Five Pieces That Quietly Stole the Show at Art Basel Miami Beach 2025

<img decoding="async" class="size-full-width wp-image-1603911" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/Samuel-Guerrero-Domine-Deus-Noster-best-of-art-basel-miami-beach.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A large mixed-media textile work combining painted and woven sections, including ghostly figures set against an earth-from-space backdrop, hangs from a wooden beam." width="970" height="728" data-caption='Samuel Guerrero, <em>Domine Deus Noster</em> (2025) <span class=”media-credit”>Photo: Dan Duray for Observer</span>’>

It may seem uncontroversial to say that Art Basel Miami Beach is no longer what it used to be. The fair made the infamous Highbrow/Despicable quadrant of New York magazine’s Approval Matrix, a reflection of its transitional moment from glitzy blowout to whatever its future may hold. To make sure that the boom times are over, I made an effort to attend one of the buzziest parties on this year’s dance card: the one thrown by Porsche at SoHo House on Wednesday, which promised a performance by 2Chainz. The rapper played for exactly 30 minutes and may have thought he was at a birthday party, as he didn’t mention Porsche or Art Basel, and closed with “Shine the Light on ’em (The Birthday Song)” by Will Traxx. People in the crowd shone their cell phone lights on each other gamely, but it was unclear whether it was anyone’s actual birthday. That seemed statistically unlikely, given the small number of people in the room.

But a quieter year means the opportunity for good art, because only in a bull market can one be cynical. In times like these, you just have to do what you do best and pray that it clicks with someone. With this in mind, what follows are my favorite works from the fair, all of them somewhat low-key. I don’t think any of them is the subject of any particular gossip or hype, nor should they be. I illuminate them for inspection, not for celebration.

Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst, Kinder Scout (2025), Fellowship

<img decoding="async" class="size-full-width wp-image-1603908" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/Holly-Herndon-Mat-Dryhurst-Kinder-Scout-best-of-art-basel-miami-beach-rotated.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A large digital video installation displays a gridded screen showing a hiker moving through a blurred landscape alongside floating inset images and blocks of text." width="970" height="1293" data-caption='Holly Herndon &amp; Mat Dryhurst, <em>Kinder Scout</em> (2025). <span class=”media-credit”>Photo: Dan Duray for Observer</span>’>

Every year when I do these, I swear I’m not going to include art from the Meridians sector, because these large-scale, ambitious works will always have something of an advantage over ones that fit in a booth. So, when I came upon this stunning work, I told myself that I could select this one if I managed to discuss it without any extended references to Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding. Anyway, this work creates videos that feature A.I. children wandering beautiful and procedurally generated landscapes, captured at an unnatural angle that’s too long for a selfie stick but too close for satellite imagery. They wear the latest hiking gear as data streams across the desolate grids on which the images appear, alongside little text narratives that are also only semi-sensical, e.g., “FOLLOWING THE SEAM-SINGER’S QUIET REPAIR, WE FOUND THE GAIT-ARCHIVIST CROUCHED ON A PEAT TRAIL.” Often, the children meet other children and wander single file along dangerous cliffsides. Like the best work that incorporates technology, it can be appreciated on an aesthetic level without requiring an understanding of the underlying processes or references. In this way, it is the polar opposite of Beeple’s boring and obvious robot dog project, which can be found nearby. I could only stomach a few minutes of that one but could have spent hours with this one.

Nan Goldin, Casta Diva 1993-1995 (2000), Matthew Marks

<img decoding="async" class="size-full-width wp-image-1603909" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/Nan-Goldin-Casta-Diva-1993-1995-best-booths-art-basel-miami-rotated.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A vertical framed artwork containing five Nan Goldin photographs of a woman in various intimate settings hangs on a white gallery wall.” width=”970″ height=”1293″ data-caption=’Nan Goldin, <em>Casta Diva 1993-1995</em> (2000). <span class=”media-credit”>Photo: Dan Duray for Observer</span>’>

When it comes to artists as beloved and famous as Goldin, sometimes there’s an inclination to have a thought along the lines of, “Oh sure, I know what she’s all about.” I would never underrate or typify her, but when I encountered these photographs, I still had no idea who had taken them. When I think of Goldin, I think of her subjects’ faces, and the last photo doesn’t even have one. The framing feels different too, more sculptural than cinematic. We are so absorbed in these moments that we don’t really question the immediate before and after of the narrative. The Casta Diva series takes its name from a Bellini aria that serves as a prayer to a moon deity, full of melancholy and longing, and indeed, this strip feels like a rainbow of sadness. My favorite is probably the penultimate one with the woman entering the water. Her body language is not timid, not wounded, but careful in ways that you know something’s happened to her in the distant past.

