Everyone wants to stand between works of art and talk and take photos and be seen.
Photo: AFP/Eva Marie Uzcategui
We’re almost half an hour late. The traffic jam started on the bridge that connects Miami with Miami Beach; the honking is deafening, the bright Porsches, including one whose body is completely covered in hot pink plush, make it difficult to concentrate on the traffic; There are police, parking attendants, security men and VIP minibuses on site. The $75 ticket says to stick to your one-hour time slot as much as possible – we missed that due to poor planning. The internet warns that there are no new tickets and nerves are on edge. The overpriced parking garage is almost full, but we still find a parking space at the top. The snake is colorful and half naked, the voices are shrill, the languages are diverse. Despite all odds, we get in without any problems. Emotions overwhelm me: Is this what it feels like when you make it to Berghain?
Miami Beach, an island city with 80,000 inhabitants, is more diverse than the name suggests. The white beaches, palm trees and bright sunshine associated with this region are plentiful, and prosperity is visible in many corners. But Miami’s little sister also offers an architecturally exceptional Art Deco downtown, numerous cultural institutions and a diversity that other places can only dream of: half of Miami Beach’s residents have Latin American roots, the Jewish community is flourishing, and the City as a “Gay Mecca.” The offshoot of Art Basel has been taking place here, in Basel’s twin city, since 2002. But nobody suspects that this is even an offshoot.
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For the residents of Miami and South Florida, “Basel” – pronounced like “Basil” in English – is a party to which tens of thousands of people make a pilgrimage every year. The fair lasts three days, with two so-called preview days for celebrities and the super-rich; the associated events last a whole week. I spoke to two artists who had already shown their work in Miami Beach – neither of them even knew about the existence of Art Basel in Basel.
There has also been a Basel version in Hong Kong since 2008, it came to Paris last year, but the Miami Beach Basel is an institution: the entire Western art industry seems to gather in Florida on the one weekend at the beginning of December, the four Hauser mega galleries & Wirth, David Zwirner, Gagosian and Pace Gallery direct public taste, art prices and trends. Three other fairs – Design Miami, Untitled Art Fair and Nada Miami take place simultaneously with and near Art Basel; An estimated half a billion dollars are generated in Miami Beach in a week.
Art Basel is like New York Fashion Week, said Miami influencer Alex Earle. She’s not entirely wrong when fashion houses like Louis Vuitton or Dior host the afterparties. But it also confirms the prejudice that prevails in intellectual circles that most people are only interested in pomp, parties and posing instead of art.
The fair causes scandals or at least headlines year after year: in 2019 it was Maurizio Cattelan’s banana artwork “Comedian”, in 2022 it was an ATM by the artist collective MSCHF that ranked the account balance of all visitors who inserted their bank card (and the ones with… low wealth bullied). “Art news” journalist Shanti Escalante-De Mattei lamented the lack of such a “viral” work of art this year and attributed this to the economic crisis. But the number of American billionaires is growing and the art market is not in danger. And is it really so bad that there was no fruit on the wall this year? Instead there were hanging socks, ropes and burlap sacks!
277 galleries from 33 countries presented their best, or at least most commercial, artists in Miami Beach last week. These can be divided into four categories: classics, superstars, emerging artists and zombies. The first category includes works by deceased modern masters such as Pablo Picasso or Jean-Michel Basquiat. These works attracted the greatest public interest. Many people, including me, would have loved to know who these works were sold to and for how much.
The second category includes artists like audience favorite Kehinde Wiley, who achieved star status after his Obama portrait. Even if his works always have the same content – underprivileged black people in art-historically relevant poses – hardly anyone can escape his sensitivity and sophistication. Ai Weiwei’s huge Lego copy of Emanuel Leutze’s “Washington Crosses the Delaware” (1851) was also very popular, even if I couldn’t understand its deeper meaning.
It is gratifying that more and more women are joining the ranks of super artists – for example, the Japanese Yayoi Kusama, who is represented with several works and whose Infinity Rooms no museum visitor can pass by these days, or the African-American Mickalene Thomas, who is in collaboration with this Art Basel launched a clothing collection in the Google Shop.
The third category of artists is on the threshold of notoriety and fame. The widest range of themes and styles can be found here: Devin N. Moss shows everyday African American life in his installation, the German Cosima von Bonin humorously points out the importance of the seas and their inhabitants with one of her well-known anthropomorphic shark figures, the indigenous Jaune -Quick-to-See Smith deals with the consequences of the US policy of conquest, the Nigerian-American artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby combines the themes of home and identity in a hybrid form of painting and collage.
The final group consists of artists who work on what art critics call “zombie formalism,” that is, the reproduction of a form of abstraction that always looks the same: monochromatic canvases with spots or splashes, accompanied by an elaborate artist statement about materiality, environmental protection, or Transience. The same category also includes complex-looking but meaningless installations such as a table setting spread out on the floor or the already mentioned fabrics hanging around like rags and a high number of kitsch (oversized credit cards, selfie mirrors with funny inscriptions). But the zombies won’t have to starve either. I overheard a price inquiry: $50,000 was being asked for a particularly amateurish-looking silver canvas with dots!
Despite its Swiss roots, Art Basel Miami Beach is an extremely American affair, so plurality and optimism dominate here – whether real or fake. Ruinart champagne, priced at $33 per plastic flute, flows freely; The visitors seem intoxicated by the art show and obsessed with taking the best possible photo for their online presence. They themselves are more exciting to look at than many exhibition objects.
In the four hours of my visit to the trade fair, I saw a completely naked woman under a fairly transparent tunic, numerous brassieres (without anything over it, of course), men with It bags that made me green with envy, as well as men in pink, green and purple Suits – only boring Europeans still wear blue and beige.
I see my experience at the most important American art fair as a worthy replacement for the visit to Berghain that I was never able to enjoy. You suspect that reality doesn’t live up to the fantasy. But you still want it because you love partying. And in the case of Art Basel Miami Beach, because you love art. And party.
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