Art Basel Miami Beach is over, and even the last of the art handlers who live down there for about two weeks to install and deinstall work at the fair have returned home. To close out the week, the slide show at left offers a final look back at a few events from that wild week that we have yet to cover. Read More
This just in, a photo of Observer columnist Adam Lindemann, who wrote about his trip to Art Basel Miami Beach for this week’s paper, and last year penned an article titled, “Occupy Art Basel Miami Beach, Now!” Read More
Days after I returned from Art Basel Miami Beach, a question continued to nag at me: could I have somehow known that the innocent-looking glass out of which I drank a lukewarm Diet Coke at the Bobby Vans Steakhouse in Terminal 8 of JFK last Monday night was the equivalent of Chekhov’s gun, the one that, by dint of hanging on the wall in Act One, is bound to go off in Act Three? Read More
Late last Wednesday night, just hours after the VIP preview day of Art Basel Miami Beach came to a close, hundreds gathered on the beach behind Soho House to drink and dance at an after-party for a dinner hosted by Chanel and the website Art.sy. Martha Stewart had left after the meal, but others lingered. Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, arm wrapped around a young woman, posed for a photo. Rapper, producer and, more recently, designer and author Pharrell Williams, in sunglasses and khaki, stood by as some revelers downed shots at the bar. Annie Lennox’s “Walking on Broken Glass” blasted from inside the tent, a great song, though maybe not the one you want to hear right before you toss off your shoes to lounge on the sand. Read More
As in years past, my trepidations about Art Basel Miami Beach began days before my departure. This time it started in the waiting room of my uptown doctor’s office, when one patient called out to another: “Hey Freddie, when d-y’a get ta Miami?” Freddie replied, “Can’t make it till Thursday—we’ll rock.” I knew then that the art world had changed irrevocably—there would be no turning back. Read More
The first thing you may notice walking into Untitled, the new fair that set up this year right on the beach at 12th Street in Miami Beach, is the abundant natural light streaming through the tent’s roof. The second: it smells heavenly, of succulent grilled chicken, of pizza baking. Read More
Art Miami returned this year for its 23rd edition with about 125 exhibitors, ranging from the Christie’s–owned Haunch of Venison to Soho’s Eli Klein Fine Art, the Chinese contemporary art gallery that featured prominently on this year’s Bravo television show Gallery Girls. Read More
“A few years ago this place was all garbage,” a taxi driver told us earlier this week as we sat in traffic in Midtown Miami. It had been about 10 minutes since we had moved one inch. Once rundown, the area is now home to fresh new apartment buildings and streets lined with restaurants and shops offering craft beer, craft cheese and so forth. Come Basel time, it is also home to a handful of large tents that house many of the week’s largest fairs—Art Miami and its new emerging-art fair, Context, Red Dot, Scope, Art Expo, Art Asia Miami and, this year, another new entrant, Miami Project, from fair partners Max Fishko and Jeffrey Wainhause, who also run ArtMrkt Hamptons, ArtMrkt San Francisco and Texas Contemporary in Houston. Read More
There are some things that you think you will never see in your lifetime, but then, during Art Basel Miami Beach, they appear right in front of you. That happened yesterday while visiting the M Building, where a handful of galleries, including Observer contributor Adam Lindemann’s Venus Over Manhattan outfit, have set up shop during the fair. Read More
A few loud, low-flying planes pulling text banners slowly rumbled along the beach today near the Deauville. They’re part of an aerial group show curated by Adam Shopkorn that is supported by the Morgans Hotel Group, Van Wagner Communications and Art Basel Miami Beach. The project is called “Plane Text.” Here’s hoping someone out there on the beach is Rich Texts! (Sorry.)
Read More
