Who Runs the Week

Director, Art Basel Miami Beach

Bridget Finn

A Detroit native trained at the College for Creative Studies, Finn worked at Anton Kern, co-founded the artist-run gallery Cleopatra’s, ran the contemporary program at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, and became a partner in the Detroit gallery Reyes | Finn, according to Art Basel and the Miami Herald. She is the first director of the fair to have been an exhibitor herself (Wikipedia). Her first move was cheaper small stands. Her third edition goes further: a main sector cut by about 10% and the largest galleries scattered across the floor. Watch how the quieter aisles between them behave on Friday.

“My lived experience as a dealer is ingrained into my approach.”

Clippings: Art Basel Stories, the Robin Pogrebin profile, November 4, 2024; The Art Newspaper, smaller stands for less money, July 9, 2024; Artnet News, who is in and who is out, September 29, 2026.

Photo: James Jackman for Art Basel. Courtesy Art Basel.

Chief Executive Officer, Art Basel

Noah Horowitz

Born in Princeton in 1979, Horowitz took a doctorate at the Courtauld, turned it into Art of the Deal (2011), and ran The Armory Show before leading Art Basel in the Americas from 2015 to 2021. After a year at Sotheby’s he came back as chief executive in November 2022 (Wikipedia). The awards, the digital sector, and a fair in Qatar all date from his tenure. In Miami his name matters most off the floor: his company is across the table from the city in the convention center negotiation.

“There’s this extremely high brand recognition, but actually pretty little operational understanding of what Art Basel is.”

Clippings: Time Sensitive, Art Basel as a cultural force, November 10, 2025; Artnet’s Art Angle, keeping Art Basel on top, June 18, 2026; Artnet News, the galleries that dropped out, December 7, 2025.

Chief Artistic Officer, Art Basel

Vincenzo de Bellis

A Bard-trained curator who co-founded the Milan project space Peep-Hole, became the youngest director of the city’s fair, miart, in 2012, and then went to the Walker Art Center. He joined Art Basel in 2022 and was promoted in 2025 to oversee all five fairs, according to Hube and Art Basel. He designed the Art Basel Awards and chairs their jury. His night is Thursday, December 3, when the Gold Awardees are named.

“It’s about remapping the canon.”

Clippings: Ocula, awards, exclusives and market optimism, June 17, 2026; Hube, the career interview, March 20, 2026; Whitewall, after the first awards night, December 13, 2025.

Photo: courtesy Art Basel.

Lead curator, Zero 10

Karen Archey

Archey edited at e-flux, co-curated Art Post-Internet in Beijing in 2014, and spent 2017 to 2025 as the Stedelijk Museum’s curator for time-based media. She now heads the curatorial department at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, where she recently staged an Anne Truitt survey. A museum curator is an unexpected choice for a fair’s digital sector, and that is the interest. Her exhibition, Generation, gathers 19 projects from 22 galleries and platforms on the Zero 10 floor.

Clippings: The Art Newspaper, A brush with Karen Archey, April 2, 2026; The Art Newspaper, the scaled-down floor plan, September 29, 2026.

Co-curator, Zero 10

Eli Scheinman

Scheinman studied political ecology, co-founded the NFT platform PROOF in 2021, and curated the first Zero 10 last December with 12 exhibitors, according to Hypebeast. His argument, that digital art belongs on the main floor and not in a side tent, won: the sector nearly doubled. He stays on beside Archey, and since September he has had a boss for the sector, Nicole Sales Giles, formerly head of digital art at Christie’s.

Clippings: Le Random, on amplifying the digital, December 3, 2025; Hypebeast, a new digital chapter, December 6, 2025; Art Basel Stories, the 2025 preview, November 10, 2025.

Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Miami

Fredric Snitzer

The senior Miami dealer, in business since 1977 and for years the only local gallery in the fair’s main sector. Snitzer is the scene’s least sentimental voice: at an Oolite Arts talk in 2024 he told artists that booths can cost more than $150,000 and that careers are made in studios. This year he shows in Galleries and, for the first time, in Zero 10, a new address for a gallery in its 49th year.

Clippings: Too Much Love Magazine, insights from Fredric Snitzer, December 1, 2024; the same talk on video, 2024.

David Castillo, Miami

David Castillo

Castillo opened in 2005. In 2018 his became the second local gallery, after Snitzer’s, admitted to the main sector, as Cultured reported. He has held the place since, one of seven Miami galleries on the 2025 floor by The Art Newspaper’s count. His advice to visitors is the most useful sentence on this page.

“Pace yourself. Art is about enjoyment and discovery. Trying to see everything is pointless.”

Clippings: Cultured, David Castillo’s Miami, December 2, 2023; The Art Newspaper, the Miami galleries of 2025, December 2, 2025.

Nina Johnson, Little Haiti

Nina Johnson

Johnson ran her Little Haiti gallery for 18 years before her first Art Basel Miami Beach, in 2025, with the painter Patrick Dean Hubbell. The city then named him a finalist for its Legacy Purchase Program. She returns in 2026. Her gallery is the case for getting off the island at least once during the week.

