Art Basel Miami Vices

The fifth edition of North America’s premier international art fair Art Basel Miami Beach debuted this last December 7-10th. Art Basel Miami Beach is the extension of the elder and prestigious Art Basel an art fair based in Basel Switzerland. Art Basel initially planned to premier this event in December of 2001 but the events of 9/11 caused the Swiss firm to scrap their plans and destroy the already-printed catalogues. Five years later the fair is a booming art extravaganza with performances and art events for VIP’s and P’s alike. The fair has been hailed as the “Superbowl of art fairs” and labeled a “permanent show” by the Mayor of Miami Beach David Dermer. With Art Chicago’s debacle a recent memory and its future still uncertain, a declaration of art fair permanence must be met with some skepticism by anyone with a sense of history. It used to be that Art Chicago, which was one of the first international art fairs, was the art world’s destination. Each May beginning in the eighties dealers and collectors would attend the “Chicago International Art Exposition” which was held on the “old” Navy Pier. But a multitude of factors conspired to diminish Art Chicago’s importance in the nineties leading to its ignominious resale to the Merchandise Mart last year.

In contrast Basel Miami is booming with nearly 180 galleries from around the world populating the Miami Beach Convention Center. The fair attracts nearly 40,000 visitors over its four day run, including museum groups, curators, critics, collectors and art tourists. The hoopla created by the fair is legendary. Rumors abound in the balmy tropical air such as collectors dressing up as janitors in order to get into the fair in advance. The excitement spills over into multiple “side fairs” scattered around Miami in hotels, old churches and tents. Local art museums schedule special exhibitions, lectures and ritzy fundraising parties. And if this weren’t enough some galleries even rent warehouse spaces to augment their selections at the fair.

There are a number of major collectors in Miami, six of which were included in ArtNews’ list of the Top 200 Art Collectors. Of these both the Rubell family and Martin Marguilies present their collections to the public in museum-like warehouses. This year as part of a show of LA artists called “Red Eye” the Rubell collection exhibited a number of large plaster sculptures by the British-born, LA transplant Thomas Houseago. The works present large, looming, gangly figures slapped together from plaster. The Rubell’s purchased the works several months before Basel Miami in part prompting Houseago’s gallery David Kordansky to bring more of Mr. Houseago’s sculptures to the fair. Large and important collectors such as the Rubell’s influence the value of the art that they buy by displaying it, in a sense making it more valuable by buying it. This fact doesn’t escape gallerist David Kordansky either. The Art Newspaper reported that Kordanksy was “focused on placing Houseago’s sculptures … in prestigious collections.” Which would make Houseago’s sculptures more valuable yet, benefiting both Kordansky and Houseago. Wherever one turns in Miami you can see this type of fast-paced value creation taking place.

This year there were thirteen “side fairs” that surrounded Art Basel Miami Beach and each one catered to a different area of the art market. Fairs such as “Pulse”, “Scope” and “Aqua” present emerging art from “emerging galleries” but also include established galleries that weren’t able to enter the main fair. Basel Miami’s application process is highly competitive and galleries are judged by a panel based on the quality and reputation of the work that they offer. There are also specialty fairs such as Photo Miami, INK (printmedia) and DiVA (digital and video arts). The NADA (New Art Dealers Association) fair which set up shop in a beautifully airy Spanish style church was by far the most well put together of the side fairs. NADA had an excellent selection of high to mid-level galleries and the smaller buildings made it less stressful to experience than the behemoth Basel Miami. Yet the side fairs wouldn’t exist without Art Basel Miami Beach drawing collectors to Miami to provide a stable marketplace for business.

ABMB’s affects on greater Miami are also evident. The formerly slum neighborhood of Wynwood is boasting a thriving gallery and design scene, Miami art museums are building additions and a new performing arts center was unveiled last summer. Again mayor Dermer was profuse in his praise of Basel Miami, “It’s taken us up the cultural mountain,” and “we are now at the pinnacle of culture in the world.” While such praise is probably exaggerated the difference is noticeable. Longtime resident and SAIC master’s student Alex Chitty said “Since [the beginning of art Basel] the attention paid to the arts, specifically fine arts, has nearly tripled. There are more galleries, more room for younger artists, and more opportunities to see work.” But for the other 51 weeks of the year the effect on the Miami arts community is harder to quantify. Jeroen Nelemens MFA in Fiber and Material Studies at SAIC said that “the fair is more like a circus, it swoops in for a week and then it’s gone.” Basel Miami’s positive effects seem to mainly adhere to museums and galleries with only a little left over for Miami artists.

