The Most Instagram-able Art of 2017
With the long-awaited opening of Yayoi Kusama‘s massive retrospective “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors,” this year was already guaranteed to be a big one for art on Instagram as infinity rooms, aka the world’s most selfie-friendly territories, sprouted up across the country. Despite the 88-year-old artist’s dogged domination of your feed, though, a few other artists managed to get their works in front of the public’s eyes—whether in-person or simply on the Gram—too. Bjarne Melgaard knew exactly how to melt the internet’s heart—with a litter of adorable miniature pigs—while Alex Da Corte chose the perfect time to reprise his Eminem impersonation, this time off in London. The end of the year brought the erection of a giant flashing neon vagina at Art Basel Miami, while as soon as the news broke about Beyoncé’s pregnancy Beyhive proved itself to be the best artist of all with its extremely elaborate fan art. Scroll back in time just before the new year, here.
Kusama’s retrospective kicked off its years-long world tour in Washington, D.C., meaning that the Hirshhorn Museum was the first institution visitors were allowed to cover in a seemingly endless supply of colorful dots, proving that the artist’s infinity rooms—which, only a few months later, now have a strict 30-second selfie time limit—are hardly the show’s only Instagram-friendly option.
This fall, the Philadelphia-based artist Alex Da Corte took his last stab at impersonating Eminem, the rapper he bears an uncanny likeness to when he bleaches his hair, at London’s Josh Lilley Gallery. This time around, there was both a larger-than-life Adidas sneaker as well as videos of Da Corte-as-Eminem smoking from homemade bongs with unsettling laughter and covering himself in mustard.
Normally animals would not qualify as art, but the litter of miniature pigs that Bjarne Melgaard got together for a single night at Gavin Brown’s downtown gallery to model his line of jewelry undeniably drew a crowd. (Along with, of course, some mutterings about animal cruelty.)
There’s the massive convention center of art that constitutes Art Basel Miami Beach, and then there’s stray art scattered throughout the city, like Suzy Kellems Dominik’s I Can Feel, a 12-foot installation and light show in the lobby of the Nautilus Hotel illustrating an endless loop of 27.68-second orgasms.
Along with the artist Awol Erizku’s photo of Beyoncé announcing her pregnancy came the Beyhive’s strongest showing of fan art ever as each fan clamored to show their creativity, with art historical references ranging from Michelangelo to Botticelli.
The Israeli security barrier in Bethlehem, in the West Bank doesn’t sound like the ideal place for a vacation, but more visitors are flocking than ever now that Banksy has set up his very own hotel, where a monkey bellhop announces that the establishment doubles as an art installation before you even step inside the door.
Along with the #burnerbaes like Paris Hilton who make the yearly pilgrimage to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert for Burning Man is also a fleet of eccentric art cars, or so-called “mutant vehicles” used to wander and party around the bacchanal.
Though certainly a less obvious spectacle than a giant sphinx made of 40 tons of sugar, Kara Walker’s latest, an exhibition that’s essentially a tapestry of America’s unavoidably racial and often painful history, which the critic Jerry Saltz lauded as “the best art made about this country in this century.”
Just in time for the collectors, dealers, and artists arriving to the Venice Biennale, the sculptor Lorenzo Quinn made his mark on the city by adding a pair of enormous hands emerging from one of its canals as a reminder of the threat Venice faces from global warming.
This summer, MoMA PS1’s courtyard all the way out in Long Island City, Queens, became quite literally the coolest party destination when Jenny Sabin installed a mist-spraying canopy that lit up in rave-like colors at night.
Before he unveiled his, well, eye-catching collaboration with Louis Vuitton, Jeff Koons created a more public spectacle by plopping down a 45-foot-tall ballerina in the middle of Rockefeller Center, his third installation there to date.