“The Miami that I opened my gallery in 18 years ago is very different from the Miami that I sit in today.”

Clippings: The Art Newspaper, ending the year on a high note, December 2, 2025; City of Miami Beach, the 2025 finalists, 2025.

Spinello Projects, Miami

Anthony Spinello

Brooklyn-born, in Miami since 2003, a gallerist since 2005 on a starting budget of $3,000, by Artsy’s account. For most of those years the fair’s main sector held one Miami gallery, then two. In 2026 Art Basel moves him from Nova to the main Galleries sector, a promotion two decades in coming. In 2024 the city bought a work from his booth, Nina Surel’s Allegory of Florida, through its Legacy Purchase.

“The community became my family. I grew up with Miami. I grew up with my artists.”

Clippings: Artsy, twenty years of Spinello Projects, November 28, 2025; Art Basel, the 2026 exhibitor announcement, September 29, 2026.

Rubell Museum, Allapattah

Mera and Don Rubell

Married in 1964, the Rubells bought their first work a year later on a weekly installment plan, by the museum’s own account. The collection now counts more than 7,700 works by over 1,000 artists. It opened in a former DEA building in Wynwood in 1993 and moved to a 100,000-square-foot Allapattah campus in 2019. The family is credited with helping bring the fair to Miami Beach (Wikipedia). Their annual rehang is timed to the week.

“Twenty-six years into this, we now feel we’ve earned the privilege of calling ourselves a museum.”

Clippings: Artsy, inside the Art Week rehang, December 3, 2024; The Art Newspaper, a new Miami art quarter, December 3, 2019; Spear’s, how the fair came to town, March 5, 2015.

Photo: courtesy Rubell Museum.

Collector, developer, El Espacio 23

Jorge M. Pérez

Born in Buenos Aires in 1949 to Cuban parents, Pérez arrived in Miami in 1968 and founded The Related Group in 1979. His 2011 gift of $35 million in cash and art put his name on the Pérez Art Museum Miami (Wikipedia). Since 2019 he has shown his own collection free at El Espacio 23, a 28,000-square-foot space in Allapattah. He is the rare patron whose name is on a public museum and who also runs a private one.

“We like to see the conversation between the new and the old.”

Clippings: Axios Miami, El Espacio 23’s Art Week exhibition, December 3, 2025.

Margulies Collection at the Warehouse

Martin Z. Margulies

A real-estate developer who opened his 50,000-square-foot Wynwood warehouse in 1999 with the curator Katherine Hinds, two decades before the Rubells left the same neighborhood. His philanthropy has reached beyond art: in 2010 he gave $20 million to Lotus House in Miami. The Warehouse keeps a seasonal calendar, and the collection’s website gives November 4, 2026, for its reopening with new exhibitions.

“I only think of work I can afford.”

Clippings: The Art Newspaper, inside the Margulies collection, December 7, 2019.

Collector, ICA Miami patron

Norman Braman

Born in Pennsylvania in 1932, Braman built a chain of car dealerships from 1972 and owned the Philadelphia Eagles from 1985 to 1994 (Wikipedia). With Irma Braman he paid for ICA Miami’s Design District building, which opened in December 2017 and charges nothing at the door. He is among those credited with bringing the fair to town, and he has never been shy about what it did for the place.

“I think this fair kick-started this entire economy here.”

Clippings: Spear’s, how Art Basel Miami Beach came to town, March 5, 2015.

Director, Pérez Art Museum Miami

Franklin Sirmans

Born in Queens, Sirmans edited at Flash Art, curated at the Menil Collection and LACMA, and directed the Prospect.3 biennial in New Orleans before taking over PAMM in October 2015, according to the museum. He holds two roles in December. His museum opens a Picasso, Klee, and Matisse loan show from the Museum Berggruen, and he is Miami’s one seat on the Art Basel Awards jury. His curators also choose what the museum acquires from NADA and SCOPE.

Clippings: PAMM, the appointment, September 4, 2015; Hyperallergic, free admission for public school students, March 22, 2018; Art Basel, the 2026 awards dossier, April 2026.

Artistic Director, ICA Miami

Alex Gartenfeld

Gartenfeld has led the free-admission ICA Miami since its founding and co-curated the 2018 New Museum Triennial along the way. In October 2024 the museum bought the former de la Cruz Collection building for $25 million, adding 30,000 square feet, as WLRN reported. His openings set the tone on the Tuesday of the week: this year Carroll Dunham and Diego Singh, both from December 1.

“We’re just excited to amplify. No anxieties.”

Clippings: Artnet News, expansion, not anxiety, December 4, 2024; WLRN, the $25 million building, October 16, 2024; ArtTactic Podcast, growth and community.

