Is Art Basel Miami Beach a ‘conspicuous consumption’ arena?

I am quoting long time friend Dennis Leyva, Public Art Coordinator for the City of Miami Beach, who has been one of the masterminds behind Art Basel Miami Beach since its inception. I happened to stumble upon him at Design Miami and this is what we briefly discussed with a (can’t disclose the name) NY Magazine editor. 

Over 300K events and circa 70k visitors in one week equals Miami Beach could sink under the stricking number of expensive cars driving through the disheveled streets of the Beach (we are not in our best shape these days) and an exponentially volume of assets circulating streets, venues and exhibitions under the disguise of art collectors, their friends reality show stars and their boyfriends that think they are Jesus, buyers, collectors, fashion royalties, magazine editors, socialites, models, singers, actors, vintage kings, pop-up everything (stores, bars, collections, collaborations) and oh, artists.

Art Basel, Design Miami, ArtMiami, Scope, Pulse, NADA all showcase any form of modern and contemporary types of art from allover the world nominally for a Latin American and American public. Yes they come and buy, big numbers. So hey why not enticing them to, ALSO, buy that limited __________ (insert anything from Gap x Visionaire t-shirt at The Webster to the Ai Wei Wei skate from the drive-thru Colette at the Alchemist 5th floor to the @shopBazaar pop-up store on the 8th floor of the Soho Beach House).

(I made some damage, yes)

Anyhow, here’s my version, a mix of what I could attend and a little bit of a room with a view parody. Promise you will not see the difference.

Design Miami

Tent Pile by Formlessfinder artist welcomes visitors: 1 mill pounds of sand. The form and the meaning are for you to find.

(a shadowed evening view)

Water was the common denominator, as I read thru the exhibition.

Swarovski presented Mangue Groove by Guilherme Torres a construction that looked like a DNA construction but made of plexiglas ‘bones’ filled with dust of Swarovski crystals. The led panels that surrounded the installation made the crystals give the perception of moving. Sustainability, water, life.

(the artist describing the experience)

(pink strikes provoked by light and air playing within the liquid)

Phare No. 1-9 by Dutch designer Simon Heijdens. It is an immersive piece that reinterprets Art Nouveau in the 21st century: nature, coincidence and time. A symphony of colors that manifest themselves via lights and the experience of you passing through. I could have remained suspended within for the entire time. And I went to see it more than once. 

Galerie Perrotin captured my attention with the series of satellite exhibitions around town.  

Jean Prouve’ and the house he designed in 1945 rebuilt inside the tent.

Free-spirited designer of modernist furniture and interior designer Charlotte Perriand and La Maison au bord de l’eaux built for the first time at The Raleigh thanks to the collaboration with Louis Vuitton. 

Kolkotz’s 'Curiosity' a Swiss chalet floating in front of the abandoned Miami Marine Museum with the sponsorship of Audemars Piguet. The incongruence of a snow covered bourgeois chalet in the tropical waters of Miami opens the doors to arguments, discussions or just plain enjoyment. 

Miami Design District

Dacra’s mastermind Craig Robins introduced Phase II of the project that blends fashion, art and design.

That’s when I made it, first time ever, into www.worldredeye.com photographed by Seth with Laurinda Spears (Herzog & de Meuron dame).

(hard hats were the hottest accessory, mine was a walking cane and I had to drag myself home) 

PAMM

The Perez Art Museum and the other ‘M’ stands for ‘mind-blowing’. As much as it seems not organic, disproportioned, massive from the causeway, the 200,000 sq ft structure molds with grace contemporary and modern art with its surroundings of nature at its wilderness state.

(Djs were spinning, light effects were projected all around and the garden was part of it)

Open plan, tall cement columns that let the water of the port and the wind go thru and a hanging garden as imagined, created and planted by green-haired landscaping architect Patrick Blanc. Whom I met during the members preview. The museum has had events every night, with a remote self-parking and coordinated bus transportation that would put the Swiss train system to shame. 

I was also fortunate enough to be attending the event with one of the docents of the museum who spotted in the crowd Hew Locke, the artist behind ‘For Those in Peril on the Sea’ the installation that wraps you inside like the sirens Ulysses. What more appropriate than being at the convergence of the port of Miami, in front of the Freedom tower and facing Miami Beach and standing under a constellation of boats suspended from the ceiling.

Dissident Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei is not new to Miami and Art Basel and now he has a permanent retrospective at PAMM. 

So much more to say about “Miami’s new front porch” (- cit. Thom Collins) that could not be absorbed in one night.

Meanwhile here’s an outstanding overview on the WSJ by our friend Alastair Gordon. 

More on this later.