Yours for $21.4m: a 65ft-wide glass mural of Lenin
Talk about a heavy subject: a 6,500-pound East German stained glass mural depicting the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin has been unveiled in Miami. Richard Otfried Wilhelm’s Peace Around Our World (1982-83) was commissioned for the offices of the Stasi (the East German secret police). The 10ft-tall, 65ft-wide piece, which is decorated with 55 pounds of gold, now belongs to the German dealer Thilo Holzmann, who hopes to sell it this week for an equally monumental asking price: $21.4m. The work is on show at 313 NE 59th Street, Miami, until 4 December. P.P.
Miami to import video biennial
In a bid to make Miami a destination for contemporary art all year round—not just during Art Basel in Miami Beach—the Argentine property developer Alan Faena wants to bring a biennial to the city. Faena’s cultural programming arm, Faena Art, hopes to present the Biennale of Moving Images in the new Faena Forum cultural centre in spring 2017. The show, which is currently at the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva (until 29 January 2017), is due to include works by 27 emerging artists, such as Hicham Berrada of Morocco. The biennial is also expected to travel to Faena’s development in Buenos Aires later next year. G.H.
Convention Center is a work in progress
Say goodbye to the swirly carpet: the Miami Beach Convention Center’s $600m renovation is officially under way. The Art Deco architecture on the east side has been refinished in preparation for a wave-like vented façade by Fentress Architects, while the colourful, retro carpet in the lobby has been replaced with buffed concrete. The final phases, due to be completed by 2018, will add 150,000 sq. ft of space, convert the 5.8-acre parking lot into a public park and erect a new lot on the north-eastern corner. The centre will host six permanent art installations, including a sculpture by Elmgreen & Dragset and a neon by Joseph Kosuth. But not everything is proceeding smoothly; plans for an 800-room hotel on the site, backed by Portman Holdings, were voted down by residents in March. H.S.
Mark Dion recreates botanist’s laboratory
The artist Mark Dion is due to unveil his first permanent installation in Miami Beach this week at the Kampong, the former home of the “plant explorer” David Fairchild, who helped to introduce exotic produce such as avocado to the US. Dion has reimagined Fairchild’s laboratory at the Kampong, which is now a National Tropical Botanical Garden, on Biscayne Bay in Coconut Grove, by furnishing it with objects, documents and photographs. Dion wanted to make it feel as if the botanist had “just left for lunch, and that he could walk back in at any moment”, he says. The botanical garden, open to the public by appointment, has never hosted a contemporary art project before. H.S.
• For an interview with Dion, see our daily edition on Friday 2 December