Executive Director, The Bass

Silvia Karman Cubiñá

Cubiñá still runs The Bass, but no longer as its chief curator. In June the museum named Philippe Vergne to a new post, artistic director and chief curator, while adding 2,500 square feet of gallery space, as World Red Eye reported. This is the first Art Week under the split. The museum’s free community day has fallen on the fair’s closing Sunday.

Clippings: World Red Eye, a new artistic director role, June 2026; The Bass, the 2026–27 season, 2026.

Artist, outdoor project

James Turrell

Born in Los Angeles in 1943 and trained in perceptual psychology at Pomona, Turrell has owned Roden Crater in Arizona since 1979 (Wikipedia). His medium is light and the patience required to see it. Art Basel says the Turrell Art Foundation, with Pace Gallery, will unveil a new body of work outdoors, free to the public. Site and dates: Not yet announced

Clippings: Art Basel, the 2026 announcement, September 29, 2026.

Artist, Zero 10 in 2025

Beeple

Mike Winkelmann, born in 1981 and raised in Wisconsin, became a market fact in March 2021 when Christie’s sold his Everydays for $69.4 million (Wikipedia). His robot dogs, wearing silicone heads of Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Picasso, Warhol, and himself, photographed visitors and dispensed prints. They were the most discussed objects of 2025, priced at $100,000 each, and went on to the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin this spring.

“We’re increasingly going to view the world through AI.”

Clippings: The Art Newspaper, the robot dogs, December 4, 2025; Ocula, the dogs head to Berlin, March 12, 2026.

Developer, Miami Design District

Craig Robins

Born in Miami Beach in 1963, Robins took a law degree at the University of Miami and founded Dacra, the company behind the Design District, in the same year, 1987. He co-founded Design Miami in 2005, gave more than 200 works to PAMM in 2013 with Jackie Soffer, and helped fund ICA Miami’s purchase of the de la Cruz building (Wikipedia). Design Miami, the fair he started, now sits beside the convention center each December.

Clippings: FIU ArtSpeak, a video conversation in 16 parts, November 9, 2016.

Founder, The ReefLine

Ximena Caminos

An Argentine-born curator building a seven-mile underwater sculpture park and artificial reef off Miami Beach, master-planned by OMA’s Shohei Shigematsu and backed by a $5 million bond that voters approved in 2022. Its first work, 22 concrete cars by Leandro Erlich, went down in October 2025, the Smithsonian reported. It is the one Art Week attraction that requires a snorkel.

Clippings: Smithsonian, the underwater installation, November 18, 2025; CBS Sunday Morning, art on Miami’s coastline, May 24, 2026.

Mayor, City of Miami Beach

Steven Meiner

The city’s 39th mayor, a former enforcement attorney at the Securities and Exchange Commission who sat on the commission from 2019, won a runoff in November 2023, and was re-elected in November 2025, according to his official biography. He is the public face of the week and a vocal backer of its free water taxi.

Photo: City of Miami Beach.

City Manager, Miami Beach

Eric T. Carpenter

A civil engineer who joined the city as public works director in 2013 and was appointed manager in July 2024. He leads more than 2,300 employees across some two dozen departments, and the Miami Herald names him as the city’s negotiator with Art Basel.

Photo: City of Miami Beach.

Chief of Police, Miami Beach

Wayne A. Jones

The department’s 21st chief, in the post since September 1, 2023, after 27 years in its ranks, by his city biography. In 2025 his officers staffed the blocks around the hall from Wednesday to Sunday. The number assigned to the week is not published.

Photo: City of Miami Beach.

Interim Director, Tourism and Culture

Francys Vallecillo

Leads the Miami Beach department that writes the special-event permits for every tent on the sand and houses the public art program. Fernando Pestana is interim assistant director. The dates of both interim appointments were not found.

General Manager, Miami Beach Convention Center

Freddie Peterson

Runs the hall for Oak View Group, which has operated it for 12 years and whose contract the city renewed in April 2025. His building supplies the floor, the power, the catering, and the union stage crews. He credited the renewal to the building’s staff.

Mayor, Miami-Dade County

Daniella Levine Cava

A lawyer and social worker who founded the nonprofit Catalyst Miami in 1996, was elected the county’s first woman mayor in 2020, and was re-elected in 2024, by her county biography. The county runs the airport, the buses, and the cultural grants that keep local institutions open the other 51 weeks.

Photo: Miami-Dade County.

President and CEO, Greater Miami CVB

David Whitaker

Heads the tourism bureau that sells the week to the world. He was its marketing chief from 1990 to 2007, ran the bureaus of Toronto and Chicago, and returned in August 2021, as TravelPulse reported. The bureau partnered on the first Art Basel Awards and funds a public art prize.

Photo: Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Art Basel, New York and Miami Beach

The Americas Desk

Art Basel’s staff list names the people behind Finn: Maureen Bruckmayr, head of business and management for the Americas, whose email to the city is quoted in the lease reporting; Reece Rahilly, who leads gallery relations; Dominik Schwab, operations and logistics; Olivia Cuissart de Grelle, VIP relations; and May Mansour, communications.