Naturally the art fair format privileges certain types of artwork over others. Generally the booths are small, well lit and open. Basel Miami’s booths are about the size of a one bedroom apartment and usually have two to three continuous walls. The “Aqua” fair was deployed in the posh South Beach hotel “Aqua” from which the fair derives its name. Each gallery occupied a room surrounding a central courtyard with palm trees and a Jacuzzi. The beds were removed from the rooms to make space for the art on display and the bathrooms were used for improvised art storage. As a consequence of these less than ideal lighting and spatial conditions video installation and large sculpture take up too much valuable space and are impossible to view. These restrictions tend to accommodate small painting, small sculpture and photography best. Plus art fair crowds made up of collectors “on the hunt”, art tourists and curators tend move fast in order to see everything; one look and then they’re done. Anything that requires much patience from a viewer is in trouble. David Weinstein of WPS1 MOMA’s radio station and the curator of Art Basel’s sound program agreed, “New media has always hard a hard time [being displayed], but art fairs are especially tough.” Weinstein’s solution for the Art Sound Lounge was to have his program available in headphones. Such compromises are routinely made in an art fair environment.

If you couple this type of natural selection amongst the “species” of artworks with the fact from 50 - 75% of all gallery sales are coming from art fairs you begin to realize why gallery owners have become anxious about the actual importance of the gallery show. Lisa Boyle of Lisa Boyle Gallery said recently on the local art podcast Bad at Sports that “there are so many people from Chicago that I haven’t seen in my gallery that I’ve had come into my booth here [in Miami].” Even the big-boy galleries are changing their tactics. Heavy hitting gallerist Jeffery Deitch “premiered” a new painter Ted Mineo at this year’s fair before ever giving him a solo show at his New York gallery Deitch Projects. Bolstered by a feature article in the New York Times art section, all of Mr. Mineo’s paintings at Basel Miami were reportedly sold. Though it worked out this time for Mr. Mineo the continued devaluation of a gallery’s regular exhibition program is alarming.

Some galleries are bucking the mall-like “one of everything on a wall” type of display and attempting to reclaim their spaces for art. By and large it’s the middle-weight galleries that are changing because they need to generate publicity for their artists. The more established galleries have higher profile artists whose reputations sell their own artwork. Several galleries such as the artist-run Guild and Greyskhul (NY) at NADA and Susan Vielmetter (LA) at ABMB had solo shows of particular artists. Sara VanDerBeek, of Guild and Greyskhul remarked on why they preferred this type of presentation, “We’ve never really been happy with the group show style, and we’re trying to generate some interest for Stephen (G. Rhodes)’s show [in January].” More and more galleries are trying to link their fair spaces to their exhibition programs. The always edgy gallery Gavin Brown only showed one piece in their booth by Urs Fischer. The piece left the booth largely empty except for a pack of Camel cigarettes that were suspended from a monofilament line attached to an arm on the ceiling. As the arm rotated the cigarettes slowly circulated around the floor as if caught by the wind. Such a concentrated presentation of artwork at a sprawling fair proved to be an effective tactic for both artist and gallery. The gallery can separate itself from the general chaos of the fair and the art gets shown in the best possible light.

If this trend toward the focused presentation of art in the art fair context continues (and it will if only if the sales do) the galleries would take more initiative over the design of their spaces transforming the art fair into something more akin to a biennial. In this possible future each gallery presents their particular artist or curated group of artists in “pavilions” built to their own specifications. A show of this type would have all of the strengths of an art fair, physical proximity, short duration, conspicuous consumption, but in addition the art would also retain it’s aura, represent the artist’s practice more fairly, and allow for a better viewing environment for curators, critics and the wider art-loving public.