Street Art Brings Life To A Miami Neighborhood
One of the nation's largest art fairs, Art Basel, opens this week in Miami. But days before the fair launches in Miami Beach, the party had already started across the bridge, in Miami's Wynwood neighborhood.
At a trendy lounge and art gallery, a couple of hundred people are watching artists at work. The event, sponsored by Heineken, features six street artists putting their own spin on the beer maker's logo. Heineken also commissioned the artists to paint a series of murals on buildings in Wynwood, a neighborhood now famous for its street art. In fact, street art has become so common that some artists say finding good wall space can be difficult.
"For Basel, I started looking for my walls as early as last February," says Trek 6, who prefers to be called a writer — as in writing graffiti — rather than a street artist. (Though he doesn't like the term "graffiti" either.)
Trek 6 started putting his art on walls in Wynwood back when it was a rough neighborhood of warehouses and shoe factories. Over just a few short years, and with help from Art Basel, it has become the center of Miami's art scene, known for its many galleries, studios and street murals.
"I saw this get transformed from a place where you don't want to ever get caught ... to a place where now everybody at all hours of the night with family and everything are out here looking at murals, going into alleys, looking for artwork," he says.
Tony Goldman's Wynwood
For those who come to Wynwood for art, the first stop is often a grassy courtyard with walkways, tables and a restaurant surrounded by 40 large, colorful, arresting murals. It's called Wynwood Walls, a public art space created by developer Tony Goldman, who died earlier this year.
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Tony Goldman's son, Joey (far left), and daughter, Jessica (center), pose with artist Shepard Fairey and their mother, Janet Goldman.