Fair Enough: Art Basel Miami Beach, Part 1

The posts so far:
Fair Enough: And I'm Off
Fair Enough: Traveling Incognita?
Fair Enough: All Over But the Posting
Fair Enough: Art or Trash?  We have a winner!
Fair Enough: Prologue to the Report
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The floor plan of ABMB (click pic for larger view), which covers 500,000 square feet
In Manhattan apartment terms, that's 1,000 studio apartments, though not all the square footage is specifically for exhibition

I made three visits to ABMB, for a total of about 12 hours of viewing time. That’s more than enough for the casual visitor, but writing about the fair means doing more than giving a booth the once-over as I walk by. During the press preview, I allowed myself to wander. It’s a kind of dream state where I leave the floor plan behind and just follow my eye. Everything, then, is a surprise. On the subsequent visits I pursued a quadrant-by-quadrant reconnaissance of the venue. Some installations changed from day to day, so I found myself looking at new work in booths I’d visited before. And I’m pretty sure that despite my best intentions I missed a few things. There were 259 galleries representing some 29 countries and the work of—I’m guessing—some 2400 artists.
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The fair consist of four degrees of participation, which you can see from the floor plan:
. White: These gallery booths constitute the largest number of square feet in the fair
. Yellow: These galleries showed the work of a single artist, or they created a smaller space within their booth, an Art Kabinett, dedicated to the work of a single artist
. Green: Clustered in one corner of the venue, these smaller booths consitute Art Nova, dedicated to emerging galleries. Art Nova used to be sequestered in an annex, unpleasant for both visitor and exhibitor, like the kid’s table at the holidays
. Pink: The smaller cluster in another corner consituted Art Positions. In past years, these galleries would have occupied cargo boxes on the beach, open in the evening when the other venues had closed. This year the beach was given over to, well, loud music and a focus on such important art centers as Detroit. I’m guessing things will change again next year. But I do like seeing Art Positions here in the mothership.
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I don't love everything I'm going to show you, but I do want you to see some of the range of what's here. OK, ready? Let's go in.

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The crowd waiting to get in on Thursday morning. I entered on the heels of an exhibitor, so I had a few crowd-free minutes to photograph. We're going to start with some shots of the venue:

Those little boxes on the floor plan can translate into some very large booths. Above: Suzan Frecon's painting at David Zwirner, New York

You can always count on Neuger-Riemschneider, Berlin, for spectacle in their big corner booth. These flayed figures . . .

. . . are an interesting counterpoint to Thomas Zipp's Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon, above and below,  at Baudach, Berlin/Harris Lieberman, New York

Installation view of Nicole Klagsbrun, New York, with Patrick Jackson tsotschke sculpture, below

Two gallery views: Chantal Crousel, Paris, above (note the book forms emerging from the wall; I'll have better pics when we get to the dedicated post); Below: Klosterfeld, Berlin (I think)

I hope you agree that the booth views give you something of a you-are-there experience.  The typographic composition is by Gert &Uwe Tobias at Sies & Hoke, Dusseldorf. There were other typographic works scattered around the fair, but by the time I'd realized it, I'd already made two long passes through the venue. I guess typography is the logical counterpart to all the book references I saw and which you will see

The counterpoint of small and large, newly exhibiting and secondary market

Above:  Jorge Mendez Blake in a solo installation at Messen DeClercq, Brussels, whose booth suggests a stage set. Mendez Blake's work includes two elements that were much in evidence: bricks and a reflective surface

Below: the corner booth of Edward Tyler Nahem, New York. The large paintings are by--you know who they are--Joan Mitchell and Frank Stella

An oasis of calm within the thrum, above and below: Helen Frankenthaler at Ameringer/McEnery/Yohe, New York

One of my favorite booths from one of my favorite New York galleries: Cheim & Read

Above: Juan Usle (on dark wall), the classic Lynda Benglis dildo photograph and one of the artist's sculptures; Hans Hartung painting

Below: a full view of the Hartung and a Benglis resin sculpture

One more Cheim & Read view: Pat Steir painting, Louise Bourgeois bronze floor sculpture, the Benglis

Two views of Gagosian's booth

Above: a peek into the space; below: Franz West sculptures

Don't you love the visual segue from the West sculptures to the cactus? This is a Dennis Hopper by Dennis Hopper.

