MIAMI, FL.- Aqua Art Miami announces “Destination Super Eight”– its 8th consecutive installment in Miami Beach this December. Over the years, the fair has been recognized for presenting vibrant and noteworthy international art programs, with a particular interest in supporting young dealers and galleries with strong emerging and early-mid career artists. With innovative special programming, which features performance art and installation, plus the collective exchange of ideas by 47 exhibiting galleries from North and South America, as well as Japan, Aqua12 will surely pack yet another powerful punch during Art Basel Week.

Aqua’s curatorial commitment is complemented by the unique art fair setting of a classic South Beach hotel with spacious exhibition rooms that open onto a breezy, intimate courtyard. The surroundings have become a favorite gathering spot not only for relaxation during the busy Art Basel Week, but also as a place to exchange and disseminate new contemporary art ideas. And with its close proximity to the main Art Basel fair, Aqua Art Miami has consistently been ranked among the top satellite art events by collectors, artists, curators, critics and the art loving public alike.

Throughout its tenure, Aqua Art Miami has been a great supporter of not-for-profit art organizations. With the success of its inaugural Museum Day in 2011, Aqua12 is expanding the second installment of the event to include not only local art institutions, but all art museums worldwide. On Thursday, December 6th, from noon – 9pm, in an effort to promote membership sign-ups and public support for the arts, the fair will grant free entry to all art museum membership card holders for the day. Aqua12 would like to invite all not-for-profit art organizations, both in the US and abroad, to participate in this cross-organizational collaborative and drive membership sign-ups and renewals, as well as promote even more support for the arts in their own communities. Members of the Host Committee for Aqua’s Second Annual Museum Day include Art Papers (Atlanta), Bakehouse Art Complex (Miami), Boca Raton Museum of Art (Florida), De Cordova Sculpture Park & Museum (Maryland), Frost Art Museum (Miami), Lowe Art Museum (Miami) and Miami Art Museum (Florida).

This year, visitors to Aqua12 will also be able to experience a uniquely comprehensive arts programming, at the core of which is the work of Atlanta-based artist Lauri Stallings and her performance art troupe Glo. Livers: REMIX is a 3-hour continuous work that conducts an entire precarious world between the performers and the city of Miami Beach. It begins at Aqua as a physical installation of choreographed gestures in a state of being together, and continues in migratory form along the pedestrian arteries of Collins Avenue, for a highly physical contemporary performance in a public space, sculpted as an “arena of exchange.” Lauri Stallings’ physical language, influenced by the philosophies of Ohad Naharin’s “gaga” system, Nicolas Bourriaud’s relational aesthetics and situational experiments, enervates and explores the spontaneous collaborations that arise when public members interact with performers to participate in the realization of this piece, which will be performed in the evenings of December 5, 6 and 7, 2012.

Babel Shield, by artist Jen Pack, is yet another highlight of Aqua’s special programming. This installation is a visual sound deflector, built to shield off noise bombardments. On first glance, the piece offers no obvious protection from “babble”, but it is in fact a shelter – a safety point – even if serving only as a mental one, from bombardments of the cacophony and discord of daily life. The viewer is invited to walk around and under, look up, down and sideways, and otherwise choose their point of interaction with the installation. From certain perspectives, the piece appears visually layered – the various colors bleed and bend to create an audible noise of their own. Babel Shield will be on display in Aqua’s courtyard for the duration of the fair.

And speaking of Atlanta-based art above, Aqua12 welcomes several exhibitors from this part of the US, including newcomers Get This! Gallery and Saltworks, as well as the returning Whitespace and the MFA program at Georgia State University’s Ernest G. Welch School of Art + Design. Other first time Aqua exhibitors include: Tappan Collective (Los Angeles), Systema Gallery (Osaka), C-Arte / Solange Guez + Arte Contemporaneo (Buenos Aires), Morton Fine Art (Washington DC), Susan Eley (New York), Pele Prints (St. Louis), Ghostprint (Richmond) and Valerie Goodman (New York). Returning galleries include: Lyons Wier (New York), Eleanor Harwood (San Francisco), Taylor De Cordoba (Los Angeles), Toomey Tourell (San Francicso), Prole Drift (Seattle), Galerie SAS (Montreal), Thomas Robertello (Chicago), George Lawson (Los Angeles), Froelick (Portland), Robert Henry Contemporary (Brooklyn), ArtSlant (Los Angeles) and SOIL Gallery (Seattle).