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self-help guide to Art Basel art basel miami - Art Basel Miami Beach be a private spectacle or even a public one? I wondered that while i headed off to the art world’s ritualistic week of gawking, power schmoozing and peacocking, which can be now a decade strong. Certainly top collectors dominate the calendar, awaken the selling floor and preside over what exactly are sometimes ludicrous displays of privilege. But some also open their houses, or at least their warehouses, for the masses. And although you might need a V.I.P. card to party alongside A-Rod or celebrate the most recent Ferrari model, as some revelers did this year, those who need to make art viewing the main activity have plenty of more accessible options. Not the smallest amount of of these will be the fair itself, which has swelled to incorporate some 260 international exhibitors plus a full program of out of doors sculpture, video and gratifaction. And whether you would like to be occupied by Art Basel or Occupy it, you can’t deny the event’s role in revitalizing Miami culture in the last 10 years. (Both the Miami Art Museum and MoCA North Miami have new buildings within the works, and also the Wynwood district is chockablock with galleries, studios and street art.)
Read more… - Everything that said, a backlash seemed possible this year. There was rumors of an Occupy Wall Street-style protest, and a high-profile collector declared an intention to boycott the fair (Adam Lindemann, in the column inside the New York Observer). Mr. Lindemann appeared anyway. And also the only activism I saw was folded, shrewdly, to the fair’s “Art Public” section: a gathering space for Miami community groups, due to the performers Andrea Bowers and Olga Koumoundouros, making it possible to get a leaflet or purchase a T-shirt nevertheless “99%.” Nobody seemed particularly concerned with protests or even the euro zone at the fair’s V.I.P. preview inside the Miami Beach Convention Center. The job, though, appeared more conservative than in years past. The blue-chip selections were plentiful, included in this a classy display of Calder and Miró sculptures (at Helly Nahmad) along with a stuffy-looking but rewarding exhibition of Modiglianis, Soutines as well as other School of Paris artists (at Galerie Thomas). Those looking for more of a celebration atmosphere will find it at Mary Boone, where Barbara Kruger’s huge wall texts shouted “Money makes money” along with other turns of phrase on the subject of filthy lucre. Just across the aisle, L&M had a similarly snazzy booth wallpapered with Warhol’s cows and festooned with a broad selection of his drawings. A number of other exhibitors relied on size to create a statement. Edward Tyler Nahem gave nearly all of its booth to some 30-foot-long Frank Stella, “Khurasan Gate Variation III,” from 1968. Everywhere, dealers were taking out their tape measures.
Read more… - What it's all about, over all, was “We’re here to have an account,” not “What creates this change all mean?” Just a few dealers, like Peter Blum, took shots at the fair environment. At his booth two paintings from your series called “Bankrupt Banks,” from the Danish artists’ group Superflex, caused many double-takes with their prominent corporate logos. A new comer to the gathering circuit was “Home Alone,” an exhibition sampling the Adam and Lenore Sender Collection. This show in the Senders’ bayside home was available only by invitation, that has been understandable, due to the intimate spaces. The curator Sarah Aibel made mischievous use of the home’s nooks and crannies, installing a Sarah Lucas rooster in the master shower and a couple Elizabeth Peytons inside a child’s closet. It had been a really private experience. But over the course of a few days - even throughout per day - I'd many public ones that have been just as memorable. For the reason that spirit was the renegade mini-fair SEVEN, where entry costs nothing, and galleries share space on the “salon wall.” There, a vending machine through the artist Jennifer Dalton dispensed wristbands like that accustomed to move through velvet ropes. They read, “What this says matters not.” Art Basel Miami Beach runs through Sunday in the Miami Beach Convention Center; artbaselmiamibeach.com.
