!WILD CARD! feels less feral than it does frenetic, an experiential mainstay of the blaring Spring/Break brand—artists must contend with the chequered floors, fluorescent lighting and cubicular mazes of Ralph Lauren’s former headquarters, so standing out from the crowd proves no small feat. While all of the expected table-top ceramics and bawdy figural paintings abound at !WILD CARD!, it is in gentle moments of vulnerability and felt, authentic weirdness that the fair’s indie intentions truly shine.
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On the same floor, at stand 1058, Miami’s Contemporary Art Modern Project Gallery, or CAMP, takes on the 2020 theme of In Excess through the “overwhelming imbalance between gendered gazes” in its Freaks of Nature presentation, which features a nightmarish suite of small oil-and-polymer paintings on wood by the New Jersey-based artist RJ Calabrese“These are very involved; they take him almost a year to make,” says Chloe Fabien, director of communications for CAMP. “Some of the elements are embedded, some of it is painted, there are portions glued on. He has a violent streak to his work." These tiny, horrific illustrations imbue surreal tableaux with a folksy frankness and sly, pseudo-religious flair.
