Eric Newill

Fifteen years after Switzerland’s Art Basel launched a satellite event in the New World, Art Basel Miami Beach—and the surrounding, citywide hullabaloo known collectively as Miami Art Week—has become a glittering magnet for collectors, gallerists, artists and industry professionals from around the globe. “It’s a lifestyle experience—Burning Man and Basel Miami are the two highlights of my year,” says prominent San Francisco gallery owner John Berggruen, whose eponymous establishment has exhibited blue-chip pieces (guaranteed resellable) by Alexander Calder, Helen Frankenthaler and Roy Lichtenstein at the fair since its inception in 2002. “Basel Miami and the city itself foster an amazing vibrancy and energy unlike anywhere else. The confluence of quality is remarkable.” Pioneering Miami gallerist Fredric Snitzer, who has also participated in ABMB since its debut, calls it “the number-two fair in the world—after Art Basel Switzerland.” As the event has solidified its international importance over the years—attracting  77,000 visitors in 2015—so too has it profoundly impacted the local economy, pumping an estimated $500 million annually into the area. And the once-moribund Miami art scene has become a worldwide phenomenon: New institutions pop up with increasing frequency, older ones are rejuvenated, and local dealers and gallerists pick up new collectors. This year, Art Basel Miami 2016 (held in the Miami Beach Convention Center) is hosting 269 international galleries in its f