Art Basel

This year, Art Basel Miami Beach will celebrate five years of Meridians, the show’s sector dedicated to large-scale works that might not otherwise have a place at the fair or in gallery settings. The 2024 selection, curated by Yasmil Raymond, offers a global and intergenerational mix of artists and installations that are ambitious in both scale and concept. Here below, five works not to be missed at this year’s fair.

Anastasia Bay
Maestra Lacrymae, Acte V, 2024
Presented by Venus Over Manhattan

Paris-born, Brussels-based multidisciplinary artist Anastasia Bay (b. 1988) will present an installation and performance composed of five irregularly shaped paintings, roughly resembling Parisian street signs, arranged around a monumental Harlequin puppet. This nearly six-meter-tall figure, clad in a jester’s blue diamond-patterned outfit, rests atop a pedestal. He recalls the towering mythical characters paraded in festivals such as the Carnaval de Dunkerque – a historic carnival unfolding in northern France. Bay’s work is marked by its use of bold shapes and lines, as it oscillates between figuration and abstraction. In her Meridians work, Bay steps deeper into the world she has created, drawing inspiration from Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889 (1888) by Belgian artist James Ensor – a sweeping Post-Impressionist painting that draws inspiration from Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, reimagining it in 19th-century Belgium. A 15-minute performance will animate Bay’s work, as the artist leads masked figures in a riotous parade that oscillates between celebration and protest.