Art Basel has appointed Bridget Finn as the new director of its exhibition at Miami Beach, the Western Hemisphere’s largest art fair.
Finn was most recently a partner at Detroit-based gallery Reyes Finn, the gallery she co-founded with Terese Reyes in 2017. Shortly after Art Basel was announced on Wednesday July 19, Reyes Finn announced its permanent closure. His last exhibition, a personal exhibition of the sculptor Nikita Galeclosed July 15.
Finn previously held positions at Mitchell-Innes & Nash and Anton Kern Gallery, both in New York. In 2020, Finn co-founded Art Mile Detroit, a citywide exhibition platform. Finn co-founded Cleopatra’s, a collaborative curatorial project space, which operated in New York and Berlin between 2008 and 2018.
Finn sits on the Board of Independent Curators International and is active on the Advisory Board of the Progressive Art Studio Collective.
“We are thrilled with Bridget’s appointment and couldn’t have found a better person to lead our Miami Beach fair,” said Art Basel chief executive Noah Horowitz, who oversaw the Florida fair from 2015-2021. , in a press release. “She has the vision, ambition and skills to drive our team and our many new and long-time partners in Miami Beach forward.”
Inverted Monument (2022), a sculpture by Do Ho Suh at Art Basel in Miami Beach in 2022 Eric Thayer
Finn will take the reins of the 22nd edition of the fair in 2024 under the aegis of Art Basel new management structurein which a separate director is assigned to each of its four fairs in Basel, Miami Beach, Hong Kong and Paris.
“I am deeply honored to take on this role and be part of Art Basel Miami Beach’s transformative journey since its launch over 20 years ago,” Finn said in a statement.
Finn’s new role is the latest in a shake-up at Art Basel. Other new appointees include Maike Cruse, director of Art Basel in Basel, the flagship fair at the company’s Swiss headquarters; Clément Delépine, director of Paris+ by Art Basel; and Angelle Siyang-Le, director of Art Basel in Hong Kong. Former Global Director of Art Basel Marc Spiegler resigned in 2022 after 15 years, and was replaced by Horowitz after a brief stint at Sotheby’s.
Last year, Art Basel in Miami Beach was the the biggest edition more from the fair, with 283 participating galleries, surpassing fair booth numbers even before the Covid-19 pandemic decimated art fairs for several years.
