Sec­tions:
Art Basel: Day One (Steven Psyl­los)
Wednes­day was the VIP and Press Pre­view for the largest art fair in the US and I arrived directly from the airport—luggage in hand, badly in need of a shower—to help man our mag­a­zine booth. NY Arts is giv­ing away a few thou­sand copies of the November/December issue to atten­dees of Art Basel Miami Beach, mak­ing new friends you might say.
Inter­view with Peter Vetsch (Steven Psyl­los)
Inter­view with Nico­lai Gerner (Steven Psyl­los)
Inter­view with Bar­bara Thumm (Steven Psyl­los)
Inter­view with Flo­rence Bon­nefous (Steven Psyl­los)
List of Top Art — (Ed Rubin)
Fair List — (Horace Brock­ing­ton)
Fair Favorites (Julia Cooke)
List of Top Artists (Ste­fa­nia Car­rozzini)
In Sum­ma­tion (Steven Psyllos)

Art Basel: Day One — Steven Psyllos

Wednes­day was the VIP and Press Pre­view for the largest art fair in the US and I arrived directly from the airport—luggage in hand, badly in need of a shower—to help man our mag­a­zine booth. NY Arts is giv­ing away a few thou­sand copies of the November/December issue to atten­dees of Art Basel Miami Beach, mak­ing new friends you might say.

Ini­tial impres­sion: Busi­ness, busi­ness, busi­ness. All the local presses are report­ing on the extreme hike in the Miami hotel rates and the cor­po­rate pos­tur­ing sur­round­ing the arts-related events sat­u­rat­ing South Beach this long week­end. The VIPs gath­ered in their for­mal attire: gen­tle­men in their luxe suits, ladies in their evening gowns—even in the after­noon heat. (Speak­ing of ladies, sil­i­cone is still very much in style down here in Miami.) Cof­fee at Art Basel Miami Beach: $5. Kinda hard on us edi­tors and jour­nal­ists. But you can’t blame a snake for even­tu­ally bit­ing you, can you? It’s its nature. Art fairs on this scale are—duh—focused on col­lec­tors, not art-lovers. So, what am I to do? Seek out what is new and unseen, those hid­den gems from gal­leries, both known and unknown, that are here on dis­play. So, let the games begin.

A quick list: LOVED Mikhael Subotzky’s pho­tog­ra­phy at Good­man Gallery, Johan­nes­burg. Loved David Shrigley’s wall of draw­ings at Gal­leri Nico­lai Wall­ner, Copen­hagen. Loved Katrin Sigurdardottir’s instal­la­tion at i8 Gallery, Reyk­javik. But I’ll go into greater depths at a later date; when I’m not sit­ting in an over­priced hotel room, being charged for my time online.

Agenda for Thurs­day: “Sky­walk­ers” by FriendsWith­You, a parade down the SoBe shore­line fea­tur­ing 12 blimps designed by FriendsWith­You, David Choe, Ara Peter­son, Mis­aki Kawai, Paper­Rad, Devil Robots, Mum­ble Boy and good ol’ Gary Base­man, Then, it’s off to the open­ing of Bridge Art Fair and –scope. These two fairs have a promis­ing lineup of gal­leries listed this year, and I’m sure to enjoy.

Tomor­row I’ll do Pulse, Aqua, Flow…Gotta plan it all out. With this amount of work and events, you can’t do it all in a day. You must pace your­self or you’ll get brain-freeze, which is rather unpleas­ant, I must say.

Inter­view with Peter Vetsch, Art Basel Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ager — Steven Psyllos

Steven Psyl­los: What is the role of the press in a large-scale art fair such as Art Basel Miami Beach?

Peter Vetsch: The role of the media is very impor­tant. I was just inter­viewed by a Latin Amer­i­can TV News pro­gram and they asked me a half-hour worth of ques­tions, where nor­mally it was a few less impor­tant quotes they were look­ing for.

With inter­na­tional and local media, they let the world know about us, and it also lets the inner cir­cle of art pro­fes­sion­als feel good, as they are a part of some­thing great.

SP: What would you like to see improve about the press cov­er­age of this event?

PV: I wish they wouldn’t only focus on what was the record num­ber for a work that was sold. They shouldn’t only point out prices because they make peo­ple believe that art is only for the rich. I would like to see it go the other way.

To come to Art Basel Miami Beach, to see the qual­ity of work here, you would have to travel the world and back again. We have the best gal­leries here from across the globe.

Five years ago we sur­veyed our exhibitors to find out how much work was for sale below the $5000 mark. The response was very impres­sive. We found out that it was 27%. So we cre­ated this sys­tem of yel­low dots that would show that these spe­cific works are not as costly as would be perceived.

Today the price of art has climbed dras­ti­cally, so you will not see as many dots.

