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Early mural in Miami's Wynwood arts district

In the early 2000s, street artists began decorating warehouse walls with complex graffiti and astonishing murals in a then run-down, industrial Miami neighborhood named Wynwood.

This movement of art emanating from the people -- art in the streets, -- resonated and interacted with the elite art fair phenomenon developing at the same time, centered around Art Basel Miami Beach.

Internationally important, Miami-based art collectors, including the Margulies and Rubell families, bought and converted funky Wynwood warehouses into fabulous, privately owned museums that they opened to the public during Art Week and at other times.

Visionary real estate redevelopers -- most notably Tony Goldman who'd played a major role in the redevelopment of New York's SoHo and Miami's South Beach -- encouraged, subsidized, and speeded up Wynwood's street art movement.

All this helped remake Wynwood and vicinity into a world renowned arts district dotted with new restaurants and architecturally adventurous retail/office/hotel/residential complexes and an imaginatively designed eight-story parking garage.

Wynwood is now a reigning world capital of street art, with epic new murals and graffiti constantly being painted over older works

At this writing, its future is clouded by the corona virus crisis as well as by the more mundane dangers of over-gentrification.

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Filename
Wynwood-608_0033pc-F100.jpg
Copyright
© 2008 Bill Wisser, all rights reserved.
Image Size
4614x3076 / 19.7MB
billwisserphoto.com
Contained in galleries
Art Basel & Miami Art Week
In the early 2000s, street artists began decorating warehouse walls with complex graffiti and astonishing murals in a then run-down, industrial Miami neighborhood named Wynwood. <br /> <br /> This movement of art emanating from the people -- art in the streets, -- resonated and interacted with the elite art fair phenomenon developing at the same time, centered around Art Basel Miami Beach.<br /> <br /> Internationally important, Miami-based art collectors, including the Margulies and Rubell families, bought and converted funky Wynwood warehouses into fabulous, privately owned museums that they opened to the public during Art Week and at other times.<br /> <br /> Visionary real estate redevelopers -- most notably Tony Goldman who'd played a major role in the redevelopment of New York's SoHo and Miami's South Beach -- encouraged, subsidized, and speeded up Wynwood's street art movement. <br /> <br /> All this helped remake Wynwood and vicinity into a world renowned arts district dotted with new restaurants and architecturally adventurous retail/office/hotel/residential complexes and an imaginatively designed eight-story parking garage.<br /> <br /> Wynwood is now a reigning world capital of street art, with epic new murals and graffiti constantly being painted over older works<br /> <br /> At this writing, its future is clouded by the corona virus crisis as well as by the more mundane dangers of over-gentrification.