FAIR WEATHER: Deal or No Deal
This is the fourth year I’m writing about what has become a cultural phenomenon in December: the art fairs in Miami. Unlike some bloggers who began posting in real time, I’m taking a more circumspect approach. Over the next couple of weeks I'll post every few days. As I go through some 2200 images (thoroughness: a blessing and a curse), I'm still deciding whether to do it by venue, as I have in the past, or thematically, which will connect the dots between fairs. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, a little taste follows. As you can see, the dealers offered up a jumble of stuff:
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The sublime: Louise Bourgeois at Hauser & Wirth, Art Basel
The ridiculous: Not sure who, what or where from , but when these suits were not inhabited by artists giving gorilla hugs to fairgoers at Art Basel, they sat slumped against a wall
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The cinematic: Mickalene Thomas at the Rubell Family Collection's exhibition, 30 Americans
The cartoonish: Richard Jackson at Hauser & Wirth, Art Basel. I'll leave it to you to decide whether what was going on was a transfusion or an enema; in either instance the paint went in and then it came out
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The seductively simple: Rachel Whiteread's luminous cast resin boxes at Luhring Augustine, Art Basel
The eye-bendingly complex: Ignacio Uriarte at Noqueros Blanchard, in Art Basel's Supernova section
Abstract and geometric: Frederick Hammersley and William Metcalf (with Jeremy Thomas sculpture) at Charlotte Jackson Fine Art, Art Miami
Abstract and lyrical: Helen Frankenthaler at Ameringer & Yohe, Art Basel
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The expansive installation: Danese Gallery, at Art Miami
The tight quarters: David Castillo Gallery, at the Containers
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The quirky: Laubert at Space, at Pulse
The grotesque: Berlinde De Bruyckere at Yvon Lambert, at Art Basel (relax, it's wax)
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Video in the park: The evening entertainment in Collins Park
Video in the closet: Kelly Mark's installation, The Kiss, in a teeny tiny space at Platform Gallery, Aqua Art
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Recycling the mattress: Lucia Fabio and Robert Andrew Mueller at Accomplice Projects, Bridge Wynwood
Recycling the carpet: Rodney McMillian at the Rubell Family Collection's 30 Americans. (I bet the Rubells will look at this piece one day and say to themselves, "What were we thinking." ) Hey, it matches the floor
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If you’re impatient to see what’s been written about the fairs, link to Art Info, The Art Newspaper, The New York Times, and the Miami Herald. Or click onto the New York-based blog Art Fag City, where Paddy Johnson provides the quirkiest reporting around.
Among these publications you’ll learn everything from who bought a three-ton bell with no clapper and for how much ($200,000); when Marilyn Manson paints (at three in the morning); who those two bald ambiguously sexual persons in pink are (Eva and Adele); who described Art Basel Miami Beach as having “the ambience of a sample sale” (Ken Johnson inThe New York Times) and why fairgoers are walking all over Barbara Kruger’s work (it’s a floor installation).
More soon.
4 comments:
Wow, that carpet gives me an idea. I'm about to get rid of a rug because it's so dirty. I was going to use it on my studio floor. Now I'm thinking maybe it's not dirty enough! A bit more and I can hang it on the wall, maybe dirt it up some more, and call it art. Yay!
I dig those kissing TVs.
OK. Sorry for triple post. But I looked again at the carpet, and actually that rectangle within it is kind of appealing. I have the feeling, though, that the visceralness of it all would overwhelm the delicate geometry in life. Hm.
And I thought the carpet in my boyfriends living room was just ugly. Now I see that it's art.
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