Inter­view with Nico­lai Gerner-Mathisen of C/O Gallery, Berlin — Steven Psyllos

SP: How impor­tant is the media’s role in spread­ing the word about art fairs such as Art Basel Miami Beach?

Nico­lai Gerner-Mathisen: Media is very impor­tant. Peo­ple read through Art­fo­rum or other mag­a­zines and find out what artists we rep­re­sent are able to see what we’re about from other countries.

SP: How can the media improve its cov­er­age of Art Basel Miami Beach? For exam­ple does the media focus too much on the prices of the works?

NGM: Peo­ple always focus on money, that is what inter­ests them. If you want to read about art, you buy an art magazine.

SP: What is the most pos­i­tive aspect of this fair for a gallerist?

NGM: Being involved in Basel, or art fairs in gen­eral, is the most impor­tant part of our busi­ness. It is very attrac­tive to the artists because Miami attracts the world’s most impor­tant col­lec­tors. It is a mat­ter of prestige.

Inter­view with Bar­bara Thumm of Galerie Bar­bara Thumm, Berlin — Steven Psyllos

SP: Why is being at Art Basel Miami so impor­tant for a gallerist?

BT: Being involved is very impor­tant because I have a lot of col­lec­tors from the States, and many from South Amer­ica as well. Miami is per­fect because it solid­i­fies my con­nec­tion to those North and South Amer­i­can buyers.

SP: What is your reac­tion to the cov­er­age of the fair by the media?

BT: It’s all gos­sip. This art fair is about busi­ness. It is a marketplace.

Art fairs are just a hype thing. We sold out in the first hour here. What do we do after that? My focus is the activ­ity that hap­pens in my gallery space back home.

Inter­view with Flo­rence Bon­nefous of Air De Paris — Steven Psyllos

SP: How impor­tant is the media cov­er­age of the event?

FB: It is impor­tant for the art fair and the gal­leries, but it is also impor­tant for the news­pa­pers. Now they some nice sub­jects to fill their columns with.

SP: How can the press cov­er­age improve?

FB: This is an impos­si­ble task. The art fair gives a broader vision of art, but here the busi­ness mat­ters are more impor­tant than aesthectics.

It is a mar­ket­place but I like to do inter­est­ing projects with­ion the core of the busi­ness. The artist gets good atten­tion so I try to bal­ance out which artist I take to what fair.

SP: Best part about Art Basel Miami Beach?

FB: The weather!

List of top art — Ed Rubin

Art aside, Art Basel Miami is all about see­ing and being seen, spend­ing time with old friends and new friends and net­work­ing like crazy. I went to the fair with my friend, sculp­tor Car­ole Feuer­man. We were attached at the hip much of the time. How­ever, since our agen­das were dif­fer­ent, we man­aged to have some healthy and happy times apart, doing our own thing, so to speak. Alhough the entire scene can be thought of as one big hap­pen­ing, I man­aged to fer­ret out, in no par­tic­u­lar order, my Miami high­lights. To keep it to 10, I elim­i­nated SVA (School of Visual Arts) alumni party at the beach at which I had drinks with my friend, sculp­tor Fred Ever­s­ley, see­ing two of my favorite gal­lerists at Aqua, Jane Hart (Miami) and Cyn­thia Broan (NYC) and vis­it­ing the Ruth and Richard Shack’s stel­lar art collection.

1) Sup­per with Car­ole and Jonathan Green­berg Vice Pres­i­dent Arcade Fine Arts, Sotheby’s at The Blue Room at The Delano Hotel.

2) Sup­per at Tulula’s with Julie Sasse, Chief Curator/Curator of Mod­ern and Con­tem­po­rary Art at the Tuc­son Museum of Art, Tuc­son artist Bar­bara Rogers, San Fran­cisco gallery owner Scott Richard and his wife and Car­ole and her son Craig and Heidi, his soon to be wife.

3) Drinks with Berlin artist-performers Eva and Adele, Car­ole and Bil­lie Milam Weis­man in the UBS VIP Lounge. Sup­per on the beach at the UBS Plat­inum VIP tent at the Delano.

4) Doing the all of the major Art Fairs with my friends David Rubin, Cura­tor of the San Anto­nio Museum and Karin Giusti, Sculp­tor and head of the Sculp­tor Depart­ment of Brook­lyn Col­lege and Carole.

5) Vis­it­ing with Nils Grossien at the White Trash Gallery at Scope and get­ting a tele­phone call from Nil’s beau­ti­ful wife Ute Thon, Senior Edi­tor at art — Das Kunstmagazin.

6) Meet­ing and talk­ing wither the very ebul­lient artist and writer Karen Wright (Bloomberg News and Art Papers) at the Flow Art Fair.

