Art Installation Photography
Art Basel Miami
Es Devlin’s Library of Us, presented during Art Basel Miami Beach at Faena Miami Beach, is a large-scale public art installation that transforms space through light, reflection, and movement. Public art at this scale shifts with time, light, and human presence, making each moment distinct. The goal is to preserve both the artist’s intent and the atmosphere that brings the installation to life.
Installation Photography For Public Art
Let Them Eat Flan
The Brief
A shared experience at Art Basel (Basil? IYKYK)…so long as it’s trending.
Es Devlin’s Library of Us is one of those rare pieces of modern art that actually earns its place in public, even if it feels slightly out of place in a city with more silicon than literacy. In true Miami fashion, we’ll fund a fake library for “The Gram” before investing in a real one or opening a bookstore.
Spectacle over substance, and goddamnit, we won’t pretend otherwise.
But this installment resists that instinct. It radiates depth beyond beauty. It’s something you sit with. The structure rotates throughout the day, constantly reshaping the experience and, conveniently, creating some great time-lapse opportunities.
Public art like this matters. It interrupts the routine. It creates a shared moment. People slow down, make space for each other, and contemplate things bigger than themselves. For a brief window, the space does what it’s supposed to do: it brings people together rather than just pushing them through.
…Until, inevitably, some douchebag ruins it by wading into the pool and “borrowing” a book for a selfie despite very clear signs not to touch the art…or enter the water. The installation was “shut down” for the rest of the day, ruining the experience for everyone who deserved more by showing up and enduring that biblical Basel traffic.
Oh, Miami: where we can’t have nice things because your thirst for validation from strangers overrules public decency.
I fought that traffic more than once to catch the installation under different conditions: warm sunrises, stormy skies, and, of course, a bougie invite-only dinner roped off from the peasants loudly undermining the spirit of a “shared space.”
Again… because Miami. Let them eat flan
The work demanded coverage across stills, motion, drone, and time-lapse. No single perspective tells the full story. Some moments needed distance. Others needed compression. The dining scene, in particular, required going vertical: a 25-foot tripod (pictured left), CamRanger, and just enough elevation to rise above the rabble.
