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guide to Art Basel Read more… - Art Basel Miami Beach be described as a private spectacle or even a public one? I wondered that while i headed off and away to the art world’s ritualistic week of gawking, power schmoozing and peacocking, that is now 10 years strong. Certainly top collectors dominate the calendar, fire up the selling floor and preside over what are sometimes ludicrous displays of privilege. However some also open their houses, or at least their warehouses, to the masses. And while you could need a V.I.P. card to party alongside A-Rod or celebrate the latest Ferrari model, as some revelers did this year, those that intend to make art viewing the key activity have ample more accessible options. Not the smallest amount of of these is the fair itself, that has swelled to add some 260 international exhibitors along with a full program of outdoor sculpture, video and performance. And whether you want to be occupied by Art Basel or Occupy it, you can’t deny the event’s role in revitalizing Miami culture within the last A decade. (Both the Miami Art Museum and MoCA North Miami have new buildings within the works, as well as the Wynwood district is chockablock with galleries, studios and street art.)

basel art - Everything said, a backlash seemed possible this season. There was rumors of an Occupy Wall Street-style protest, plus a high-profile collector declared an intention to boycott the fair (Adam Lindemann, in his column in The The big apple Observer). Mr. Lindemann showed up anyway. And the only activism I saw was folded, shrewdly, into 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 grab a leaflet or obtain a T-shirt having said that “99%.” No-one seemed particularly concerned about protests or even the euro zone on the fair’s V.I.P. preview in the Miami Beach Convention Center. The job, though, appeared more conservative than in years past. The blue-chip selections were plentiful, one of them a classy display of Calder and Miró sculptures (at Helly Nahmad) plus a stuffy-looking but rewarding exhibition of Modiglianis, Soutines as well as other School of Paris artists (at Galerie Thomas). Those looking for really 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 trading of filthy lucre. Just over the aisle, L&M had an equally snazzy booth wallpapered with Warhol’s cows and festooned using a wide range of his drawings. A number of other exhibitors trusted 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 removing their tape measures.

art basel miami - The message, over all, was “We’re here to work,” not “What creates this change all mean?” Only a few dealers, like Peter Blum, took shots on the fair environment. At his booth two paintings from your series called “Bankrupt Banks,” through the Danish artists’ group Superflex, caused many double-takes using their prominent corporate logos. Not used to the collection 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, which was understandable, because of the intimate spaces. The curator Sarah Aibel made mischievous utilisation of the home’s nooks and crannies, installing a Sarah Lucas rooster inside the master shower and two Elizabeth Peytons inside a child’s closet. It had been a very private experience. But during the period of the week - even over the course of per day - I needed many public ones which were just as memorable. Because spirit was the renegade mini-fair SEVEN, where entry costs nothing, and galleries share space over a “salon wall.” There, a vending machine from 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.