Art Basel Miami Meets Shabbat and Mitzvot
by Sara Trappler Spielman – chabad.org
At age 82, Richard had never wrapped tefillin in his life. That was until he met a yeshivah student outside Art Basel Miami Beach this December, who invited him to perform the mitzvah. When Richard initially declined, the resourceful yeshivah student offered him his extra ticket to the prestigious art show in exchange. That sealed the deal.
Each year, the streets of Miami bustle with tens of thousands of visitors who descend upon the city for Art Basel, the largest art show in America. Every year during Art Basel, Chabad-Lubavitch of Midtown Miami, which straddles the Miami Design District and the Wynwood neighborhood—the latter known for its street graffiti art—welcomes the huge influx of Jewish visitors, from visual and multimedia artists and to art dealers and collectors.
The official Art Basel event is located at the Miami Beach Convention Center, but throughout last week much of Miami and Miami Beach were transformed by myriad pop-up art galleries, interactive exhibits, music shows and cultural events.
“The different design shows, music events and art galleries take over the entire Miami area, and there’s no place like Chabad to greet these visitors from all over the world,” said Rabbi Shmuel Gopin, who with his wife, Chana, directs Chabad of Midtown Miami. “On Shabbat, our synagogue was full of artists and gallerists. Some from the U.S. and others, like a furniture designer from Basel, Switzerland, [the birthplace of Art Basel] came from abroad.”
This year’s innovative exhibits included a herd of 100 wooden life-size elephant sculptures on South Florida beach called “The Great Elephant Migration”, alongside a set of 46 3D-printed stars on the sand, titled “Miami Reef Star,” a prototype for an underwater sculpture that will be a seven-mile artificial reef and sculpture park planned for Miami Beach.
Gopin isn’t a stranger to the art scene. Midtown used to be filled with art galleries year-round, and in the past, Gopin even operated an art gallery next door to the Chabad center. In order to cater to Art Basel pilgrims, the Gopins hosted an art showing and welcomed Art Basel attendees for an art-themed Shabbat dinner.
British-Israeli street artist Solomon Souza, best known for his graffiti portraits of contemporary and historical Jewish figures on the shutters of the Machane Yehuda open-air market in Jerusalem conducted a pop-up art show and live painting last Wednesday through Sunday at Chabad’s makeshift gallery space.
A few miles away, Rabbi Shmuel and Tzippy Mann of Chabad of the Venetian and Sunset Islands and Rabbi Zev and Chani Katz of the Chabad House in Miami Beach also hosted Art Basel Shabbat dinners.
The Manns welcomed more than 100 people for a festive Shabbat meal overlooking the water in their new Chabad center. The Katzes had 150 young professionals join them for an artist Q&A with Celebrity Photographer Zusha Goldin at a Friday-night Shabbat dinner meal.
Goldin is a photo artist and portraitist who traveled from Los Angeles for Art Basel to exhibit his show to counter antisemitism, a project he started after Oct. 7. The evening with Goldin featured a talk and portrait reveal, as he displayed his award-winning exhibit “Comments for Peace,” featuring portraits of celebrities and influencers who are fighting antisemitism using their online platforms. At the dinner, Goldin was joined by a guest Israeli soldier who spoke about his experience on the frontlines of defending the Jewish people.
The Gopins hosted a “Basel Shabbat” Friday-night dinner in the gallery, bringing together about 100 Jewish artists and gallerists. Some of the art was brush on canvas, some spray paint; all was about Israel and the Jewish people’s eternal connection to the Holy Land.
According to Rabbi Katz, there was something different about this year: “We’ve been hosting Art Basel Shabbat dinners for a few years now. But never has the conversation of Jewish pride and unity been more at the forefront.”
