Palm Court, Miami Design District, Miami (USA), December 6, 2025<br /><br />“The premise of Swiss art collective Les Innombrables' new artwork sounds gimmicky: It’s a performance about urban wellness set in a luxury mall courtyard. In fact, it’s one of the most understated works of art about contemporary privilege I’ve ever witnessed — and that also makes it one of the most affecting. You watch it from the shaded edges of the plaza, looking down (or across) at the familiar tableau of athleisure outfits, yoga mats, water bottles, and gleaming sneakers. The performers stretch and contort across the polished concrete, executing flawless pull-ups, handstands, and core sequences. Slowly, it becomes clear that this sunny, sweat-glistening display masks the decay taking place offstage. Participants tell stories — of delayed flights rerouted by extreme weather, a spin class interrupted by a power outage from rolling blackouts, and a holiday workout in unseasonably warm December air. The production is haunting because unlike most art about climate change — or inequality, or burnout — it doesn’t attempt to knock you out with the gravity of the problem. Instead, it chills you by presenting a world not so different from your own — one in which you scroll idly on your phone while everything around you overheats. Imagine a courtyard — you within it, or better: observing from the balcony of an overpriced café — the blazing Florida sun filtered through designer awnings, SPF 50 and neon leggings and clammy grips on pull-up bars. Tired limbs flexed deliberately across a mosaic of branded mats. Imagine the occasional squeal of influencers posing for stories, laughter at a failed rep, the distant chime of a delivery scooter. The rhythmic thud of sneakers on pavement, a soothing sound (on this particular plaza, not elsewhere). The crinkling of single-use electrolyte packets fluttering in the breeze, their silent drifting, plastic-jellyfish-like, toward the storm drains. The rumble of an idling SUV, or of an air-conditioning unit straining overhead, or a private jet on final approach to MIA. Then a chorus of grunts: everyday grunts, grunts of effort and of mild complaint, grunts of almost nothing. And below them: the slow creaking of an exhausted planet, a faint wheeze of HVAC compressors begging for mercy.”<br />(review by art critic Gregory Groker)