(Note the patterned wall in the background, also part of the Shafrazi booth. Wallpaper consituted a minor theme this year. Look for more wallpaper pics in Part 2)

My kind of booth: Projects SD, Barcelona, and Galerie Jocelyn Woolf, Paris. Pieter Vermeesch paintings and painted wall; I'm working on the names of the sculptors

Anish Kapoor sculpture as Lisson Gallery, London

Petah Coyne wax flower sculpture (also shown at ABMB in 2008) and Angelo Filomeno embroidery on burlap

Below and below: Details of Filomeno and Coyne

This next grouping shows installations of painting and sculpture.  Of course this is not a new idea, but in the limited space of a booth, good juxtapositions are visually satisfying

Above, at Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin: Tal R painting and Thomas Kieswetter sculptures

At Pace, New York and elsewhere: Bridget Riley painting and John Chamberlain sculpture. (This is a nice change; usually Chamberlain gets paired with Albers--effective, but overdone) 

Corinne Wasmuht painting and Helen Mirra sculpture at Meyer Riegger, Berlin

Jules de Balincourt painting and (I think) Betty Woodman sculpture at Salon 94, New York

At Sies & Hoke, Dusseldorf:  I think the painting is Federico Herrera; don't know the sculptor. (I do an efficient job of shooting the work and then the wall label, but every time I stopped to talk with someone I knew, there was a break in my rhythm. Sometimes, as here, I missed information.)

 

At Stephen Friedman, London: Wayne Gonzales painting, Tara Donovan paper plate sculpture

At Regen Projects, Los Angeles: Lari Pitman painting, Manfred Pernice sculpture (foreground), Liz Larner wall sculpture

At Eva Presenhuber, Zurich: the chameleon Urs Fischer, with paintings and sculpture

Moving into sculpture now

At Almine Rech Galerie, Paris and Brussels: Ugo Rondinone, a ubiquitous presence at the fairs, typically with diverse work. I loved/hated this beautiful/creepy head

At Galerie Karsten Greve, St. Moritz: Louise Bourgeois fabric totem, with detail below

How do I love LB? Let me count the ways. And let me show you more.

At Carolina Nitsch, New York: Bourgeois in pink marble

Above: a view of the work from the aisle

Below: a view from the booth looking out

At Galerie Nelson-Freeman, Paris: Rachel Whiteread sculpture

 Looks like styrofoam and Jell-o, but it's plaster, pigment, stainless steel, wood and other materials

 

Here's your styrofoam: the stuffing in Ernesto Neto's smurfy little sculpture (I'll show you more when we get to the big thread, fiber and fabric post). At Parkett, New York

ABMB, Part 2 coming as soon as I can post it

Fair Enough: Prologue to the Report

The posts so far:
Fair Enough: And I'm Off
Fair Enough: Traveling Incognita?
Fair Enough: All Over But the Posting
Fair Enough: Art or Trash?  We have a winner!
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2-D: Yes, it's an installation. Is it art? You be the judge

All Miami pics by Joanne Mattera unless otherwise credited

On Collins Avenue in South Beach, just around the corner from the very downscale Days Inn where I was staying, several dozen storm troopers occupied the balconies of an under-construction condo. The initial look up was jarring, but it was quickly apparent that these were two-dimensional figures. Turns out they were installed by the Los Angeles-based used-clothes-vendor-turned-artist, Mr. Brainwash. You know all about Brainwash if you saw Banksy’s street documentary, Exit Through The Gift Shop; if not two-dimensional figures are a useful metaphor for the artist and his work.

A few blocks south, in one of the many shops that cater to tourist needs, dimension ruled. In a fashion world where window mannequins are mere hangers for the clothes, the dummies in these windows presided over Collins Avenue with wildly inflated double G’s—or maybe another letter farther along the alphabet. These mannequins are the metaphor for a beach culture in which over-the-top sexuality—with staggeringly high heels, body-hugging spandex, short shorts, gem-encrusted tight jeans and, of course, pneumatic cleavage—are the norm. It's an interesting place to visit when the weather is nice, as it was (70-degree temps and low humidity, unlike the 90-degree soup of last year), but I wouldn’t want to live here.

3-D, or more precisely 32 G. Not an installation, but I hope this mannequin is sufficiently anchored to the floor

As I have done in the past, I’m going to start with the big fair, Art Basel Miami Beach, ABMB for short, followed with a visit in the subsequent post to Aqua Art. In part this is because they’re geographic neighbors and it’s the way I visited them, but also because they are a study in contrasts: big versus small, self contained versus open to the outside; and, of course, hyper expensive to very reasonably priced. I’m guessing the entire contents of Aqua Art could have been acquired for the $4.5 million reportedly paid for an Yves Klein at the big fair.

