Art Basel Miami Beach: All You Need to Know
Who hasn’t heard about the $120K banana by prankster-artist Maurizio Cattelan? 🍌I am going to go out on a limb and say that the buyers have actually made a great investment (and I am not alone in this thinking). I am also pretty excited that the fruit got all different audiences thinking, talking, and forming opinions about art.
Here are a few bullet points in case you missed it:
Who bought them? Two private collectors, Sarah Andelman (founder of Colette, Paris) and the Cox’s of Palm Beach who called the work the Warhol “Soup Cans" of this generation; the third of the edition was to be sold to a museum
How this is art? TLDR: as an owner of this work, you are buying the “concept.” This is commodified in the form of a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist with instructions as to how to install, display, and replace the work. This paper is then the manifestation of the artwork and what is “sold” (and potentially resold). As the owner, you are welcome to display the concept as often or infrequently as you want but as long as you have the paper, you get the bragging rights of owning the work. If you still aren’t convinced… feel free to listen to Warhol’s sage words, “Art is What you Can Get Away With.”
Really, a real banana? Yes, eaten by a performance artist David Datuna, subsequently removed from the fair for causing unsafe crowding.
Other highlights from the fair:
What the VIPs were buying in the opening hours; an art advisor made purchases for a number of remote clients and Pace Gallery sold 20+ works in the fairs opening minutes; click through for an overarching breakdown of what sold and for how much (note: be wary of these prices as they can be inflated, based on handshake deals, or pre-sold).
Market trends from NADA: ceramics, abstraction, surrealism, pragmatism (many works on display were <$10,000).
Elephant in the room: climate change. Miami remains highly vulnerable to the effects of a changing environment and art fairs are not particularly earth-friendly due to the required travel, shipping, and waste creation. Artists and industry experts attempted to address the issue through panels and site-specific installations to promote conversations and thought towards awareness of the industry’s impact.
Miami really is a crazy place that first week of December, with more and more people flooding the beaches not just for the cool confines of the Miami Beach Convention Center but also for the parties and people watching. If you are looking for a deal this isn’t necessarily the place for you but then again you might miss that banana selfie?
In the market for art? Here are my personal takeaways:
Last year ceramics were everywhere, this year the medium of choice is textiles.
Young artists are once again having a moment with Nicholas Party (pictured below), Loie Hollowell and Amoako Boafo, lighting up headlines. Both artist’s works interestingly enough are exponentially more impressive in person, the textures are truly surreal. Maybe the real overarching theme of this year is texture? You heard it here first!
But where can I find investment pieces that won’t break the bank, you ask? NADA is my absolute favorite fair for discovery, year over year. The dealers are carefully vetted and bring fresh and interesting artists and artworks. It is a bonus that prices are in the $10K and under range rather than the 6-8 figures.
Reviewing A Decade of Art
Post-Miami and before heading into 2020, I am reflecting on the 2010s and a whole lot has changed in the art world. From increasing the scrutiny of the art-world status quo (be it the Guerrilla Girls’ omnipresent critiques of the male-dominated institutions to ferocious collector interest in African artists and presenting global perspectives) to a return to figurative painting to the rise of street art and the online art collector, and of course, the emergence of Instagram which has brought a whole new level of viral to experiencing art. Click through for Artsy’s review of movements and moments that defined the decade.
On a personal note, art has taught me so many things this decade and both my love of art and my professional experience have grown tremendously. I’ve completed my M.A. in Art, Law, and Business worked at some incredible galleries and auction houses, advised some cutting edge collectors, and formed relationships with important mentors. This year I took a leap and started my own consulting business and joined Wondeur, a super-powerful art and AI start-up, and have been fortunate to travel the globe in search of art.
Art has had a profound impact on my life, resulting in inspiring conversations, understanding, thought-provocation, and awareness and to close out the decade I wanted to provide my top 10 most influential art-highlights:
2018/Arthur Jafa’s Love Is The Message, The Message Is Death, 2016. This is an incredibly moving video piece that gets even more powerful with every viewing. Its real-time reflection on the state of society and hits home in all too real ways and I implore you to see it if you can. I am seldom the only one watching with tears in my eyes (YouTube has some terrible quality clips if you want a glimpse).