7) Talk­ing and tak­ing some pic­tures of the very beau­ti­ful and excit­ing Lon­don Gal­lerist Mau­reen Paley.

Meet­ing and spend­ing time with Ms.Val Lyle a refresh­ingly pure and still untainted artist (sculp­tor) from Bris­tol Ten­nessee who gifted her­self with a trip to Art Miami Basel.

9) Meet­ing two young ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist art col­lec­tors in a mul­ti­mil­lion dol­lar coop that over­looks the yacht club and lis­ten­ing to where the have been and where they are going; in short reliv­ing their dreams.

10) Com­ing face to face with a par­tic­u­larly stun­ning Picasso sculp­ture at Basel Miami Art Fair. He still rules.

Fair List — Horace Brockington

1) Best Fairs:

a. Aqua. Was this a fair or con­tin­u­ous party? Great.

b. Pulse. Fun but seri­ous art and seri­ous col­lec­tors. Again, Pulse gets it right.

c. Pool. Strange, strange rooms.

2) Worst Fairs: No Con­test, Bridge Art Fair (unfor­tu­nately, a lot of good art and gal­leries among a lot of trash).

3) Best Out­side the Fair: Yvon Lam­bert Space was cool. Really low key with a nice video view­ing room, a couch and table. Hyper cool.

4) Best Booth at Basel: It was in fact not a booth, but the work at Gavin Brown Enter­prise, and the Kori Newirk installation.

5) Miami ‘s own: Lyle O’Reitzel Gallery exhibition.

6) Moments: Peo­ple angling to get into par­ties in order to com­pare hotel pools and lobbies.

7) Best Inclu­sive Party and Sell Out: Jack Pier­son Party at the Raleigh, great mix of peo­ple, despite the weather. And the bar! Plus, the book sold out.

Most Gra­cious Host: Marty Margolies.

9) Best Con­tainer: Ken Schacter’s Zaha Hadid, as to be expected from Kenny.

11) Best Music: P.S.1’s Thurs­day night DJ was great.

12) JayZ and Bey­once buy­ing art at L&M Arts on Friday.

13) Every­where: Kim Heriston.

Fair Favorites — Julia Cooke

1) The pres­ence of punchy, polit­i­cal, con­tem­po­rary Latin Amer­i­can artists/galleries in the mul­ti­tude of dif­fer­ent fairs.

2) Art Kabi­nett mini-exhibits inside of the “big fair.”

3) The bemused looks on well-heeled col­lec­tors’ faces as Peaches inte­grants chanted “shake your dick, shake your tits” (with appro­pri­ate upper– and lower-body vibra­tions) at Wednes­day night’s beach­side concert.

4) Le Baron, in spite of hor­ren­dously offen­sive bounc­ers and lines.
5) The dif­fu­sion of the fair-going energy into the 13 well-attended ancil­lary fairs. One stand­out was Aqua, with its show­ing of funky, cool art and a more chilled-out crowd in attendance.

6) Raúl Cárdenas/Torolab’s projects at Galería OMR’s booth at ABMB.

7) Late-night karaoke at the divey base­ment bar Studio.

Sat­ur­day night’s party at the Shore Club, given by Black­Book Mag­a­zine and the Whit­ney Museum with The Mishapes.

9) Blood for Art at –scope, where a pint of blood bought a print by one of 15 artists.

10) Zilv­inas Kemp­inas’ work at the Spencer Brown­stone Gallery’s booth at ABMB.

List of top artists — Ste­fa­nia Carrozzini

1) Cor­nelia Parker, Frith Street Gallery

2) Brian Ulrich, Rhona Hoff­man Gallery

3) Erwin Wurm, Galerie Aurel Scheibler

4) Paul Pfeif­fer, The Project Gallery

5) Sabine Hornig, Galerie Bar­bara Thumm

6) Sam Tay­lor Wood, White Cube/Jay Jopling

7) Tony Oursler, Galerie Hans Mayer

Isaac Julien, Galería Helga de Alvear

9) Carmela Gar­cia, Juana de Aizpuru

10) Thomas Struth, Galerie Rüdi­ger Schöttle

11) Os Gemeos, Deitch Projects

12) Lorna Simp­son, Sean Kelly

13) Jacob Hashimoto, Mary Boone

14) Cui Xiuwen, AJ JAPOUR GALLERY

15) Adel Abdessemed, galerie kamel mennour

16) Flo­rian Slotawa, Sies + Höke

In Sum­ma­tion — Steven Psyllos

Thurs­day was a new day at Art Basel. Strolling up to the main entrance of the Miami Con­ven­tion Cen­ter, I was almost excited about the event. There were lines of stu­dents of all ages wait­ing. There were peo­ple in street clothes—jeans, sneak­ers and base­ball caps—which was itself quite refresh­ing com­pared to the bow-tied gents and bedaz­zled fems of the pre­vi­ous day.

