The Art Week Edit by Brett Graff | Page 2
SocialMiami's editor captures the city during ART WEEK.
Art Basel Miami Beach
Art Basel, the fair giving birth to Miami Art week and known as the premier art show of the Americas, opened to VIP guests on Wednesday. Big name collectors from Miami and way beyond browsed the significant works of modern and contemporary art at the Miami Beach Convention Center. SocialMiami captured some serious personalities on camera.
FIRST Inspire Gala
FIRST® Robotics & i.am/Angel Foundation Gala was held during art week and its star-studded supporters were all there including Black Eyes Peas frontman and philanthropist will.i.am, Funk legend George Clinton and Mike Bezos, father of Amazon founder and Miami resident Jeff Bezos. The annual Gala celebrates the vital role STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education plays in developing today’s youth. First is a robotics community founded by Dean Kamen and creates programs that can be implemented in school classrooms and afterschool programs. i.am./Angel is an organization dedicated to transforming lives by education, inspiration and opportunity.
“I’m a recipient of someone’s philanthropic endeavors,” will.i.am told SocialMiami. “I come from a very poor neighborhood in east Los Angeles. And someone thought about after school programs and summer lunches. Someone thought about magnet programs for kids who come from communities like mine. Someone thought to better communities and to invest in education and opportunities. And someone though to show these kids a brighter side of society. But I don’t think that should only be the path. Maybe keeping kids in the community that they come from to encourage them to love their community and giving them the skill sets to change the community themselves. As we saw, a hood will be gentrified: Brooklyn. A hood will be gentrified: Boyle heights. That doesn’t mean you have to move the people who come from these communities out of the neighborhood, not if they’re the ones transforming the communities themselves.”
The gala honored engineer Ursula Burns, who has served as a member of the FIRST Board of Directors since 2000. From 2009 to 2016, she served as the CEO of Xerox Corporation, where she also held the position of Chairman of the Board from 2010 to 2017. Under her leadership, Xerox evolved from a global leader in document technology into the world’s most diversified business services company. Burns spoke about her career trajectory, beginning wiht her high school advisor suggesting she pursue the professions of nun, a teacher or nurse. And thanking her mother for suggesting she head to the library and research other professions for people good at math, instructing her to not limit the search to paths taken by women or black women.
Giorgio Armani Reception
Giorgio Armani in the Miami Design District hosted a cocktail reception in celebration of Art Basel and featuring a selection of photographs by Aldo Fallai. The photographer has reportedly collaborated with the designer since the mid-1970s, before Armani even set up his own namesake fashion group. Reports have the two presenting together in the likes of Milan and New York.
Brett Graff is SocialMiami.com’s managing editor and has been a journalist covering money, people and power for over 20 years. Graff contributes to national media outlets including Reuters, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, Maxim, and the PBS show, Nightly Business Report. A former U.S. government economist, her nationally syndicated column The Home Economist is first published in The Miami Herald and then on the Tribune Content Agency, where it’s available to over 400 publications nationwide. She is broadcast weekly on two iHeartRadio news shows and is the author of “Not Buying It: Stop Overspending & Start Raising Happier, Healthier, More Successful Kids,” a parenting guide for people who might be tempted to buy their children the very obstacles they’re trying to avoid.
