The Pulse - 12/04/25

Contemporary Artists You Need To Know

The contemporary art landscape is constantly rewriting itself. New voices emerge, bringing ideas that shift taste, challenge norms, and capture our attention in unexpected ways. For brands, they open doors to cultural credibility, narrative depth, and the kind of meaningful audience engagement that feels earned rather than engineered. We’re highlighting the artists shaping conversations right now. ➔

BMF Connects With Mr. Brainwash

Few artists have shaped contemporary pop culture with as much color, chaos, and charm as Mr. Brainwash. In conversation with BMF Founding Partner Brian Feit, the two sat down for a conversation that moves from creative origin stories to cultural obsessions, childhood memories, and the electric future he’s building next. ➔

Photos via Art Basel & Getty Images

Art Basel Miami Beach returns as the art world’s year-end crescendo, and this time with a shift in spotlight. The fair is giving its youngest galleries a major glow-up, moving them to the East Entrance where every collector, curator, and influencer will walk straight into their orbit. With strong momentum carrying over from Paris, Miami is set to close out the season with more energy, new names to know, and the unmistakable buzz synonymous with ABMB. Check out the schedule and buy your tickets here. ➔

Photos via Lamborghini & thenewsmarket

Each December, Miami Art Week becomes a showcase for brands making their strongest statements. BMF client Lamborghini consistently stands out. This year, the iconic marque celebrates the new Temerario—where performance meets design—in an exclusive experience that’s one of the hottest invitations in town. Watch the unveiling here. ➔

Photos via Oriol Tarridas, Sunn Studio, & Daniel Terna

No ticket? No problem. This Art Week, Faena transforms from hotel into spectacle with the debut of Es Devlin’s “Library of Us.” This monumental 50-foot rotating sculpture turns thousands of books that have shaped Devlin's life into a communal temple of reflection and awe to celebrate Faena Art’s tenth Miami season. Once you’ve taken that in, Faena Beach is alive with programming all week long. Just wander to the sand and step into the immersive waterfront world, morning to night. Find out more here. ➔

Photo via Untitled Art

On the sands of South Beach, Untitled Art returns for its 2025 edition—bringing together over 150 exhibitors from 29 countries in its signature oceanfront pavilion. Known for spotlighting emerging voices and experimentation, the fair keeps its finger firmly on the pulse—where presentations, performances, and immersive installations shape what’s next in contemporary art. A must-see for those in town for Art Week, get tickets while you still can here. ➔

Photos via Friedman Benda & Design Miami

Design Miami returns this week for its 20th anniversary—two decades of shaping taste, movements, and collectible design into cultural conversations, not just decor. This year, the fair becomes a self-portrait. A look at how far design has evolved since 2005 and where it's headed next. Expect boundary-pushing installations and galleries filled with work that tells time as much as it occupies space. Twenty years on, it’s still the place to be this Miami Art Week. Get tickets here. ➔

Photos via ReefLine

Miami’s newest art exhibit doesn’t come with a ticket, just fins. The ReefLine, just beneath the waves off South Beach, is a seven-mile corridor of submerged sculptures turned coral habitats, merging public art and marine renewal in one surreal blue world. Its newest installation—Leandro Erlich’s “Concrete Coral” traffic jam of 22 sunken concrete cars on the sea floor—will grow into a living reef as marine life takes over. Accessible to the public via snorkeling or scuba diving, find out more here. ➔

Photo via DR

For a week always full of surprises, this year is no exception. On December 6th, Space Basel hosts Black Coffee for a one-night-only set on the rooftop of the Miami-Dade County Courthouse. The city’s most unexpected stage becomes a skyline-high dancefloor, with his 2x Grammy Award-winning hypnotic house cutting through the night. A rare venue, a rare performance, and easily one of Basel’s hottest tickets. Secure yours while you still can here. ➔

Photo via MARGOT

The first single from MARGOT’s upcoming album has been a decade in the making. Written when she was 19, freshly dropped out of college and newly arrived in New York without knowing a soul, “Day One” has lived a dozen lives in clubs, arenas, living rooms, and late-night jam sessions. Now finally studio-recorded, the track is tender, slow-burning, and perfectly buttery for any mood. Listen here. ➔

Photo via Mia Moretti

DJ, producer, and sonic archivist Mia Moretti returns with “Safe With Me” featuring Irma Thomas, a love letter to New Orleans disguised as a gospel house track, in which she shines light on Thomas’s 1979 gem “Safe With Me.” Allowing that unmistakable voice to glide through modern, soft-wave production, the beat pulsates with energy that hits like joy you can feel in your bones. For an instant uplift, listen here. ➔

BMF has partnered with Flash GEA (jē), NYC’s hottest up-and-coming DJ and genre-blending producer known for having his finger on the pulse of the city’s vibrant music scene. From his electrifying sets at the hottest venues to his signature mix of big room techno and acid house, @flashgea is the sound selector that major brands and tastemakers are turning to. For this issue of The Pulse, Flash has curated a playlist, giving you a taste of today’s top tracks—listen here. ➔