 Above, the oceanside entrance to the Miami Beach Convention Center, home of Art Basel Miami Beach

Below, the more intimate Aqua Hotel, home of Aqua Art

Next we’ll go across one of the causeways to visit  Art Miami, Pulse, Scope, Seven and Red Dot. I’ll also take you to the Rubell Collection, one of the four private collections open to the public. Then we'll head back across the causeway to the beach side, where we’ll visit NADA and Ink. Once you've had a look at each venue in its own post--mostly for the flavor and personality of each fair--I'll focus on some trends according to my credo, Two of anything is a coindidence; three's a trend. Some certifiable trends: books, threads, money, and hair.

I'll also report on two events: Joanie San Chirico's Age and Gender roundtable at Jen Dalton and William Powhida's #Rank at Seven; and the blogger meet-and-greet I organized at Aqua Art--both informal and informative.

Art Miami, in its own tent

Seven, the non-fair, with seven participating New York galleries in a renovated warehouse

The lobby of the Deauville, a Fifties-era extravaganza of glass, marble, chandeliers and floral carpets, host of the NADA Art Fair. Do you think the decor clashed with the fair's Lower East Side sensibility?

Above, a large gallery at the Rubell Family Collection, a renovated Drug Enforcement Agency warehouse turned private museum. We'll also visit Jennifer Rubell's installation in the family compound

Below, the courtyard of the Dorchester Hotel, home to the small print fair, Ink

Fair Enough: Art or Trash?

The posts so far:

Fair Enough: And I'm Off

Fair Enough: Traveling Incognita?

Fair Enough: All Over But the Posting

And we have a winner. One person got them all right. But before I tell you who it is, take a look at the captions and compare them against your entry, which you'll see in the Comments section. While there was just one clearcut winner, some of you werethisclose.

1. Rubern Verdu at Raul Zamudio, Art Miami

Art professionals, start your engines. In this second annual installment of Art or Trash? I challenge you to guess which of the 25 images above and below depict work on exhibition at the Miami fairs and which just happen to look like it. One hint: Not everything indoors is art, and not everything outdoors isn’t.

I'll post the captions on Friday morning, December 10, at 9:00. Until then if you're game enough, post a comment identifying each number with "art" or "trash."  I’m upping the ante for anyone who's brave enough to post under your own name. If you guess all 25 correctly I’ll put your name in a hat and pull out a winning name.  Winner gets a 30-minute interview with me and a subsequent blog post that I'll write about you and your work--plus bragging rights that you can distinguish the art-world equivalent of shit from Shinola.

2. Artist unidentified at 3PQ Gallery, ABMB

3. Trash, shot at NADA

4. Artist unidentified at Noero Gallery, ABMB

5. Trash, shot outside the portable restrooms at Red Dot. Everyone got this right

6. Jason Dodger at Casey Kaplan Gallery, ABMB

I found this piece merely interesting until I read the label. It was knitted—by Barbera Stochmolske in Szczecin, Poland—from twelve kilometers of yarn, the height of the earth to above the weather. Clearly conceptual, it nevertheless has a lovely presence and heft, with a red stripe that was engineered, or perhaps folded in just the right way

7. Trash. Maybe not actual trash, but these stacked pallets are not meant to be art

8. Trash. I shot this and #16 on Lincoln Road

The folks who had been selling produce all day were stacking up their goods, and the withering look I received from one of the workers heaped the scorn of class and culture upon me one evening after dinner

9. Helen Mirra sculpture at Meyer Riegger Gallery, ABMB

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10. Trash. Caution tape on a corridor rug at ABMB

11. Trash. Tape-covering wires at ABMB

12. Monika Sosnowska at The Modern Institute/Toby Webster, ABMB. How happy was I when I found this piece?

13. Ditto this piece from Elizabeth Neel at Sikkema Jenkins Gallery, ABMB

14.  Richard Rigg at Workplace Gallery, NADA

15. Artist unidentified at Parisa Kind Gallery, NADA

16.  Trash, shot on Lincoln Road.

17. Chris Astley at Bravin Lee Programs, Seven

I really like this low wall of objects and the almost anthropomorphic way the forms flop and and press against one another. My apologies for lumping this work in with the trash for the conceit of this post

18. Trash, shot behind a building in Wynwood

19. Orly Genger’s knitted units, placed around the grounds at Pulse, are both sculpture and seating. Designed to be used by the viewer, they provided a comfortable place to plop down after a day of art viewing. Orly, if you’re reading this, my apologies for suggesting that this work is anything less than wonderful. I mean that.

