Kelly Lyles on ArtBasel Miami & the December Art Fairs

• I’m posting this with a ‘caveat’, it was my personal overview of the December Artfairs in Miami/Miami Beach sent to many friends, so my take is casual & personalized. There are far better blogs/articles focusing on the art itself, some of those links are at the bottom. I’d been waiting for photos before sending this out, but mostly procrastinating, because as per usual, it’s plain ol’ completely overwhelming! But here goes….

The Miami ArtFairs are a BLAST, a whole bunch of Seattleites invaded this year. I stayed w/ incredibly talented artists Jere Smith & Jeff Mihalyo (found a pretty cheap deal walking distance from the Convention center/Basel), Chris Crites and his wife Natania, as well as one of my favourite NW painters, Kamala Dolphin Kingsley were at our hotel too, the Habana Libre. Francesca Berrini was there in Miami, ditto Mandy Greer , Saya Moriyasu, Jaq Chartier, etc, etc (if u want to google any of them, I highly recommend any & all of those NW artists).

The Fair’s are officially 1st 4 day weekend in December, and it’s basically an art orgy (one apt comment “my eyes are bleeding”)! Maybe 40,000 plus pour into town, it’s spectacle & celebrities (Dennis Rodman, Kirsten Dunst, Paris Hilton, Benicio Del Torre- bummed I missed him!- David Lynch, Shakira, Beyonce, Iman, David Bowie, Pamela Anderson, Naomi Campbell, P. Diddy, Marilyn Manson, weird combinations). There’s performance art – the bald german couple in matching dresses & parasols were a hit, I was hugged by gorillas. It’s excess 24/7 for 5 days (& next year I’d like to get in a day earlier, take advantage of “press” preview parties- Jeff & I managed to get press passes, which was wonderful since many of the fairs do charge admission, mostly around $10 but Basel is $35 a day). Many of the Opening parties are on Wednesday, including the Shipping Containers party & the concert on the beach. This year was Yelle, French Electro-pop, last year was real POP! IGGY, that is. They’ve had PEACHES, SCISSOR SISTERS & the NEW YORK DOLLS in the past. It’s a giant free concert on the beach at 10pm, kind of fun watching the women stagger around the sand in spiked high heels after all the parties).

You have to stick to a tighter schedule than any job to even put a dent in it (& we did, averaging 15 hr days out, then home to check e-mails til 3am). And in the past I’ve stayed out even later, the parties (& buses) go all night. Miami Beach also has those fabulous ArtDeco hotels, the architecture, lighting, & seeing how the ‘beautiful people’ live is worth the trip alone, it’s an entirely different world from the casual Birkenstock NW (they were definitely NOT lifting any velvet ropes for Goretex. Yes, they actually have them, along with dark-suited security/bodyguards, limos & Bentleys at every turn. Facelifts & Boob jobs galore, & bodies by Baywatch).
But I seemed to get my picture taken constantly, Jeff was photographing people taking pictures of me. Funny that my outfits got noticed even in that crowd of expensive clothes & people ‘making the scene’. One of my favourite moments was a man came up to me, said he loved my ‘look’ & was that a Randy Kemper jacket I was wearing? It was, & he was. The designer. His flattery made my day. Another person told me I made him happy looking like “a holiday” in the yellow dress & hat. These are all taken by Jeff Mihalyo. I appear briefly in this MIAMI NEW TIMES video clip (note any wrap in URL):

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2008/12/art_basel_recap_art_in_the_cit.php

OK, synopsis: The premise is a giant (maybe 250 galleries) European ‘blue chip’ artfair, ArtBasel Miami, it’s ‘sister’ fair is of course in Switzerland. This is the luxe, believe it costs about $60,000 to rent just a booth, many galleries expand far beyond that (then come all the expenses of shipping the art nationally or Internationally, bringing all their staff, their hotels/meals, all of which inflate prices for the weekend). They didn’t seem to be suffering as much as smaller fairs in terms of sales, although it’s the $50,000 (up to many millions) price-tags on pieces. International collectors from all over the world – including many from United Arab Emirates- were still buying, albeit at a slower rate (it appeared there was nothing left to buy one year previous, everything had red-dots & a mild frenzy of sales. My favourite moment was a mother insisting her mutant teenager “Buy something for God’s sake, you have to start your collection!”). But you could at least move through the crowds on Thursday, some years it’s been like sardines. As one dealer said: “We did better than we expected — and worse than we had hoped.”

