I spent most of the day at art basel, because let’s be honest it is the best show in Miami. I know that a few people think that Basel is a bit conservative. I disagree, but whatever. There are a few stories that people are trying to move forward about the fair this year, but really these are so manufactured that they become rather uninteresting. Here are the few ones that people are trying to float out there and well I think it’s up to me to refute them.
1. Someone will talk about “Market Transparency”. The truth of the matter is Market Transparency is a child’s dream (with about the same grasp on reality) as it pertains to real world economics in an industry that is driven by privately held companies.
2. Art Basel is reinventing itself. This just makes me laugh. Yes the fair has redesigned the floor plan, and added a few new amenities. But face it, it’s an art fair and commerce is really the name of the game at the end of the day.
3. Sales are up or down. How would anyone know? Someone might get an honest answer from a couple of friends (off the record, of course) So that seems like a great way to gather empirical data on sales during the fair. Remember that part about privately held companies? Now you know what private means.
With that out of the way, here’s a few of the things that caught my eye earlier today.
Agnes Martin: I’m not naming the gallery but when an Agnes Martin is sagging on the stretcher – don’t put it on the wall here. It’s poor form. No I will not name the gallery.
Pace has a Robert Irwin that you could live with in your home (or even your bushwick apartment). The more interesting thing to me was it was made earlier this year. I’ll admit it kind of goes against what I thought he was doing lately. Although it’s been awhile since we last chatted on the phone (I kid, we don’t talk on the phone , we both prefer to text each other). However the fluorescent light based sculpture was strong and self contained.
Christopher Wool at a few galleries. You know I could complain about that but to be very honest here, I love his current work. The more of it I see the more I want to see.
Some German gallery (didn’t catch the name) has a pretty big (20 feet?) Anselm Keifer here – which must mean it’s a secondary market gallery because AK evidently is seriously anti art fairs. Or at least as far as his work is concerned.
Gagossian brought a bunch of early Warhol’s to the party – I’m surprised at this, it seems kind of obvious and can’t they sell them all year long anyway? However at Books and Books tonight I got to paw through the Gago produced catalog of Sonebend’s Warhol’s – that book is pretty amazing. These two items are probably connected, by the way.
Joel Shapiro has a suite of prints at Gemini GEL which I just love. They have been on a real roll lately with the Ellsworth Kelly print last year (see numerous posts on the subject in the blog) and these. Just great artworks. Please do go see them, I know printmaking is kind of the ignored third cousin of the art world these are honestly worth looking at.
Patti Smith at Robert Miller – PS has been taking photographs for just about forever and the images are strong yet personal – like an even more poetic version of Robert Frank.
I don’t even want to talk about this (below) at Deitch.
