| Wednesday Dec. 3
This year’s Miami art fair experience started even before we left New York. Judging by the majority of passengers clad in black, chic jewelry, and angular haircuts, the entire plane was populated by art-fair goers. We even experienced our first art-star sighting of trip: painter, John Currin and his wife, sculptor, Rachel Feinstien, and their two squirming boys in tow.
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Gillian Sneed
Wednesday Dec. 3
This year’s Miami art fair experience
started even before we left New York. Judging by the majority of
passengers clad in black, chic jewelry, and angular haircuts, the
entire plane was populated by art-fair goers. We even experienced our
first art-star sighting of trip: painter, John Currin and his wife,
sculptor, Rachel Feinstien, and their two squirming boys in tow.
Upon arrival to our slightly run-down “boutique hotel” on Collins
Avenue, we traded in our New York winter coats and black sweaters for
our skimpy ghetto-fabulous “Miami” clothes and made a bee-line for the
Art Basel Miami Beach Convention center. The opening preview party was
packed with people, bling, and hullabaloo. If I were an alien from
another planet, I would never in a million years guess at the looming
financial doom and gloom of our planet. And in fact, according to
several gallerists, commerce so far is not so bad.The crowd was the usual mix: NYC artists, recognizable by their
telltale white sneakers, black skinny jeans, and tattoos; overly-tanned
international collectors; young women with large breasts hanging off
the arms of old men; pin-stripe-suited gallerists; curators dressed in
suits ala “Miami Vice” circa 1987; and “slumming-it” celebrities. Mary
Kate Olsen was surprisingly low-key as she wafted through the halls,
while peacocks like the gender-bending German performance duo Eva and
Adele, and the French plastic surgery fiend, Orlan paraded the halls in
all their ostentatious glory.The preview was followed by a short walk to the shipping containers
housing art installations by the beach. Nearby, the spunky French
techno-pop princess “Yelle” gave a fabulous concert on the beach.
Meanwhile Oregon punkers “The Gossip” rocked the Deitch Gallery party
at the Raleigh Hotel, and Grace Jones graced the The Florida Room.After hopping a few parties, we finally settled on the Olaf Breuning
party at the Sagamore Hotel , in front of which his 150-ton sphinx-like
sand sculpture of a reclining woman is located. Replete with drunken
skinny-dipping in the luke-warm pool and $16 mixed drinks at the bar,
the party was a bust.
