FAIR FACTOR: PROLOGUE

By all accounts the mood going into Miami was wary. Dealers in general were fearful that the bubble was about to burst, and the smaller dealers were concerned that the greater number of satellite fairs this year would dilute their sales. Apparently the big guns had no problems; Gagogian sold $10 million worth of art, according to Bloomberg News. Among the smaller galleries in the satellite fairs, the mood lifted as sales began to rack up. Many smaller galleries sold out, and most at least broke even. The mood going out was simply weary.

In an elevator conversation at my hotel, I listened in as an elegantly dressed Brazilian dealer explained the art of the sale to an interested shorts-clad tourist: "Before the fair, we send out J–pegs of the work we're taking so our collectors know what we'll have. Some have already made their choices before they get here." And you wondered how those red dots appeared in the first five minutes of opening.

By the end of the first day, the taxi drivers were so savvy that if you told them, "The Pulse Fair, please," they knew exactly where in the Wynwood section of Miami to drop you off. Hell, with 12 venues in Wynwood and an almost equal number along the Collins Avenue strip adjacent to the Convention Center, site of Basel Miami, those cabbies made a lot of trips back and forth over the causeways - and a lot of dough at $20-plus-tip a pop. Once I learned that Arden Gallery, showing at the Red Dot Fair, had sold one of my paintings, I splurged on the cabs. The idea of the fair-provided shuttles was good, but the waits could be long. Taxis got you there faster, and with 24 fairs to cover in four and a half days, faster was definitely the way to go.

Covering the Fairs

So how do you cover 24 fairs in four and a half days? You don't. Well, I didn't. I started by eliminating three categories - the photo fairs, the design fairs, and the under-the-radar venues - and then got selective about what remained on my list. I saw everything I wanted except the Containers, NADA and the three private collections that open their doors to the public this time of year: Cisneros, Margulies and Rubell. I just ran out of time. And being a Type-A type to the extreme (it's a defect; it has to be), I was there when the doors opened in the morning and stayed until they closed every night, between 10 and 12 hours a day.

It sounds like work - and it is - but it's also the most fun I have all year, equal parts reporting, schmoozing, and looking until my eyeballs ache. You could travel the world for a year and not see as much as what you see here in four or five days.

Some Particulars

You could see art in hotel rooms (Art Now, Aqua, Bridge, Flow, Ink, Red Dot) and shipping containers (Art Positions); under tents (Scope, Art Miami) and on a yacht (SeaFair); in a convention center (Basel Miami) and in warehouses (Aqua Wynwood, Pulse); even in a medical center (MASH) and the Miami Ballet (RAM). The spaces ranged from cheek-by-jowl claustrophobic (Bridge) to highway-wide aisles (the Convention Center), and from stifling (the AC was down on Saturday morning at Scope) to breezily open to the sky (Aqua, Ink, and the hammocks lining the entrance way to the Ice Palace, home of NADA).

Some (random) numbers

Fairs: 24

Total number of galleries: between 1200 and 1300

Artists shown: about 12,000 (figuring 10 artists per gallery, more or less)

Individual artists showing: 153 in four fairs (Gesai, Pool, Ram, Zones)

Artworks: 60,000 is a conservative estimate; factor in small works, prints, and works on paper and the number can easily reach 100,000+

Total attendance at Basel/Miami: 43,000, and that provides a good estimate for the satellite fairs as well

Price per night for a beach-view corner room at the Day's Inn, where many of the artists and smaller dealers stayed: $160

Price per night for a city-view standard room at the Setai next door, where many collectors stayed: $1250, with the last of the suites going for a reported $9000 a night

Pounds of printed matter acquired in four days: 49. I checked an empty bag on the way down just so that I could haul my stash of catalogs, press material, brochures and cards.

Reading over the dealer’s shoulder at Pulse (headline reads, “Art Basel is not a shopping mall”)

This installation by Walter Robinson (seen at the Catharine Clark booth in Pulse) is as good a metaphor as any for the five-day Miamapalooza

For more reportage on Art Basel, read Climate Change (and Skulls) by Hannah Cole in this issue of Big Red & Shiny.

Read detailed reports on each fair: Fair Factor: Report From Miami

"Art Basel - Miami Beach" occurred in Miami Beach and South Beach from December 6th -9th, in a variety of locations.

This article is reposted from Joanne Mattera Art Blog. All images are courtesy of the author.