2017/Claude Monet’s Water Lilies series displayed in a Tadao Ando bunker at Chichu Art Museum in Naoshima, Japan. This other-worldly experience proved that painting is so much more than just pigment and canvas. I could have stood in this mind-blowingly beautiful temple to art forever.
2014/Christian Marclay’s The Clock, 2010 at the Centre Pompidou. Watching this piece was an ah-ha moment for me, finally, I understood the power of video art. The work is 24-hours long and composed of film clips edited together around the central theme of timepieces, it is both an artwork and a functioning clock as each minute of the piece reflects the actual time. A powerful reminder of the passage of time, it is enthralling, addicting, and makes even the most skeptical of video art, a fan.
2016/Olafur Eliasson at the Palace of Versailles, France. Versailles is an iconic palace and always will be, but I find nothing more refreshing and inspiring than a mix of the past with the present, which is flawlessly executed here as each summer, as a contemporary artist is invited to interact with the historic space. In 2016, Eliasson was the artist and he brought life to the palace and gardens with climate-conscious installations. (He is one of my all-time favorite artists, and I did not see it in person, but one of the most powerful works to date by the artist included bringing fallen ice blocks from the ocean to downtown London in order to highlight the urgency of climate change.) Also, if you have not seen his feature on the Netflix series “Abstract” S2, Episode 1- I highly recommend checking it out.
2017/Dan Flavin’s untitled (Marfa project), 1996 at Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas. Escaping into the glowing light of 6 different buildings with Flavin’s neon installations, it is a relief that there are such magical spaces for permanent art. The town itself is one of the original art pilgrimages - Donald Judd moved to this small Texas town in the 1970s to make it his own playground for ambitious artworks. It takes countless hours of travel to arrive here and the complete immersed in the site-specific installations is a completely unique feeling. In the alternate universe that is Marfa, the people are kind, thoughtful, and believe that art is paramount (and a desert non-operational Prada store is definitely a good idea).
2013/Ernesto Neto’s É, ô Bicho!, 2001, at the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, Miami, initiated my love-affair with private collections. This space introduced me to the power of passionate collectors and their ability to support artists and purchase artworks without boundaries or governance. This particular work allows viewers to experience and, in this case, smell (the nets are filled with beautiful spices), the unique vision of its collector.
2013/James Turrell’s Aten Reign, 2013 at The Guggenheim Museum where the artist interacted with Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic rotunda and created a space of celestial light. It was a perfect fusion of art, architecture, and audience as strangers and families sat in quiet awe.
2018/Kerry James Marshall’s Past Times, 1997 at Sotheby’s, which sold to P. Diddy for $21.1 million. While the celebrity factor is fun, the work itself and the larger practice of KJM is so powerful. I was lucky enough to see this work in person and despite the heavy competition of masterpieces in the Sotheby’s saleroom, many minutes were spent in front of this imposing (it is HUGE) re-invented history painting.
2017/Korakrit Arunanondchai’ performance, with history in a room filled with people with funny names 4, 2017 at C-L-E-A-R-I-N-G, Bushwick. Stick with me, this performance and video piece inspired a deeper understanding of performance art - a medium that can be difficult to digest. After waiting in line, followed by sitting on a cold, hard, and crowded floor, surrounded by other art lovers, the entire crowd was enthralled in a light and sound show that addressed the reverence of history and the uncertainty of the future. All the bizarre details added up to a moving thought-provoking experience that I think about often.
2012/ Yayoi Kusama, “Fireflies on the Water,” 2002 at the Whitney Museum of American Art’s old location, in the iconic Marcel Breuer building. This was my first of many infinity rooms and, at the time, the museum did not allow you to take photos. This experience was a far cry from today’s line ups around multiple Chelsea blocks to get into one of these installations but once inside, they really are dream-like. As a result, her work has brought a whole new audience of viewers to art and I am a big fan of that.
I hope that this list encourages you to seek art that may change your next decade too. Until next year…