Samuel Guerrero, Domine Deus Noster (2025), Lodos

Like many people, I’ve been thinking about Rauschenberg’s textile works, so this one stopped me in my saunter through the fair. I didn’t know anything about the young artist, but was drawn to the way the textiles layer on top of one another in a way that seems to want to appear accidental. The Mesoamerican mysticism feels pleasantly combined with whatever variety exists on the cover of a Tool album, but what really sells this more than any of the ideas or goals is the execution. True painting skill is evident in the acrylic on canvas. Up close, the joined hands are suggested by very few lines and shadows, wrapping around the wrists in a way that is not entirely logical. This work has many secrets. The last one is the giant nail that pins the wood to the wall: the wood curves around it in an unnatural way. It’s like the wood is a river and the nail an obstruction, or perhaps some kind of skin that folds around it. Is this painting crucified?

Wangechi Mutu, The Seated IV (2019), Gladstone

<img decoding="async" class="size-full-width wp-image-1603912" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/Wangechi-Mutu-The-Seated-IV-best-of-art-basel-miami-beach-rotated.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A tall bronze sculpture of a seated figure with elongated, cascading forms and an abstracted face is displayed on a white pedestal in a curved booth at the fair." width="970" height="1293" data-caption='Wangechi Mutu, <em>The Seated IV</em> (2019). <span class=”media-credit”>Photo: Dan Duray for Observer</span>’>

Here I go again, cheating on this assignment by choosing a work that is obviously good. This is one of four works from the Metropolitan Museum of Art for its inaugural facade commission, which has gone on to be an excellent program, no doubt helped by this series, The NewOnes, will free Us. Two of the statues were added to the museum’s collection, but with enough cash and a flatbed, you can bring this one home for yourself. The Kenyan-American artist excels at merging African visual themes with the sci-fi we all seem to crave these days—consider this an upgrade to the H.R. Geiger Alien sculpture that everyone loved at this fair last year. I am drawn especially to its resilient patina. Made for the outdoors, it was creating excellent effects under the oppressive lighting of the convention center. Not far away, on the beach at 18th Street, the Shelbourne Hotel has installed an excellent sculpture by Pilar Zeta, The Observer Effect, which boasts a similarly intriguing surface; the photos of it resemble a CGI rendering. One hopes it survives the Basel weekend. The Mutu will likely end up at another museum, or perhaps it could guard a highly profitable cannabis farm.

Claire Falkenstein, Fusion (c. 1965), Ortuzar

<img decoding="async" class="size-full-width wp-image-1603907" src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/Claire-Falkenstein-Fusion-best-booths-art-basel-miami-bech.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="A small sculptural work made of patinated metal rods intertwined with bright blue glass sits on a white pedestal under gallery lighting." width="970" height="728" data-caption='Claire Falkenstein, <em>Fusion</em> (c. 1965). <span class=”media-credit”>Photo: Dan Duray for Observer</span>’>

What an attractive pile of slag! Falkenstein moved to Paris in 1949, leaving her husband behind in California, and remained there for almost a decade before following her pal Peggy Guggenheim to Venice, where Murano glass became an integral part of her practice. You may know her work from the webbed gates of Guggenheim’s palazzo. Though works like this may appear chaotic or woo-woo, her works are actually concerned with science at an atomic level, which describes the nature of the curves seen here. She was a big fan of the metonymic vibe popularized by Buckminster Fuller and Charles and Ray Eames, but she was ahead of her time in thinking this way at the time she did. If you move close to the sculpture, you can see how even a section of the glass or the copper it sits upon could stand in for the structure as a whole. The colors and textures found in both materials are tasty and, as you might imagine, it was technically difficult to make them interact in this way.

More in art fairs, biennials and triennials

• Don’t Miss These Five Museum-Grade Works in Art Basel Miami Beach’s Meridians Sector

• In Miami, NADA and Untitled Art Test the Temperature of the Mid-Tier and Emerging Markets

• Observer’s December Art Fair Calendar

• NOMAD Abu Dhabi Turns a Decommissioned Airport Terminal into a Destination for Design