DJ Hugel & Electronic Dance Music Ruled Miami’s Art Week And Art Basel

Art Basel’s annual edition in Miami during Art Week always draws out the glamour crowd. The Miami Beach Convention Center fills with the core galleries which also display in Paris, Hong Kong, and Basel. While Art Basel is the anchor, there are many options which pop up during that same early December week in Miami to present alternatives to the art fans who are drawn to the events. Among these are Scope, New Art Dealers Alliance, Satellite and Design Miami.

There is always a party element to Miami. But, during Miami’s Art Week the crowds drawn from all over the world were truly ready to party. Big brands and small all held receptions or events ranging from Robb Report’s takeover of the Faena Hotel and MoonPay’s Keith Grossman interviewing Deepak Chopra to the dockside party hosted by Kickstarter’s CEO Everette Taylor.

Each of the exhibitions and the myriad parties surrounding the week’s events have a singular commonality: there is inevitably a DJ playing EDM music. There were many EDM club popups from elsewhere which came to town. Perhaps the most significant was Silencio, the longtime standard bearer from Paris with their core team. Also in Miami was a temporary version of New York’s well respected club Gospel.

This year’s standout performer is Hugel, the French DJ who was seemingly everywhere in Miami during Art Week.

By the nature of the job, DJs tend to be insular, tending to the mechanics of their CDJ decks as they play their sets keeping the beats per minute in sync, and working the controls their board affords them when they are performing. There are knobs to twist, levers to slide and songs to sample all while maintaining an interaction with the crowd who reacts as the DJ manipulates sound. Hugel discovered house music when he was sixteen years old, and developed his own particular style. He plays his set at 123 beats per minute – enough to engage to the crowd without exhausting them. This pace also allows for those periodic shows for which he plays four hours or more. That’s a physically exhausting undertaking for any performer. Hugel does it with a wry smile.

Hugel is like EDM’s pied piper. There’s always something happening when you’re with him. We had a great conversation.

A rising DJ like Hugel has the gift of knowing how to mix a set live. He also has the showman’s personality which infuses the crowd with a certain urgency you first see in the women who are angling for attention, and then in the greater crowd itself which becomes more engaged because of the energy being generated by the performance.

There are collaborations with artists David Guetta and Diplo, and a branding deal with Tafari – a trendy clothing line which was revealed in Miami. www.tafariworld.com Their products are hypebeast fashion which Hugel often wears as he performs.

Hugel played all over the city during Art Basel. He performed a later afternoon show at the SLS hotel pool party where every available inch of space was filled and a line of fans waited urgently outside hoping to get in for any part of the set. Later that evening he played a set at Sexy Fish, Miami’s trendy sushi flagship with a strong EDM presence complementing the astonishing art pervasive throughout. Earlier in the week Hugel played a surprise popup show at Delilah – h. wood’s showcase restaurant where models mixed with the moneyed crowd while dining in a private club atmosphere.

DJ HUGEL – SEXYFISH

Hugel was both mischievous and charming, creating an immediate bond with the crowd while he performed. Afterwards there was always a line of fans who wanted to interact with Hugel who always seems to have an innate sense of how to be both available and appropriate. This likely stems from his early days in Marseille, France, a city which has its share of opportunities and obstacles as a working class city with a tinge of danger.

Success as an artist requires both the skill to perform and the personality to connect. Those came naturally to Hugel. His star is fast rising, and in sync with the ways in which EDM music is becoming the integral side dish to the art on display during Miami Art Week.