Basel Brought The Box to Nikki Beach

There was plenty of imported NY snatch traipsing around Miami for Basel, but perhaps the most famous receptacle of naughty body parts designed to give you pleasure was the aptly named The Box. Straight from the Lower East Side and towing a reputation for providing some of the most naughty,…

Highlights From Art Basel Miami Beach 2009: Part 2

Congratulations, Miami, you’ve survived another Art Basel. Riptide dropped by the main fair  one final time late yesterday afternoon. Galleries had put out some new works since opening day, while some gallerists were literally counting their revenue, reportedly up from last year. That’s not surprising, considering much of the work…

Highlights From Art Basel 2009: Part 1

Art Basel Miami Beach is perhaps one of the most overwhelming events modern culture has to offer, and the rearranged layout sure doesn’t help make it feel like any less of a bizarre labyrinth through multimillion dollars’ worth of contemporary art.It would be futile to pick some sort of narrative…

Iggy Pop Needs A Manssiere

Banana Republican kicked off his Art Basel festivities at the opening of Primary Flight’s Blue Print For Space inside Art Center South Florida on Lincoln Road. Mighty impressive display of street inspired art I must say, especially photographer Alex Hera’s exhibition of bedazzled Jesus Christ statues strategically placed around a throne-like…

Scope Miami Still Local Friendly As Ever

One complaint about Art Basel: Local artists and galleries are given few opportunities to showcase their work. The only fair that has proven it values Miami’s artistic community is Scope.In this year’s catalog, [former] Miami Mayor Manny Diaz welcomes the fair right up front. In addition, local galleries Arune 5…

Last Night: David Lynch’s ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ At OHWOW

There’s a reason David Lynch long ago joined the small pantheon of adjective-ized American artists alongside Hitchcock, Kubrick and Bon Jovi. (What? You’ve never heard a Bon Jovian song?)The director’s tightrope walk between macabre and mundane was plastered all over the walls of OHWOW last night in a show that,…

Silicon Beach: Art Basel Gets Buzzing on Twitter

Art Basel has swooped in along with those denizens of the art world, and there’s a nifty way to keep up with it all in real time at Art Log Live (@artlog).  The site, which officially launches today, offers a hashtag for every major Art Basel fair, as well as…

Video: Design Miami/ With OK Go and Maarten Baas

Consider this the video counterpart to yesterday’s review of Design Miami/ 2009. We still recommend you head out for yourself, but in the meantime enjoy OK Go’s laser guitar performance, designer Maarten Baas’s human-powered clockwork (that’s the man himself opening the cabinet), and other assorted bits of fancy from the…

Michael Jackson: King of Art Basel

Last year it was a portrait of then President-elect Obama that was the main focus of Dietch’s project Art Basel booth. This year it’s the King of Pop Michael Jackson. Painted by Kehinde Wiley, who’s work usually puts hip-hop youth in the context of classical Royal portraiture, the piece was…

Highlights From Design Miami/ 2009

During a week when unchecked imagination runs wild and art comes close to scrambling your brain, Design Miami/ always refreshingly mixes things up by showcasing work with at least somewhat of a foundation based in function. Though the fair’s ArandaLasch-designed tent seemed a but smaller than years past, the fair…

Director David Lynch Exposes His Dark Soul at O.H.W.O.W.

Most people know quixotic movie director David Lynch for his Academy Award-nominated films like Blue Velvet and The Elephant Man. But Lynch is also an accomplished visual artist who brings the same surreal, dream-like imagery and deadpan irony that are a staple of his films to his art work.Also known…

Workshop Workshop Makes Zines Inside Design Miami

Beginning December 1, Jim Drain of Bas Fisher Invitational, British artist Graham Hudson, and I are co-curating a project inside Design Miami (where my wife works) called The Brief Happy Life of Workshop Workshop. Here’s the press release, which I wrote, so I guess it’s a press release in the…

Get Your Own Work of Art into Basel

Being one of the premiere art festivals of the year, not just any Joe Blow can show during Art Basel. You’d need connections, talent, or…a pack of markers, a glue gun, and some stray sequins. This year, the Scope Art Show has opened up their grand ol’ doors to the…

Your Basel Guide to Basel Guides

T minus one until Turkey Day, but the true date of anticipation is still a week away, Art Basel’s kickoff — December 2! There are events popping off from the Gables all the way up to Aventura, and if you think your head is spinning from all the Facebook invites…

Art Burn 09 Plans to Set Wynwood on Fire

Every now and then you just have to let the press release speak for itself, as is the case with this year’s ART BURN fair in Wynwood (123 NW 23rd Street). Setting off this Thursday, December 3, ART BURN bills itself as an “International Contemporary Art Expo and Immolation” and…

Czech War Photographs at the Freedom Tower

Often you have to look past the white tents and convention centers for the best work being shown during Basel week. Case in point, Invasion 68 Prague, a little show at the Miami Freedom Tower (600 Biscayne Boulevard) that’s easy to overlook.Put together by Miami-Dade College and the Aperture Foundation…