Despite it’s stretching on to three districts North, South Beach and what was very misleadingly called Designer District , where I went expecting petites boutiques and was confronted with warehouses and more graffiti than I was prepared for, with horribly tacky „messages“ (I paint therefore I am) and heard in an hour “Hola Chica“ more times than my name this whole week, the Basel Miami Art scene seemed a bit more easy to navigate, then actual Basel, maybe because the walk to the beach was at all times very short.

Or maybe because the fundamentally hypocritical and contradictory nature of our game was, as many MANY boobs, right there in the open. Uncensored, untamed.
No shame, no sophistication (oh no, none of this European nonsense), no bra! And this is actually something I admire in Americans: their guilt free, open and uncomplicated way of being. Sometimes too open maybe:
Paintings are like prisoners, if you starve them they will hang themselves. 

that was not the grill but a smoke machine

Although it did get a bit much to handle in Miami. 27 degrees Celsius with the scattered Christmas decorations,  high heels walking in the (aforementioned) graffiti filled, ghetto looking area, hosting some of very expensive art collections on the inside, and some very crappy art too, a bit of Beverly Hills, with a bit of Cuba (I am guessing), a sand filled bar called Sand bar (which I kept mistaking for Sandy bar) where the women’s toilets were called CHICKS and the men’s DICKS and some kind of cocktail bucket that made the Berliner Weisse glass look like a shot.

The Hotel to go to at nights was Delano with a douche-only door policy, the way to get in was by following the mafioso looking dudes passing by, and there were some of them every 60“.  Or namedropp every KW curator name you know if  at the PS1 party  (which turned out to be a benefit – so sorry!). The after place was Le Baron, which, being misplaced by Silencio in Delano (apparently of David Lynch!) popped up in different club locations each night, in consideration I guess to the people outside, so they can take in a different view every night, while queuing for over an hour.

Participating in an art fair in your own hotel (NADA-a non profit association of mostly New York, LES art dealers), brings its funny moments with it, talking to collectors way before breakfast in your flip flops, share the pool view with the ironic beach wear of the Lower East East Side, and the actual beach wear of the random hotel guests, the pale white hipster thighs, the sweaty tattooed bald guys in sunglasses and the red-brown skin of the native seniors. Paintings on the beach, paintings in a hotel room (Mark Flood show) paintings in the elevator, carried like a bag of dead rabbits by stern looking gallery assistants.

Whoever describes the New York scene as cut-throat and tough should spend some time among the Lower East Side galleries or in Nada  . They seem like a big (happy?) family. At least everyone keeps popping up at everybody else's space in some capacity or the other. Take the much overhypped lately, and not necessarily justified by the participation in this fair, 47 Canal Str project of Oliver Newton and artist-gallery owner Margaret Lee. Lee won this year's Nadartia ( Nadardia?) Award of the fair, shows works at the Jack Hanley booth, located right before the 47 Canal booth and at the Green Gallery from Milwaukee (Do they have galleries in Milwaukee? says a berlin based x gallerist friend as we pass by), which together with James Fuentes Gallery, was one of the best in the fair. 
 

SCARY NEW YORK affirmations - (an ongoing series) 

IN NEW YORK YOU ARE AS GOOD AS YOUR LAST SHOW

JOB DESCRIPTIONS of people I have met as inscripted on their visiting cards
Director
Gallery
Gallery
Style Editor
Writer/Critic - same card other side: Managing Editor of ***
Chief Executive Officer
Art Lover!
General Manager Hong Kong- Member of the Management Board
art+design+consulting
gallerie
executive director
assistant vice president

MOST AWKWARD DIALOG 

-collector: So, how many works did you have under water? (See Sandy) 
-gallerist: Hundrerds! water, I am not sure I can call it water, sewage really...
-collector: EW!!!
 

ART BASEL MIAMI

I read somewhere Art Basel Miami is wonderful, as young artists have the opportunity to see rare, historic works and be inspired. I would not necessarily go that far, but it was certainly easier to take in than the  over-stressed European counterpart and there were some beautiful, even magic moments! There was even a decent public sculptures part- but not quite like the Alice Wonderart we experienced this summer during documenta 13.

to be continued after the flight...