Photo via Madame Grey

The Capricorni Candle—part of the Zodiac collection from Cassandra Grey’s fragrance house Madame Grey—is more than a scent. It’s a mood, a memory, a moment captured in wax. With notes of cognac, raspberry, and worn leather, Capricorni wraps your space in a smoky, intimate embrace. Each candle feels like “its own piece of intentional art,” making it a perfect choice for this edition. Instead of hunting down your next big collectible, buy it here. ➔

Photo via Shutterstock

Sun, yachts, and French-by-way-of-Caribbean swagger. Just a short flight from Miami, St. Barths is calling and refuses to be ignored. Consider this your sign to book that trip to the island where beach club visits are inevitable and rosé counts as hydration. Check out our travel guide here. ➔

Stay Ahead of the Curve.

Let’s chat about how we can keep your brand in tune with the pulse of culture.

Connect With Us.
NewBusiness@wearebmf.com

Photos via Art Basel

Art Basel’s world is getting bigger—literally. With its February debut in Doha, the festival continues to expand into a truly global cultural ecosystem, tapping into regions investing heavily in institutions, public art, and contemporary talent. The Qatar edition signals a shift of the center of gravity in the art world, with its expanding cultural investments and mission to drive economic and social development. More voices, more regions, more cross-cultural storytelling. Read more here. ➔

As Art Week matures each year, it’s worth recalling the kind of off-beat provocation that helped define its modern DNA. MSCHF’s ATM Leaderboard might be a few Basel cycles old, but it remains one of the clearest examples of the fair’s experimental streak: a perfectly absurd piece of performance art that publicly displayed participants’ bank balances and turned economic voyeurism into a crowd spectacle. Today, it reads like both a time capsule and a prompt for the next wave of wild, unconventional activations that make Basel Basel. Read more here. ➔

Photo via MSCHF & Perrotin

Photo via Sotheby’s

Some moments don’t just shape the art world. They reset it. This season, a single painting reminded everyone that cultural appetite is nowhere near cooling. Gustav Klimt’s “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” shattered expectations at Sotheby’s, selling for $236.4M after a 19-minute bidding battle, becoming the second-most expensive artwork ever sold at auction a century after its creation. Watch the hammer-drop moment here. ➔

Photos via Chanel & Kylie Cooper

Who else but Chanel would turn the Bowery J station platform into fashion’s hottest front row? For its annual Métiers d’Art show, or “art professions,” the collection celebrated the house’s rare specialist ateliers from feather workers to goldsmiths, bringing glamour to one of the city’s most unglamorous venues. Models stepped off a train car to rumbling subway ambience in designs drawn directly from New York archetypes, from leopard tweed sets to “Clark Kent” sweaters to a fringe skirt made of upside-down Empire State Buildings. Watch the magic of Chanel’s artistry in motion here. ➔

Photos via Studio Museum & Dana Scruggs

Couldn’t make it to Miami this year? If you’re in NYC, Studio Museum in Harlem has officially reopened in a stunning new building on 125th Street, designed specifically for its mission to champion artists of African descent and build community through their art. Seven floors of galleries, education spaces, and rooftop views now showcase trailblazing exhibitions, with free community programming, workshops, and family Sundays making it one of the most exciting and important cultural destinations in America right now. Get tickets and learn more here. ➔

Photos via @samira.sfiii & Schiaparelli

Ready-to-wear? Try ready-to-hair. Schiaparelli’s FW 2024 braid necktie turned runways into surreal grooming inspiration last year, but creator Samira Safi (@samira.sfiii) just brought it back in a more personal way. Her viral video shows how to braid your own hair into the sharpest accessory, turning a high-fashion detail into everyday wearable art. Watch her tutorial on IG here and TikTok here. ➔

Artwork via Julie Wolfe

The first Monday in May is locked in: the Metropolitan Museum of Art will usher in its spring fashion exhibition “Costume Art” with the world-renowned Met Gala, pulling back the curtain on fashion’s oldest trick—disguising meaning through clothes. Nearly 200 garments will be paired with artwork in the new first-floor Condé Nast Galleries, spotlighting “the status of art because of, not in spite of, its relation to the body.” Some guests will follow the brief, others will bend it—but all eyes will be on how they interpret it. Read more here. ➔

Photos via Matthew Marks Gallery

One small NYC gallery is commanding outsized attention right now, and artist Alex Da Corte is the reason. Currently at Matthew Marks Gallery, Da Corte’s show “Parade” explores themes of loss by altering familiar pop culture iconography and the meanings we attach to it—Snoopy missing his nose, Spider-Man leaning on a walker, Pink Panther slumped in melancholy—while his reconstruction of Paul Thek’s long-lost work “The Tomb” resurrects a piece of queer art history erased over time, spinning loss, memory, and cultural myth into something both intimate and monumental. Plan your visit here. ➔