Art Basel Recap: Day 1

Day 1: 

For this year’s annual Art Basel in Miami Beach, I allotted approximately three days (to be precise 56 hours) and I felt like I was running the whole time. Besides the main exhibit, I only made it to five other fairs – Pulse, Scope, Aqua, Art Miami and Art Viceroy. The main issue this year was the distance between each venue and also not enough strategic preplanning on my part. Cutting right to the chase – Pulse was by far the best side fair outside the main exhibit, which in itself was also a great show. There were three repeating themes this year – vagina, live fish and receipts.

Let’s start with Pulse; the venue was great with many interesting and exciting pieces. In hindsight, I wish I had spent more time at that show (which I went to twice in one day but still wasn’t enough).  Airan Kang’s amazing illuminated and pixilated stack of books was fresh and enticing. The work was shown both in traditional, horizontal stacks as well as vertical stacks (below). Another great and affordable piece was Jennifer Vasher’s “Prevacid and Friends”, sculptures made from different kinds of pills. This medium is not new in contemporary art, but her smaller sculptures priced at $280 seemed like a steal. Also not a new concept, but still impressive was Cecilia Paredes’ “Art Nouveau” pictures (below) which had painted woman blending into the background of beautiful royal wallpaper.  The pictures brought up a lot of questions about race for me; especially in the picture below where the woman’s race in unclear and also the gold paint on her body brought up references of tribal rituals using body paint to express themselves.  Another highlight was suicidal Mickey, unfortunately I did not get the artist or gallery’s name, so I will research to see who it was. In the middle of the booth hung a smiling Mickey Mouse with a big noose tied around his neck and wrapped around the rafters of the ceiling of the Ice Palace. It had many cultural references for me, especially coming from Vasher’s pill sculptures to this. The sculpture forced me to really focus on the idea of happiness expressed by the cultural icon of Mickey Mouse and Disney. It was the best juxtaposition, especially since the artists left Mickey with a great big smile. 

Next up was a guided tour of the Art Viceroy, an interesting collection of curated-spaces on a residential floor above the Viceroy Hotel.  Getting a guided-tour was great (thank you MoMA Junior Associates) and we got to meet some great artists. Some of the highlights included Jeannie Weissglass’ drawings which were wild and seemed out of control but then would allow for detailed images in the voids including birds and a side human profile. In the same space was beautifully crafted NY Times articles that somehow could be altered by the heat of a human hand. The articles were set in the future and the artist engaged actual Times writers and a psychic to help craft the stories. The spaces themselves were amazing with panoramic views of the city and the bay – quite a distraction from the art. Other great pieces were from Brooklyn-based gallery Hogar Collection who showed Peter Fox’s highly textured paintings that were both chaotic yet very controlled at the same time. Some of the other spaces were a miss, but one of the great finds was Rupert Ravens – who have a huge 30,000 square foot gallery space in Newark. Their space in the Viceroy featured very intriguing artists, including Rich Wislocky, Gae Savannah, Eric Michel, Charles McGill and Adam Brown. There are several other New York-based galleries that are on my short list for after the holidays (pre-Armory Show).

At night we were able to hit Nocturne at Design Miami – a show I always attend, but have not blown away by the past two years. In 2007, the fair seemed to bridge the gap between art and furniture. This year proved to be the same as last – nothing blew me away, not even the Swarovski booth, which was over-the-top but reminded me of an unembellished windshield screen used to block the sun in a parked car.

Also on the first day I mad it to the MAM reception. I was excited to see the museum as I know Herzog & deMeuron are designing the new space for the Miami Art Museum. The show was great. One of the pieces I loved was William Anastai’s “One gallon high-gloss enamel paint, poured”, 2006. It was black paint spilled down the wall to form a puddle on the gallery floor - simple yet elegant. Charles Ray's Ink Box from 1986 was also a nice surprise. The show on the upper level was Guillermo Kuitca’s work, the only pieces I really loved were dark paintings that told even darker stories. It reminded me of Francis Bacon and all the dark, disturbing paintings he created to reflect dark moments in his life.

Day Two to come shortly.

Links –

Airan Kang - http://www.brycewolkowitz.com/www/

Jennifer Vasher - http://www.levygallery.com/

Cecilia Paredes - http://www.ceciliaparedes.com/

Jeannie Weissglass - http://jeannieweissglass.com/

Hogar Collection - http://www.hogarcollection.com/

Ethan Cohen Fine Arts - http://www.ecfa.com/site/main.php

Rupert Ravens- http://www.rupertravens.net/

Miami Museum of Art - http://www.miamiartmuseum.org/

More info on MAM's current exhibition - 
http://www.artlurker.com/2009/11/it%E2%80%99s-about-time-and-space-space-is-medium-at-mam/