Jason Sauer, the spraycan-toting, derby car-mangling founder of Most Wanted Fine Arts, has cordially invited his Garfield neighbors, BOOM Concepts, to accompany him to Miami Art Week, one of the country’s premier art spectacles.

“These guys have something great going on,” says Sauer, who closed his gallery in 2017, but still lives in the neighborhood and trades under the name. “I think the show could use their uniqueness.” 

Miami Art Week is a behemoth of the contemporary art circuit: built around the prestigious Art Basel exhibition, there are hundreds of participating galleries and satellite art shows, public art installations, parties and associated happenings throughout the week, which wraps up on December 10.

MWFA and BOOM split the cost of a booth at Red Dot Miami, a commercial art festival inside the Mana Wynwood convention center. 

“The first five years, I had a big goose egg,” says Sauer. “But the last three years, I have sold out. So it pays to stay the course.” 

Founded in 2014, BOOM is a creative hub, based in Penn Avenue’s Garfield art district, dedicated to the development of artists and creative entrepreneurs representing marginalized voices. 

“It’s about being able to engage the pros,” says Darrell Kinsel, BOOM’s co-director. 

“You know, like, people talk about the ‘music industry?’ This is what we’re talking about. This is an opportunity for Pittsburgh artists, who don't have a proximity to commercial industry, to go and engage the commercial industry.”

Joining MWFA is Shawn Farester, a woodworker from Ford City, who cut his teeth at the long-gone moxie DaDA gallery in Bloomfield. Homewood’s Camerin “Camo” Nesbitt, who rocked a mural in Wynwood last year, and previously collaborated with Kinsel, accompanies BOOM.

“There's a mix of disciplines, there's a mix of identities, and, you know, it's an all-men's team, but it's a strong, positive brotherhood," says Kinsel

Together with co-director, J. Thomas Agnew, BOOM provides artists with subsidized studio space, partners on another artist residency with Radiant Hall, and has produced over two hundred events across the country and generated several hundred thousand dollars in artist fees.

“This isn’t a hobby,” Kinsel is fond of saying. Red Dot is his first commercial art show, and the first for BOOM, too. He’s had plenty of Penn Ave art crawls to prepare, and last year, he watched Anqwenique, his wife, director of the Groove Aesthetic artist collective, travel to Miami with members of Sibyls Shrine, which got his “in-house competitive juices flowing.”

The week is more than just a marketplace. Kinsel and Nesbit will collaborate on a mural at the Wynwood Mural Festival, and on Sunday, the BOOM x MWFA Art Car pops up at the Museum of Graffiti.

“Even if we don't sell any paintings, we're showing 30,000-plus people our stuff,” says Sauer. “We may shake hands with anybody, and that person may be running a program in Miami where they need this type of thing, and Darrell just happens to be there at that moment. That's how we start these things and move forward.”

Says Kinsel: “Strong concept, confidence, and passion is undeniable.”

Catch MWFA X BOOM at Red Dot Miami, Booth 601 at the Mana Convention Center in Miami, Florida, now through Sunday.