This week will be a busy, buzzy one for Miami Beach. Art collectors, fashion aficionados, sport and food enthusiasts, music buffs and crypto bros will descend on the sunny Florida city to network, party — and see some art. Bringing everyone to town is the annual Miami Art Week, which hosts over 20 art fairs each December. At the center of the week is Art Basel, closing out the year in its largest market: America.
Though US art sales dropped 9% to $24.8 billion in 2024, the region has remained a market leader for the art fair series, up 1% year-on-year and accounting for 43% of global art sales, according to the 2025 Art Basel & UBS Art Market report. The sales dip sits below the global 12% average. The report’s authors put the US decline down, in part, to political uncertainty “surrounding the contentious presidential elections”.
Still, team members and attendees are optimistic about the upcoming fair, which is rounding out 2025. Art Basel Miami’s status as the “culminating art market event of the year” is down to the gathering of galleries who are on the pulse of what’s currently selling in the US, says Casey Lesser, chief curator at online art marketplace Artsy, positioning them to put their best foot forward. Art Basel Paris, which took place in October, also signaled a positive turn, says Art Basel director Bridget Finn. “The outcome in Paris was quite good for many of our galleries,” Finn says, adding that she’s ready to carry that energy through to Miami.
Photo: Courtesy of Art Basel
It’s not just Basel on the schedule. Art Basel’s sister fair, Design Miami, is also taking place this week — alongside the 20-plus other fairs that make up Miami Art Week. A jam-packed art schedule is supplemented by a vast offering of adjacent events across fashion, sport and food. Miami Art Week is where the overlap between cultural industries really comes to a head — and where younger people with an interest, if not a fluency, in art are able to dabble. Once they sort through the week’s goings on, that is.
Here’s everything you need to know about this year’s Art Basel Miami Beach (ABMB), running from December 3 to 7 (the first two days are VIP-only), as well as the wider Miami Art Week, which kicked off on December 1.
The Miami mood
Miami’s sunny and warm weather is a draw for collectors as much of the world — including the majority of the US — heads into the winter months. “It’s this incredible postcard of a place, but it’s also got such a rich arts community that has only gained strength and momentum over the last 23 years,” Finn says.
The warmth and ease that comes with the locale aligns well with what many art collectors are gravitating toward, Lesser says. “Artsy’s data shows our buyers are gravitating toward pieces that offer calm, be that through color or subject matter; the great outdoors, we’re seeing that desire to ‘touch grass’; and even lots of food art,” she says. Small works are selling particularly well, Lesser adds — a sign of the (economic) times.