Lance Armstrong Recruits 25 Top Artists for Benefit Show

​It’s not often you get to see a curated show featuring the likes of Richard Prince, Jules de Balincourt, Shepard Fairey, Kenny Scharf, and KAWS, but it’s not often that Lance Armstrong comes calling on the art world. Armstrong’s Livestrong foundation and Nike asked 25 top artists to donate pieces to a…

No More Big Orange Containers of Wonderfulness at Art Basel

The large orange shipping containers that find themselves filled with artwork just feet from the beach every year have become a trademark of Art Basel Miami Beach, but they won’t return this year.As part of a reorganization of the fair, the emerging galleries and artists relegated to Collins Park this…

Design Miami Names Maarten Baas Designer of the Year

Last year, brothers Fernando and Humberto Campana had more funky wicker pieces than a Boca yard sale and slaughtered more stuffed animal designs than Lady Gaga’s wardrobe at Design Miami for their stint as Designer of the Year. Following in their footsteps is 31-year-old Dutch designer Maarten Baas. Let’s take a…

MIFF Merits a Bronze

The only film that created “around the corner” lines was Jens Hoffmann’s 9 to 5: Days in Porn, which had the unfair of advantage of cum-swapping.

No Sugar on my Walls, Thanks

Mary Kidder, a trustee of the Columbus Museum of Art, strolled through Art Basel Miami Beach this past December and out of all the work there decided she really liked this piece by William Cotton called “Ribbon Candy.” It is a portrait of a woman with ribbon candy festooned to…

Damien Hirst’s Worth Found Dead, Preserved in Formaldehyde

Sad is the day when no one wants to pay millions and millions of dollars for dissected animals in formaldehyde cubes or diamond encrusted skulls. Portfolio is citing Art Basel Miami Beach as the proof that infamous British artists Damien Hirst’s bubble has burst. The man’s work used to go…

The Sweet Smell of Transsexual Glam

Riptide continues to find out about exciting events during Art Basel that no one bothered to invite him to. So we are just completely and totally devastated that we weren’t at the unveiling of the world’s self-proclaimed number one transsexual Amanda Lepore’s new signature fragrance.  It’s supposed to smell like…

Hernan Bas Is Recession-Proof

So the general consensus on Art Basel was that it wasn’t quite “the embodiment of failure” that the schadenfreude-loving German mag Der Spiegel predicted. As one anonymous dealer told New York: “We did better than we expected — and worse than we had hoped.”Among the artists New York singled out as recession-proof…

Art Basel’s Winners and Losers

No more art, please! Our eyes have had enough. Really! Between the fairs, we were tempted to take naps in the car. But thankfully everything is back to normal and we can look back at the art orgy that is Art Basel Miami Beach and the satellite fairs. Yes, now…

The Mother Of All Mother Duckers

So Basel, Pulse, Design Miami/ and Scope all had duck inspired pieces, which sort of bewildered us, but that was hardly the biggest ducky art news of the week. Franca Sozzani, the editor of Vogue Italia, was in town to unveil, hey, guess what, a giant resin duck by British…

Your Famous Celebrity Art Basel Gossip Post

Riptide cares about celebrities in the same way most celebrities care about Art Fairs: We will use them for shallow reasons. Celebrities need publicity and free drinks and, most of all, attention. Riptide needs things of local relevance to blog about. So with out further ado, here is your Art…

Horse Porn, Kids, and Basel

NYC artist Gregory de la Haba, who has two young sons, spent five years creating a life-size sculpture of a horse with a two-foot-long schlong, about to mount a mare with a motherin’ vagina. When he chartered a truck that carried a picture of the sculpture to drive around Wynwood last Tuesday, Miami…

Pretty in the City – Art Basel edition

Art Basel is here and the galleries of Wynwood and the Design District are packed with beautiful hip people, vying for attention with the paintings on the walls. And of course everyone is out to look their flyest. The beauty industry of Miami is well aware that the influx of…

Artists Making Art of Artists

Riptide has been noticing lots of weird little trends during Basel week. Which is quite easy considering the sheer amount of art gracing the city right now. The real feat would be finding a piece so unique it is essentially peerless. But the artists responsible for the latest trend we’ve…

Green Art Fair Seems a Bit Uneven

The Green Art Fair, billing itself as a “single point of contact for the art and design world, eco-friendly businesses and all individuals interested in moving the environmental friendly movement forward,” seems like a gyp for the $15 entry charge.The skimpy tent fair only features a handful of designers and…

Shoe Shopping at Scope Art Fair

While trolling through Scope Miami yesterday an unusual piece of wearable art stopped my daughter Bethany dead in her tracks. Brooklyn’s Helene Dumenil Gallery was exhibiting a pair of boots made out of horses hooves created by Berlin’s Iris Shieferstein. “What size are they,” Bethany inquired about the $6,000 kicks…

Wind Takes the Air Out of the Giants in the City

“Giants in the City” featuring whimsical inflatable sculptures by ten local artists opened Tuesday night at Bayfront Park where an intimate crowd gathered for a lighting ceremony and a concert on the green. “It was pretty chilly but about 200 people showed up,” says artist Alette Simmons-Jimenez who along with…