|
|
Art Basel / Miami Beach December 7 - 10, 2005
reviewed by |
If shopping is a buzz, imagine the kick that rich collectors get at an art fair. With hundreds of dealers concentrated in one place, it must be the sort of excitement that is akin to hunting in the wild, the challenge being acquisition of something prestigious and expensive. It is not the same sort of reward one gets from seeing really powerful art that feeds the soul, nor is it the feeling one gets finding a fantastic deal at a yard sale. That has to do with spending as little money as possible. High level purchasing has to do with status and class. This is not to say that there isn’t art there worth seeing; it has just been neutralized for consumption. The work is there for pure enticement. Even custom-built installations are there for the benefit of wowing. Since collectors are sporting bigger budgets than the guy on the street, they can afford to buy something that is, in their world, hip, and the fairs cater directly to that. Celebrities also gain from starting a collection which may be bought for them by a consultant. It adds to their allure and makes them seem less common. What does Brad Pitt need for the holidays? Mike Kelly stocking stuffers? The Art Fair phenomenon, stripped of all the high brow and intellectual trappings, is simply an excuse for a major shopping spree. Though relatively new -- Miami is in its fourth year -- these fairs have supercharged an already buoyant art market that is clambering for more goods and the next level of sensation. As blatant as it is, it is good news for serious galleries looking to develop a market where there was none. Who can blame them for wanting a piece of the action? The fairs make it possible to access a wide range of collectors and this makes a gallery’s location less crucial. If they can muster a budget for attendance, they can count themselves a player in a huge marketplace, the global art village. The fairs emphasize the importance of seeing art in the flesh. This is where deals can be made. For the uninitiated, all this activity is fairly exclusionary. There is little room for the unrepresented artist in such a giant engine of commerce. Sure, you may find a gallerist that suits your criterion but they aren’t there to pick up stragglers; they are on the hunt for buyers. The numerous “represented” artists attending are busy positioning themselves and their galleries into the market fray. Going to posh parties is essential; that is where all the collectors and dealers hang. As for the rather unpleasant milieu this entails, its like being backstage with the Stones -- one has to try and ignore it and look on the bright side. For smaller galleries a whole new market strategy exists, which they can latch onto in order to move upscale. These galleries group together and form satellite fairs that piggyback the main event. They are there for exposure and to take advantage of the sheer momentum and publicity generated by the Basel/Miami Fair. These smaller fairs are a great place for bargains and they are ideal for curators looking to keep up with artists from cities not already on the map. I managed to get to Aqua and Scope but I was unable to get to Nada, Pulse, or Frisbee for comparison. Each represented a slightly different league of art. Aqua and Scope featured Philadelphia’s Gallery Joe and Schmidt-Dean, respectively. Aqua is a new fair and was organized by artists at Platform, a Seattle Gallery. They agreed that West Coast galleries were left out of this primarily east coast phenomenon so they created Aqua with galleries from Portland, Seattle, and LA. This looked successful to me. The Aqua Hotel’s strange little retro rooms and open courtyard were perfect for creating a warm party atmosphere. Here you could browse and actually talk to enthusiastic artists. Try that at Basel! The hotel where Scope was featured was a little claustrophobic but equally friendly. Here, one could easily see a lot of work from smaller New York galleries. The Basel Fair itself was overwhelming. There was simply too much to see and little intimacy for contemplating any work. The “commodity” of it all breaks the muse. Although the Convention Center does its best to present mini-white cubes, in the end it is futile. It ends up like a posh sidewalk sale. This confirmed my interest in the smaller shows even more. The whole experience leads me to believe that there is nothing stopping Philadelphia and its contemporary galleries from getting on the band wagon. If hosting a smaller fair here is not feasible -- there is no consensus on this as yet -- then galleries can at least consider showing our best contemporary artists at fairs where they can be seen. How much effort would it take to lure collectors to Philly? That’s debatable. We’d certainly have to start promoting our own contemporaneousness as opposed to our colonial charm. Another difficulty is that many of our youngest artists decry the attentions of the art world as tainted. They have a point but it is a silly impractical attitude. In twenty years they’ll be kicking themselves when the mortgage payment is due and their window of opportunity has passed. Philadelphia galleries could also use a dose of experience with high power collectors if they ever got the opportunity. Of course, it must take a great degree of confidence and dynamism for artists to switch from simply making art to taking an active part in selling art to glamorous people. Yeah, there is the rock star analogy. Don’t get me wrong: I appreciate resistance to the engulfing market. But as disconcerting as the fairs are, they provide the needed oxygen and publicity for art. Yes, all the rabid salesmanship is a little creepy, but it is essential. It is also illuminating and indicates that the art world suffers from exactly the same tendencies as the world at large: greed and concentration on youth and glamour. Is it surprising that the art world has become one large post-graduate degree party aligning itself with every other aspect of culture: media, music, fashion, film, and online mania. Art, at this level, is now like everything else, living on a big flat cultural plateau. This condition makes me long for the tortured philosophical aspects of art making that seem to be evaporating. There is no “us and them,” no counter culture, no elite, no intelligentsia. Even the appearance of the NY Dolls -- a welcome blast from the past -- on the beach in Miami was subsumed by a bogus self-congratulatory sensation. Oddly enough, they sounded bloody good (forget the Stones) and for a moment appeared to be the only real thing for miles. Back to InLiquid's Commentary section index © 2006 James Rosenthal and InLiquid.com.
Image credits: © 2005 by MCH Swiss Exhibition (Holding) Ltd. (top);
© 2005 Aqua Art Fair Miami (bottom). |
|
|||||||||||
