| Overheard in Miami
“If you get bored, just look up.” –Artist referring to the ceiling at the Miami convention center The hierarchy of the Miami art fairs is basically that of a medieval city. The hotel fairs (Aqua, Flow, Bridge) are the masses of plague-riddled serfs creeping around the city walls, gazing up at royalty. Pulse, Scope and NADA reside in the middle of the city. This is where the artisans, lawyers and craftsmen hang out peddling their wares, trying not to step on the feet of the King’s foot soldiers. These two fairs, while radically different from each other, both exist under the massive shadow of the Castle, Art Basel. |
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By Thomas Seely
Overheard in Miami
“If you get bored, just look up.” –Artist referring to the ceiling at the Miami convention center
The hierarchy of the Miami art fairs is basically that of a medieval city. The hotel fairs (Aqua, Flow, Bridge) are the masses of plague-riddled serfs creeping around the city walls, gazing up at royalty. Pulse, Scope and NADA reside in the middle of the city. This is where the artisans, lawyers and craftsmen hang out peddling their wares, trying not to step on the feet of the King’s foot soldiers. These two fairs, while radically different from each other, both exist under the massive shadow of the Castle, Art Basel. Basel is the fair all the other galleries aspire to show in. It is the fair that charges the general public, who are incapable of buying anything, $20 to enter. It is the fair that has it’s own fleet of BMWs to drive the lords and ladies over the moat to the convention center, so they don’t have to rub elbows with all the normal people.
Yesterday, I went to Art Basel.
When I showed up at Basel (I walked there) the first thing I did was turn over all my possessions to the Art Basel henchmen who demanded them at the front gate. As a result I was not able to “purchase” any artwork for the JPEG Collection. I was pissed about it at first, but it’s actually rather brilliant, and it demonstrates that unless you’re loaded or the director of a museum, Art Basel will dominate you. I was looking forward to rolling into Basel, and buying up half-million-dollar paintings of expressionist globs of paint or birds with my Cannon point and shoot. Instead, Basel denied me the pleasure of even pretending to participate. That is the power of Art Basel. The only souvenirs coming out of Basel are big bubble wrapped rectangles.
For these reasons and more, Art Basel gets the award for most feudal, most terrifying, and most humorless fair. However, I still recommend that everyone go to Basel for the experience, just try not to have too much fun. You’re best bet for fun is Scope…but more on that tomorrow.
Also…In case you’ve got the juices of revolution boiling in your gut and you’re planning a revolt against this whole Basel thing, beware. I saw some people wearing t-shirts that read: “Fuck Art Fairs.” There is no better way to crush the meaning of decent than to appropriate it, put it on a t-shirt and sell it back to all the protesters. Quiver at the feet of irony all you idealists, and watch as it smashes your rebellion. The Basel ordeal left my companion Bill and I frightened and sort of depressed. So, we met up with Blake from Platform gallery to eat German food and drink beer from hilariously large mugs. After that we spent 4 hours at a place called Club Deuce, where we talked to a crazy sex-ed teacher and made piles of expletive filled doodles on bar napkins. I can’t quite remember how the night ended, but I spent half of this morning scraping sand out of my ears.
JPEG Collection
Day 3: No Purchases
Temporarily on hiatus do to tyrannical Art Basel security procedures. I’m gonna have to start buying everything I see if I want to get through that million dollars before I leave Miami…Maybe I should start multiplying the real price of everything by 10. Hmm…
