Es Devlin’s Library of Us at Faena Hotel Miami Beach was much more than an Instagram attraction. Photos by Oriol Tarridas

Es Devlin’s Library of Us was one of the undeniable Instagram hits of Miami Art Week. Yet despite the hype, the installation the artist conceived for the annual Faena Miami Beach art program was perhaps one of the most successful examples of public art we have seen in Miami, especially when compared to the many monumental yet ephemeral installations of recent years that are mounted to coincide with Art Basel Miami Beach, obstruct the city’s fragile natural and community ecosystems and leave behind enormous waste in both money and materials.

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From December 1 through December 7, the work rose over the white shoreline, a 20-foot-high, 50-foot-wide triangular revolving library containing 2,500 books that have shaped the artist’s philosophy, life and practice. The books also represented the broader human endeavor to understand and interpret the world, the nature of time and the essence of reality. Beneath the mirrored artwork, a 60-foot pool casts endless reflections, suggesting an infinite multiplication of this trove of knowledge far beyond the limits of a single human life.

What Devlin created was a true public space for the sharing of human knowledge and experience. On a 70-foot-wide reading table, visitors were invited to take a book, read, reflect and exchange thoughts while seated on a slowly rotating platform that gently imposes another tempo, a suspension of........

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