of Bharti Kher, on view at Art Basel Miami Beach in conjunction with New York’s Jack Shainman Gallery, are covered with row upon row of bindis, small stickers deriving from a Hindu tradition of painting a red dot on one’s forehead. The spiritual, cultural, and philosophical significance of this material adds multiple layers of meaning to Kher’s works, which include large sculptures of a heart and an elephant, furthering her visual exploration of immigration, identity, and cross-cultural movement.

In the elephant sculpture, Kher uses snake-shaped bindis and “places them in circular patterns, as if they were hair or fur, and they give the work texture,” says Stefania Maso at Jack Shainman Gallery.

Even as this level of elegance in fusing craft and concept has become a standard-bearer, another kind of work is putting process at the center. Livia Marin uses a lathe to carve lipsticks into small sculptures that she carefully installs, by the thousands, into complex ribbons of color. Although her work relates to constructed ideas about glamour and consumerism, the visual fascination of a labor-intensive process like Marin’s takes precedence over material associations, challenging the now-established hierarchy of concept over craft.

But that’s the beauty of art: as soon as you think you have it figured out, something changes, definitions shift, and a new range of possibilities emerges.

Clockwise from top left: Elana Mann’s hand embroidery of an Abu Ghraib prisoner; Mandy Greer’s Small But Mighty Wandering Pearl: wood, cloth, papier mâché, steel, fabric, yarn,

glass, glass and plastic beads, wool, plaster; Felipe Barbosa’s Three-dimensional Opp Ball: sewn soccer balls; and Boo Davis’ Pieces of Mind quilt (Roman Stripes variation).

Annie Buckley is a writer and artist living in Los Angeles. Her writing appears regularly in Artforum, Artweek, A&U, and other publications. She enjoys discovering art that will appeal to CRAF T readers. anniebuckley.com