, to facilitate viewing at low capacity.
“Despite the circumstances of this year, it’s with pride that we welcome Design Miami/Podium to where it all began. The Miami Design District has grown and evolved since the first edition of the fair and this year acts as the perfect backdrop to an indoor/outdoor staging of the world’s greatest collectible design,” says exhibition founder Craig Robins.
Moore Building Elastika by Zaha Hadid. Courtesy of Luis Gomez.
Presented under the theme of America(s), overseen by curatorial director Aric Chen, the timely exhibition calls into question the meaning and understanding of America and its identity through the juxtaposition of important works of design and craft. Chen, the Chicago-born, Shanghai-based curator worked with Design Miami galleries to select the works, while inviting independent studios and makers as well. The result is a provocative survey of design history inextricably linked by provenance while at odds in meaning.
“Notions of America have been questioned, challenged, and revised in ways that suggest we are at a critical turning point for [its] meaning, not just to Americans but [to] the world at large.”
—Aric Chen, Curatorial Director, Design Miami
Cabezon Table Lamp: Reynold Rodriguez, 2020.
Courtesy of Wexler Gallery
Broad in scope, and including both American and non-American designers, the exhibition will span
Shaker objects and early 19th-century Navajo textiles, alongside objects loaned from The
Wolfsonian-FIU museum, to works by 20th century figures including Wendell Castle, Greta
Magnusson Grossman, George Nakashima, the Black ceramicist Earl Hooks, Chinese immigrant
craftsman Po Shun Leong, and George Nelson’s “Five Leaf” chair from the 1964 New York World’s
Fair. Particular emphasis will be placed on contemporary makers, including Roberto Lugo, who
revisits traditional Euro-American ceramic traditions through the lens of Black and other histories
and Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, best known for their interventions on the US-Mexico
border wall, who will be presenting their 3-D printed clay cookware drawn from the traditions of
the Taos and Picuris Pueblos of northern New Mexico. These, alongside the Haas Brothers, Ini
Archibong, Stephen Burks, Misha Kahn, Katie Stout, Ronald Rael, Pedro Barrail, Paul S. Briggs,
Malcolm Mobutu Smith, and others.
Same Ol' Crack, Roberto Lugo, 2019. Courtesy of Wexler Gallery.
The exhibition will also feature the in-progress debut of Common Ground, an expansive gesture of
reconciliation by Adam Silverman for which the Los Angeles-based artist has assembled, with the aid of volunteers, clay, ash, and water from each of the 56 US states and territories. The materials
will be combined into a single clay from which Silverman is making ceramic pots and dinnerware
that will be distributed back to public institutions and used to connect people through organized,
communal dinners in each of those territories.
Alongside the flexibility found in the new exhibition concept, Design Miami/Podium welcome
reformatted partner exhibitions. Design Miami/ is pleased to welcome Perrier-Jouët and Fendi
back this edition with new partners to be announced in November.
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Can’t make it to the show this year? You can now shop Design Miami/ Podium: America(s) online. Featuring both American and non-American designers, the exhibition spans Shaker objects and early 19th century Navajo textiles alongside works by 20th-century figures and contemporary makers.
Nov. 27 – Dec. 6, 2020