The other satellite fairs- some in giant tents, some in warehouses, some in motels, etc, set up all over Miami & Miami Beach. I thought there were around 30 venues, maybe more, maybe less. But then add on to that the KODAK exhibition, Cartier Dome, Design District parties (including a giant structure hung w/ a lacy ‘doilie’ covering that was wonderful), the MARGULIES collection (was that the one in 40,000 sq ft warehouse?), ’30 Americans’ show of all African-American artists at the huge rotating RUBELL collection (remember STUDIO 54 in NYC? That was Steve Rubell, his brother), numerous Museums (the BAAS Museum throws a great party, & had a wonderful show of Russian artists).
http://bassmuseum.org/exhibitions/exsched.html
Mostly large installations, my favourites were the plastic cutouts of the word democracy slowly filling with oil. Another room held an almost life-sized tank covered with feathers, that would slowly collapse then spring back to life. Model of -think it was the Kremlin- made out of diamond studded Dominoes.

Every hotel has a curated art exhibit installed in their lobby, pillows were projecting video art, even stairwells were taken over (at the top of the 5th floor in a dark stairwell was an upside down room). Vacant grocery stores are taken over by groups of artists from all over the US, art installations are everywhere every 5 feet. There are shuttles to take you around to a few of the venues, but it’s mostly a ton of walking (with feet swelling from 85 degrees & pounding concrete), I was carrying 2 pair of shoes every day & still had 12 band-aids all over my feet.

Each fair has a different flavour: Basel, the “big Kahuna”, is set up at the Miami Beach Convention Center. It’s elegant, gargantuan, overwhelming, unaffordable (who am I kidding, they all are!). Predominantly European, cream of the crop & the Raison D’etre for the event, art selling for literally millions in some cases. Then come the rest. SCOPE, PULSE, ARTMIAMI, & PHOTO MIAMI are next in scale, maybe about 100 galleries each? Some of them have Subset Fairs GEISEI (Tokyo based), ART ASIA (China), etc. Then all the other smaller venues: Aqua (Jaq & Dirk’s Seattle one), really stands out. It’s ‘classier’. People linger, between the hot-tub, the beer sponsorship (or this year Campari), & the open courtyard make it a more Florida’ experience. It’s well run & quality (42?) galleries, nice vibe. BRIDGE, another motel one down the block, is always one of my faves, feels a little more L.A & Bay area pop (tho in each fair, many parts of the country are represented, so I’m generalizing). There’s one devoted to Printmakers (INK MIAMI), a GREEN one, several just for Photography. Some a little more traditional/staid (ARTMIAMI), others outrageous (NADA : New American Dealers Alliance). I’m not hip enough to “get” that one. Tho enjoyed the 2 large burly men w/ long beards who’ve been knitting for 20 yrs, or some such. There was a woman encased in swaddling clothes wriggling on the floor. A JC Penneys used old catalogue for $750. Kind of ‘Emporer’s New Clothes’ to me, but for others it’s their fave.

Then across the causeway there’s all of the Miami (vs Miami Beach) Artfairs, so many had moved this year, the WYNWOOD district was taking over. Miami is not as walkable, some rougher parts & more spread out, but as you were trying to follow maps we’d stumble on more & more galleries, collectives & studios every block & get side-tracked. I was really impressed by the permanent Miami Galleries themselves last year. One showed videos in their darkened elevators between floors. There was more colour, in your face & humour than we get in the Northwest.

