Fair and Fair Alike: Miami 2009. Red Dot

Fair and Fair Alike coverage so far:
. NADA
. Scope
. Aqua Art
. Pulse
. The Big One, Art Basel Miami Beach
. An Overview Before the Individual Fairs
. Art Bloggers at Art Miami
. Are We Out of the Woods?
. A Little Gossip
. Art? Or Not Art?
. Nosing Around
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I visited Red Dot on Saturday at the end of a long day at Art Miami (post coming next), which encompassed the Blogger Panel in the morning and fair viewing all afternoon. It had rained during the hot and humid day, but by the time I crossed the street to Red Dot, the weather was dry and cool. Ah, my kind of weather.

I wish I could say that Red Dot was my kind of fair. A couple of years ago it was. Then it was located in the South Seas Hotel on Collins Avenue, across from the Flow Fair at the Catalina and just up the street from the Aqua Hotel, site of Aqua Art. ABMB was a couple of blocks inland. The strip was jumping. Sure, the hotel-room location made for crowded viewing at times, but Red Dot had a great lineup of galleries, each with varied and interesting work. I was personally delighted to be part of it in 2007.

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Inset, the view from the street; above, entering the Red Dot tent

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The move across the causeway has not been kind to this fair. Now under a large, spacious tent with a welcoming entryway, it’s got plenty of space—but those same terrific galleries have migrated elsewhere. In their place are smaller galleries with a lot of wares.

Still I did find a few galleries whose work I was drawn to, and another had a great painting that I put into the Tree post. Take a look:
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George Dunbar's shimmering geometry, platinum-gilded on a clay ground, at Myers Contemporary, Annapolis
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Lisa Nankivil's chromatic painting, one of several strong works from this artist, also at Myers Contemporary
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Detail below
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Tim Tate's video bell jars at Mayer Fine Art, Norfolk, Virginia

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Showing you Tim's work gives me a chance to provide a link to Lenny Campello's blog, Daily Campello Art News. Lenny, an artist who is also a dealer, was running the gallery that had Tim's work. His comments provide something of a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on at a fair from a dealer's point of view--the boredom, the sales, the folks who stop by (scroll down, you'll get to it, but it may take you a while because Lenny is a good storyteller--and take a look at his work, too, which a nice political edge).

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Vivian Wolovitz, Red Dirt, oil on canvas, 60 x 48 inches, at Projects Gallery, Philadelphia . (The gallery also has Ross Bonfanti's endearing, and surprisingly heavy "concreatures," which I showed you last year, and which you can see here.)
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Next up: Art Miami