Marina Fini and fellow artists Signe Pierce, Sierra Grace, and Sydney Krause are proud to present their dreamlike and acid-bright Motelscape installation at Art Basel in Miami Beach. Situated at the Miami Princess Hotel, the installation will engulf an entire themed room, infusing the secluded lovers’ landscape with the nostalgia of 1960s psychedelia, the seediness of modern excess and desire, and a vision of space age dystopia.For the very first time, Marina Fini—who is recognized in the LA art-fashion community for her handmade plexiglass jewelry—will be unveiling her new plexiglass furniture, fashioned as pieces of whimsy, luxury, and illusion. The installation will speak directly to the retrospective kitsch of Miami’s motels while also offering a comment on fantasy and escapism in contemporary society. 

Motelscape can be seen as a full-body immersion into a futuristic, sensual dream, complete with video projections, live performance, and Fini’s unique décor. The installation’s central theme revolves around the idea of human vice and materialism, explored as a hallucinatory, sugar-sweet environment that gorges the senses while leaving the viewer with a metaphorical toothache, a painful and nagging awareness of one’s indulgence in synthetic reality. In a world of overstimulation and quick fixes, where people are constantly seeking out shortcuts to fulfill their carnal and consumerist desires, Motelscape is like an ephemeral getaway frozen in time, one where the dark corners of our fantasies can be explored and relished while also unveiled as a destructive force that deludes the imagination. As another dimension, Motelscape is also an exploration of capitalism and art—two seemingly unlikely bedfellows that have become familiar with each other as art is increasingly treated as a luxury commodity. Art transactions have a semblance of the drug dealer’s table; exclusive and hand-to-hand, they transform the artist’s creativity and subjectivity into cash and coveted goods. Motelscape critiques this trend in a variety of ways, first by pairing representations of materialism with the haze of a hallucinogenic dream, and more subtly, by occupying a motel room and thus rejecting the elitism of an art gallery.Through the participating artists’ ability to weave dreams and critique culture, Motelscape will offer an experiential environment that seeks to transcend the constructs of fantasy within reality.