As I men­tioned ear­lier, NY Arts gave away sev­eral thou­sand edi­tions of the lat­est issue. Every­one was quite happy to receive some­thing for free. All of our peers in print were sell­ing their pubs and offer­ing sub­scrip­tions. NY Arts, ever the rebel, opted for spread­ing some seeds in the very fer­tile ground that is Art Basel Miami Beach. And to great response, I must say.

Any­way, the FriendsWith­You parade was a great break from the var­i­ous mega-exhibits. An oppor­tu­nity to stand in the sun­light of South Beach and to relax and smile. The crowd was young and cooler-than-thou, which is also a refresh­ing break from the stuffi­ness of VIP col­lec­tors. (Maybe I’m just a tad bit jeal­ous of the money and abil­ity to afford art-collecting. Ya think?)

I must con­grat­u­late the Art Sound Lounge and Art Video Lounge located just across the street of the Cen­ter at the Miami Botan­i­cal Gar­dens. Besides the Homage to Nam June Paik and the sam­pler of Lee Wells’ Per­pet­ual Art Machine (the full ver­sion is located at –scope), the three screens of video works were con­stantly engag­ing and first-rate. The Sound Lounge was ulti­mately the favorite of many. Par­tic­i­pants were given wire­less head­phones and were asked to stroll through the lovely gar­dens while the sounds of, and music inspired by, insects, birds and nature cre­ated an extra spe­cial sen­sory expe­ri­ence. David Wein­stein of WPS1 was the cura­tor of these lush inter­ac­tions between art lover and nature. Sound artists included DJ Olive of down­town NYC fame, Arto Lind­say, Dou­glas Quin, Jimi Hen­drix, Terry Riley and John Cage (how can you not have a sound lab with­out these last two?).

Later that day, I was off to –scope at the Roberto Clemente Park. Every­one thought the idea of hav­ing the fair in a park would be a ter­ri­ble dis­as­ter but it as quite the oppo­site. There were wooden floors (no mud) and the setup was clean and easy to nav­i­gate. Also, –scope offered my favorite lineup of gal­leries and artists. Where Basel fails to be cur­rent and cutting-edge, –scope suc­ceeds. Instead of the cham­pagne bar that was spun around the mon­ster space at Art Basel, –scope gave away Grolsch beer. Good times.

Across the board, Jack the Pel­i­can was the most inter­est­ing setup (once again). Guerra de la Paz and Bruce Con­kle both pre­sented sculp­tures and were eas­ily the coolest pieces I saw all week­end. Bold state­ment, I know. Then there was Jan Brokof at Galerie Baer, Tri­cia Clive and George Boorujy at Ricco/Maresca Gallery, Jason Hughes at Curator’s Office, and Arsen Savadov at Daneyal Mah­mood Gallery. Other artists of note: Ben Moon and Tessa Farmer (!).

Thurs­day night, a dear friend, also in the art game, invited me to an inter­est­ing after-party for LA-based Swin­dle mag­a­zine, which is headed by Shep­ard Fairey. The party was at the 460 Degrees gallery, which fea­tured a large-scale tor­nado of wood cre­ated by Arne Quinze. Other artists fea­tured were Pas­cual Sisto and Miranda Lichenstein.

The par­ties dur­ing that long week­end were great. There is noth­ing bet­ter than mak­ing new friends, run­ning into peo­ple you haven’t seen in a minute, or than being intro­duced to an artist you admire when their guard is down. While you might not expect Art Basel to be fun, you’d be sur­prised. First rule: lean towards the par­ties that are not so cuckoo crazy. If there is a long line at the door, tell the taxi dri­ver to keep dri­ving. There’s just no use. If you want to get tan­gled up in an art-world mess of pre­tense, try to check a door­man at one of these fancy joints. Just no use, I tell ya.

After the Swin­dle gig, Fairey was DJing at the Shore Club. The week­end was filled with such events: Artist as DJ. Dash Snow DJed just down the road, but I was hang­ing with some West Coast big­gies like Gary Base­man. I’m born and bred on the East Coast, I was try­ing to branch out a bit.

The fol­low­ing day I tried to squeeze in the rest of the fairs before head­ing back home. Any­one who has been to Art Basel Miami Beach knows that to see every­thing is basi­cally impos­si­ble. That is why we have sev­eral writ­ers on the case. Their reports from Miami will fol­low shortly.

In sum­ma­tion, my trip to Miami entailed some great finds among the usual sus­pects, some net­work­ing for the mag­a­zine, a bit of par­ty­ing with the artists, some busi­ness talk with gal­lerists and a much needed exit from NYC dur­ing the bit­ter cold of NYC in December.