Jumpsuits & Teleporters

ABMB 2010 Highlights

Last weekend Jonathan and I headed to Miami for Art Basel. What a ride! I hate to use the word educational, but as a soon-to-be Arts Administration graduate looking for an industry job, I was happy to see Art Basel Miami at least once. (I might make it next year or the year after… or I might not. Who knows.) Seeing that much art in one place and at one given time is exhausting. It’s impossible to see everything so you have to prioritize what you choose to visually cram into your head and take notes (or pictures… or both). My aim was to take in as much of an overview as possible and grab a business card when something is done right. I was also in search of my own interests: works exploring the nature of human space exploration and any other scientific-inspired art. I took a lot of photos, which can be seen on my Flickr set.

The main fair featured the cream-of-the-crop of artists and art galleries. As seen in a white cube gallery, the booths were branded and pristine while art was framed, installed, and curated. Dressed as if picked by the Sartorialist himself, gallerists mostly sat around their tables—either on their phones, on their laptops, or talking amongst themselves—waiting to be approached by unlimited checkbooks. Some of the friendlier gallerists (a quick ‘Hi’ or ‘Hello’) sat at more inventive tables incorporating church benches and cargo boxes. The dominant language overheard was French (reinforcing my own desire to learn the language). I was fascinated with the international crowd—perhaps mostly because I couldn’t hear them talking loudly about price-tag considerations. We hardly ran into guided tours, but eventually overlapped with one at White Cube, a temporary home to some of Damien Hirst’s recent butterfly wings and a gold-plated cabinet full of emerald cubic zirconias. Thankfully, it was too crowded to get caught up in the glitz; I’m over blue-chip art.

Here’s what I focused on at the main fair…

A detail of Tom Sachs’s 1/3 scale LEM Face at Sperone Westwater.

“Okapi” by Tom Sachs at Sperone Westwater.

Luis Gispert, Super-Stratto, 2010.

Raymond Pettibon works at Regen Projects.

Yoshitomo Nara, Melting Moon No. 2, 2002.

Olafur Eliasson, Short and long memory, 2010 (detail).

David Altmejd, Untitled, 2010.

Aya Takano, Noah and the Flood (Uccello), 2010.

Martin Boyce, Constellation, 2010.

Anish Kapoor at Lisson Gallery.

Anselm Kiefer, The Secret Life of Plants: Star Painting, 2003 (detail).

James Turrell, General site plan, Roden Crater, 1986 (detail).

A detail of “Fogo Crater,” a photogravure by Edgar Cleijne.

We were also debating whether or not Rauschenberg had Parkinson’s Disease based off of his signatures. I can’t find documentation, but Jonathan heard this tidbit in one of his classes.

Since we got to Miami on Saturday morning, the only satellite fairs that we visited were Pulse/Impulse and Scope. Art Asia was mixed in with Scope, but the majority of the work was too traditional for our tastes. Both fairs had a lighter atmosphere and more casual attire. Plus, these gallerists were nicer and chattier (and sometimes less professional). Photography was more prevalent at Pulse, which was initially disappointing. I have a hard time relating to photography, but I was surprised to see photos by Edward Burtynsky as well as other photographers like Jeffrey Milstein (aircraft and black box recorders), Kahn and Selesnick (landscapes reminiscent of The Man Who Fell to Earth), and Manolo Chretien (airplane details and noses).

Aviation inspired work by Karin Sabine Krommes, my favorite artist at Scope, at Waterhouse & Dodd.

Photos of airplanes by Manolo Chretien. An emerging theme of warfare and aviation was present. I noticed the attention this kind of work got; not your typical art content!

A porcelain sculpture by Sunkoo Yuh, which reminds me of European-style comics by Taiyo Matsumoto.

Photos by Kahn and Selesnick (left) and Jeffrey Milstein (right).

Sold! A red dot at Corey Helford Gallery.

There were a lot of red dots next to pieces—but only at the satellite fairs—by Sunday’s close, which put a smile on my face. Finally, we ended our art-fair trip with Scope. It was a perfect end! Lots of works on paper both framed and pinned-up on the walls unframed. I liked seeing more of an alternative-space/project-space approach to the booths at these fairs. Less posh, more authentic. I was surprised to not see any technology or information arts at Art Basel. I expected to see some at the satellite fairs, but left empty handed. At the end of the day, Jonathan and I definitely enjoy what I call ‘casualist’ work (George Condo, Philip Guston, Matias Sanchez, Scott Daniel Ellison, and Eddie Martinez) over stuffy formalist. Where’s the spark and humor in the latter?