Basel, Blah-sel

There’s a little art party happening in Miami this week. It’s called Art Basel. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? It’s no big deal, really. Just a festival of culture collecting the world’s top artists, gallerists, and glitzy culturati, along with 50,000 onlookers who make the trek to South Florida for the festivities each year. At the main fair, Art Basel in Miami Beach, art exhibitors have taken over the Miami Beach Convention Center (1901 Convention Center Dr., Miami Beach) to display works by the art world’s most prestigious names. (Think Picasso and Warhol.) It’s pretty impressive if you’re into that sort of thing. Satellite fairs? Sure, they’re OK. Art Miami (3101 NE First Ave., Miami) is bringing more Banksy walls to midtown this year, while Scope Miami (on the sand at Tenth Street and Ocean Drive in SoBe) has moved to the beach and will host a live performance by Tegan and Sara this Friday from 8 p.m. to midnight. There are more than 20 fairs this year, so people must enjoy them, we guess. There’ll also be museum openings, like the debut of Pérez Art Museum Miami (1103 Biscayne Blvd., Miami), AKA that giant downtown construction project you’ve been reading about for the past year. The Museum of Contemporary Art (770 NE 125th St., Miami) has neon work by a little artist named Tracey Emin. Please, stop us if we’re boring you. Other than the big names, the great art, the bizarre spectacles, the nonstop nightlife, and the soul-crushing traffic, there’s really not much to Art Basel.
Dec. 5-8, 2013