All Is Fair in the Art Market

Art Miami has grown up, with more to view than ever before

Comments (0) By Alfredo Triff Thursday, Feb 1 2001

...continued from page 1

Marta Maria Perez Bravo gives it up in Para la Entrega

More About

Surely Art Miami could not go without a "Best Botero Gallery" prize, this time to Felipe Grimberg Gallery out of Bogotá. Galeria Minotauro, from Caracas, deserves the "Special Ecology" prize for José Gamara's rich landscapes showing forest eradication at the expense of modern greed. None surpassed Ferran Cano of Barcelona for "Best Overall Print," with dizzying motif repetitions printed on literally everything: walls, chairs, table -- everything except gallery attendants. For Brit lovers I've given the "Victorian Heritage" prize to Alexia Goethe Fine Arts, for its nineteenth-century Kiplingesque landscapes.

Artist Renonciat from Modus Gallery in Paris deserves a special "Canvas Wrapping Imitation" prize, though some onlookers were baffled by this hyperrealistic rendering of cloth and rope. Thanks to the sort of colorless art of Udo Nöger, Silvana Facchini gets my "Rectangular White Minimalist" prize. There was no competition for Chinese Contemporary Ltd. out of London. It definitely warranted the "Best Chinese Drag Queen" prize for showing cutting-edge Chinese art at yet another time of cultural crackdown on the mainland. Speaking of Chinese, Bernice Steinbaum deserves the "Chinese Cargo Bejeweled with Spider Web" prize for Haitian artist Edouard Duval-Carrié's imposing green-enamel wooden altar with urns, daggers, and dragons, delicately roofed with an arachnidlike trellis by Karen Rifas. I even have a best "Porno Flick" prize for Santiago Sierra's video of ten men masturbating for $20, at Galería Enrique Guerrero. Art Miami had a bit of everything for all tastes.