20. Carlos Bunga at Galerie Elba Benitez, ABMB

21. Trash, shot on the carpet in the ABMB lobby (if you've been to the venue, you'd remember that rug)

22. Not quite trash, but not art: boxes ready for repacking at Aqua Art

23. Joel Grossman at Galerie Christophe Paschall, Art Miami

24. I am not a fan of Cady Noland’s work, and her beer-can-and-trash room at the Rubell Collection did nothing to change my mind. I guess she had to go as far away as possible from the chromatic elegance of her father. But, hey, she’s in the Rubell Family Collection—and  we’re not

25. Whichever answer you gave, give yourself credit

The dumpster was in the compound of the Rubell Collection, set squarely in the back yard of the casita in which Jennifer Rubell had her installation of cups, spoons, oatmeal and raisins—the makings for a hearty Northeast breakfast on a lovely warm Miami day. Clearly the stuff had come from the interior, which was empty of pretty much everything but the tables holding the food and the refrigerators holding the milk (I hope to post some pics eventually). I called the Rubell Collection to ask about it.

RC: “It’s not part of the installation but Jennifer wanted you to see what came out of the house.”

Me: “Then it is part of the installation?”

RCl: “Well is it and it isn’t.”

An Anonymous commenter offered this criticism of the whole post: “I think I am ‘normal,’ but I see NO art in any of these. It wouldn't surprise me if some people claimed to see art in a pile of dung. This is just crazy.”

Well, Anon, I don't agree entirely with your assessment, but you have you have come to the right place to test your thesis.

Below:  Not Vital's cast bronze of Mongolian Cow Dung, which was shown in the  Gallerie Urs Miele, Beijing and Lucerne, at ABMB

And the winner? Gwyneth Leech, come on down! You know your shit. For your prize, you and your work you will be the subject of a blog post here on the Joanne Mattera Art Blog in January. Congratulations.

Fair Enough: All Over But the Posting

The posts so far:
Fair Enough: And I'm Off 
Fair Enough: Traveling Incognita?



A preemptive strike with toe donuts: This is how I girded for battle each morning. Five days of walk, walk, walking and not one blister

MIAMI--I left the NADA fair at 6:00 this evening just as it was closing, the last fair of the weekend to do so. I clocked about 48 hours of fair time. Now I begin the job of editing some 5000 images. I'll begin serious posting on Tuesday. I'm still thinking about how to proceed.

If you wanted painting, sculpture and installation, you would not have been disappointed as there was plenty of it to see. If you wanted Asian Art, Middle Eastern Art, prints and design, there were fairs devoted specifically to those specialties. With Photo Miami cancelled this year, photography was folded into the other fairs and it held its own. I'll have plenty of everything to show you in the coming days.

While each venue has a distinct personality and a place within the fair hierarchy, several trends cut across the  lines.

. Books made a huge--I mean HUGE--appearance. Paintings, prints and drawings of book; photographs and videos of books; altered books, book objects, and sculptures with and of books. Trees were the big trend last year; I suppose there's a certain logic in books this year

. Threads, stitching, fabric. If you have followed my fair reports from previous years, you know that I've written about this category before, but there seemed to be even more this year

. Money. I saw "sex" once, but references to currency were everywhere. There were plenty of red dots. Hmm. Collectors using money to buy art about money

. Shine, glitter and reflective surfaces. This has always been so, for in a sea of art, the biggest, brightest and shiniest always stands out. There just seemed to be a bit more this time around

. And, of course, there was trash. This year's "Art or Trash" post promises to be a good one. Art professionals that you are, prepare to be challenged.

. There's more. I'm just too fried to pull it out of my brain at the moment.

OK, gotta go pack. More soon.

Fair Enough: Traveling Incognita?

The posts so far:
Fair Enough: And I'm Off

MIAMI--I'm still in the thick of looking and photographing, downloading and editing. But I couldn't pass up this opportunity to share the art world version of Where's Waldo, created unexpectedly at the Thatcher Projects booth at Pulse, as this stylish woman passed in front of an Omar Chacon painting.