Art Basel is the main event for Wynwood and after a long, testy and bumpy Summer during the Zika outbreak, the Miami neighborhood is once again thriving with life and art.
The international art festival kicked off Tuesday. The star-studded evening launched with super model and America’s Got Talent judge Heidi Klum.
She says she’s in South Florida to take a trip down memory lane. “I love just walking on Ocean Drive because it brings back memories for me. I came here in ‘94 and that was my first stop in America before I moved to New York for 13 years,” Klum told NBC 6.
Tuesday, Klum was in Wynwood to talk about her latest cover on Ocean Drive Magazine and auctioning off a desk she painted for charity. “I actually posted on Instagram because I wanted people to know that I really actually painted it. It took me a week but it was a lot of fun,” explained Klum.
On the main strip in Wynwood, traffic started early in the evening. NBC 6 got a sneak peek inside the Wynwood Walls before opening to the general public. “This is the super bowl. It’s that time of the year. We're gearing up for the best of the best, lots of new art throughout our walls at Wynwood Walls,” said Miguel Aguilar, who works at Wynwood Kitchen and Bar.
The new art has been revealed and here to stay for 364 days! Restaurants like Wynwood Kitchen and Bar and Joey’s are pumped for the fresh business after a summer dampened by a pesky issue they choose not to say by name.
“Busy being busy, after all the problems we had lately with all the controversy that we had,” said Joey’s worker Belkis Anderson. People working in Wynwood refraining from mentioning Zika, after the virus nearly wiped out business for weeks. “No, we won’t say the name. We are so happy we're gonna get hopefully the business and Art Basel we’ve been waiting for it.”