In terms of things that stood out, can’t put my finger on a ‘trend’ as much this year (last yr was glitter, guns, girls, girls with guns. Irony- a lot of bad drawing, to name a few). This year maybe (actually good) drawing, a lot of “evil children” imagery (maybe also sort of erotic/surrealist pop kind of kiddie imagery, too), apocolyptic Mad-Max kind of visions, also slightly juvenile fixaton with obscenity. Swear words spelled out and for shock Value it was ‘The horses’. Gregory de la Haba from NY’s created life-sized real stuffed (or cryogenated) horses w/ added giant sexual appendages arranged in a 3-way. He transported them on trailers through Miami which of course got the cops all riled, they were going to charge him w/ violating obscenity laws. More publicity. Then the buzz (no pun intended) was around the METH LAB at The Station, a 3 room walk-in installation of drug house detritus by Jonah Freeman & Justin Lowe (Rob Lowe’s brother). It was curated by Nate Loweman, Mary Kate Olsen’s bf. I liked Yoko Ono ‘s work at Basel; very different from her conceptual pieces, it was a realistic woman’s body cut into segments w/in black boxes. U dipped your hand in water, it was soft, & spongy, quite flesh-like. There was Sheperd Fairey & Obama imagery EVERYWHERE, kind of surprising in that cynical art scene. All over Chinese art was dominant, they even had their own fair, an off-shoot of SCOPE. The work was wonderful, large scale, saturated colours, high prices (if anyone wants to come, we’re organizing an artist networking trip through WTE Sept 18-28th, incidentally, to Beijing & Shanghai, join us!).

All of my friends reports (more professional writers) have focused more on the art, I tend to just yak about the scene & the fun. But how can u discuss 100,000 pieces of art? The Russian stuff was very cool. And I loved the built in to a wall ironing board ironing a collapsed house at Basel. And the beautiful giant oil paintings all about the stockbroker robber barons & headlines, all the people on the street losing millions. Some of my favourite things were also outside of the Fairs. Federico Uribe’s warehouse was turned into a farm w/ life-sized animals, plants, even pond made from recycled materials (ie, tree from rakes, the donkey from plaid zippers, sheep from mops, etc) . Next door was great tall sculptures made from clothespins by my pal Gerry Stecca (he had a piece out here at the Bellevue Sculpture show last year), very cool, Gerry made his gf Gisella a dress from clothespins (& purses, I got one too), she was getting photographed constantly, Chuck Close stopped by.
http://gerrystecca.com/ClothespinsWork.php

Another highlight was the public art on the beaches, from the Containers to the big Icicles installations on the beach, then scattered sculptures (below) & the ‘Spinning Palm Tree’, hysterical, a horticultural whirling dervish).

In terms of the future of ArtFairs in this economy, One curator friend said maybe this economy will ‘separate the wheat from the chaff’, the volume of galleries was getting out of hand & now only the better ones will pay to play. But some of it is sill networking/PR, it’s not just sales & this is the behemoth of all the Fairs. So I’m making plans for next year…

There are innumerable articles & blogs about Basel & the December art fairs (thanks Kamala!), I’ve only chosen a few to reference, the ones of me were by Jeff Mihalyo, I apologize for not getting the names of other photographers or the artists themselves, these are images from FLICKR on the web (below the numerous articles/links):

Here’s Peregrine Honig’s:
http://www.arttattler.com/commentaryartbaselmiami.html

Casey Kelbaugh’s fun overview:
http://network.slideluckpotshow.com/profiles/blogs/postcards-from-miami-art-basel

a video on Basel, she focuses on some of the fashion & interviews/opinions (Europeans). Images of the porno horses:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oznTyTLyWE8

This is artnet’s rundown, u get the gist of the scale:
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/news/artnetnews/artnetnews12-2-08.asp

a photoset:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/viktorsekularac/sets/72157610894706911/

video about the bald matching german couple:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l43JXqG8b9w

Good overview, incl the Fairs listed alphabetically:
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2008-11-27/news/art-basel-invasion/1

From Jewcy, focusing on Surrealist Pop & some of the more over the top party stuff:
http://www.jewcy.com/post/blogging_basel_vipop_surrealism

Kamala’s photos of we “white, pasty northerners” at our Habana Libre hotel:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8721103@N02/sets/72157610994405480/
her in-depth shots of “meth Lab with a view”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8721103@N02/sets/72157610917383231/

From Seattle’s Jane Richlovsky ARTDISH :: northwest forum on visual art:
http://www.artdish.com/feature.aspx?ID=100

Art Basel Miami Beach 2009 will take place December 3 – 6, 2009.

Kelly Lyles
http://www.kellyspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uLGpsszc3I