Entry area showing works by Andy Warhol, Zaha Hadid, Urs Fischer, Alessandro Mendini and John Baldessari.



Design and Art Are Two of a Kind in Craig Robins’ Miami Collection



By Benjamin Genocchio 



One of the more poignant, revealing works in the Craig Robins collection of art and design, a selection of which is currently on display at his company offices in the Miami Design District, is a portrait of the late art dealer Jack Tilton. It is a small black and white watercolor by the South African painter Marlene Dumas, and it is hung adjacent to Robins’ desk in his private offices. It is a homage to the art dealer who, Robins acknowledges, did a lot to help shape his taste in art and design. 


It seems fitting, given this context, that the present exhibition, Two Of The Same Kind highlights the work of Dumas along with Jana Euler, both figurative painters who dwell on the darker, complicated side of human psychology presented with intimacy and a touch of humor — qualities Tilton had an eye for in art and artists, which Robins obviously shares. The show is titled for one of Dumas’s 1993 drawings on view, a diptych in ink on paper depicting faceless, naked human bodies. 



Install shot with a table by Charlotte Perriand and Jean Prouvé "Standard" chair paired with etchings by Francisco Goya, sculptures by Urs Fischer and Rirkrit Tiravanija, and paintings by Jana Euler and Mike Kelley.



Left: Marlene Dumas, Fishbowl Country, 1987. Right: Amani Lewis, Mr. Star City, 2021, collage painting.


Three gouaches on paper by Kara Walker line the entry to Craig Robins private office.



The rest of the exhibition of more than 100 works is built out with pieces dealing with dualism, starting at the entrance to the offices with two double silkscreen portraits by Andy Warhol. Both were commissioned in the 1980s and depict Robins’ mother Joan Robins and Carol Soffer, his mother-in-law, a display that literally doubles the theme of dualism. Flashy, glamorous and colorful, they have been paired elegantly with Alessandro Mendini’s effusive table made of Bisazza mosaic tiles.


Robins has a history of collecting in his family and perhaps because of that is comfortable with not only pairing art and design, which he does sensitively as well as sometimes adventurously — contrasting two completely opposite sculptures by Urs Fischer and Zaha Hadid in the lobby area — but also by pairing older and new artwork. The exhibition mixes contemporary art and design from the early 1970s to now, with a few exceptions such as Goya's etchings from 1799.


Chairs of various kinds pepper spaces on two floors of the building. The collection is laid out over the 3rd and 4th floors of the Dacra headquarters in the Miami Design District that Robins conceived and developed. Two of the standout pieces are chairs by Ron Arad and Pharrell Williams, the latter his Perspective chair, a molded shell chair featuring human legs for chair legs, which he described as an “homage to the Eames structure.” There are also pieces by Jean Prouvé, Marc Newson, Maarten Baas and Max Lamb on display.



From left to right: Henry Taylor, Love in Long Island (portrait of Kelly Salters), 2013; Andra Ursuţa, Between Carrots, 2015; Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, Ode to Enjoyment, 2022. Far wall: John Outterbridge, Deja Vu-Do, Ethnic Heritage Series, 1979–1992. Right: Pharrell Williams, Perspective (red), 2008.


Bisa Butler’s embroidery painting If I ruled the World, Imagine That, 2022, and Huang Yong Ping’s Well, 2007 three ceramic vessels with taxidermied animals inside.


Install shot of Chitra Ganesh, Tales of Amnesia, 2002–2007 digital c-prints.




Installation shot on wall of Hell Gette's “#xxx (part II)”, 2021, mirage-print 
and oil on canvas. The desk, by Daniel Liebeskind, Counting the Rice Table, 2014, is made entirely of cement.


The collection is rotated on a biannual basis and the present iteration was installed to coincide with the opening of Art Basel Miami Beach in early December. It is partly a reflection of current collecting tastes which tend towards figuration and the work of African and Black artists. Paintings by established names such as Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley and Mickalene Thomas are set alongside pieces by younger breakout stars such as Kenturah Davis, an immensely gifted new talent. 


The seamless integration of art and design is one of the most attractive qualities of this exhibition, along with the quality of everything Robins acquires. In some cases, art and design are literally one and the same as in Jim Drain’s toilet top bench from 2008 or Urs Fischer’s Prototype for Nodosaurus, from 2016, a wacky chair and ottoman made of urethane foam, or the late Virgil Abloh’s Efflorescence Bench 2 from 2019, a massive rectangular piece of concrete covered in graffiti, evoking a skate ramp. 


There is so much to enjoy here that visitors could make multiple visits to this varied, inspiring collection show and not see it all. Looking at art and design in commercial spaces is not ideal, but it is good to see the way in which creativity is built into the DNA of the company Robins has built, much as it is built into his own family DNA.