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I uploaded some photos of artwork using traditional yarn and thread crafts to my photobucket account only to get to my account today to find this little notice:

It took me a minute to realize that it had been an needlepointed image of a reclining nude man by Maria Eugenia Pineres called Red Crosses (2004), and yes, you could see his penis. If I can work it out to show the image with his penis covered, I’ll do that. The original artwork is smaller than a sheet of paper and his penis had to be less than a centimeter… In any case, you can view other works by Pineres at her gallery”s website, DCKT Contemporary or by clicking on the violation message. That’s really sticking it to the man.

Ah well. So on to the less “offensive” images (sheesh, I remember working in a cappuccino bar where people were honestly offended by a replica of Michelangelo’s David – come on people!)

This work by Miyoshi Barosh was a large wall hanging stitched together from pieces of found and gifted afghans, plus lots of pom poms. I love the gi-normous acrylic yarn tassles and the way Barosh puts together traditional (read: conservative) craft in an eye-popping psychedelic way. Besides which, she’s taking a craft form that relies heavily on color and colors next to colors and explodes those quiet three shades of blue. Barosh is represented by Seminal Projects in San Diego.

Digital embroidery on linen by Angelo Filomeno.

The foam wall at John Connelly Presents by Ara Peterson.

Hand cut felt at Art Positions (didn’t write anything down!).

After waking up at 5 am to catch my shuttle (that’s 2 am for my not-yet acclimated west coast body), I first needed to zone out, nap heavily, eat my bagel sandwich and drink my free airplane ginger ale before I remembered that I hadn’t posted yesterday. I tried last night, but the internet at the hotel kept throwing me off and my feet were too damaged from three days of endless pavement pounding for me to even consider walking down to the internet café a bock away. Speaking of which, I am doing the unthinkable right now: wearing slipper socks and flip flops on the airplane. Not only do I generally reserve the tacky sock and flip-flop combo for the sidewalk in front of the house, but I also have a strict rule about wearing sensible shoes on airplanes; in case we should ever go down, I don’t want to be caught barefoot in the jungle. But this morning, my pinkie toes were so blistered and swollen (truthfully, I think I am going to lose at least one toenail), that I couldn’t even consider putting my feet in shoes.

!!
Proof at least that I didn’t spend all my time in that glorious ocean. I think the worst of the damage happened the night I went to Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller reception at the Miami Art Museum – in an effort to save a few bucks, I hoofed it 13 blocks or so to the convention center to catch the shuttle in my little black dress and my mom’s Ferragamo shoes on my already swollen and fatigued feet. What can I say, dollars saved on cab fare meant more money to spend on brunch the next day. I thought I brought reasonably comfortable shoes, but clearly the situation was more extreme than I ever imagined.

Beyond the two days spent drifting about the main event, Art Basel, there were 22 other fairs to squeeze in, if in fact that’s what you wanted to do. Twenty- two. So, basically there was enough art to gorge on even for the most ravenous art appreciator. However, it quickly became clear that the fairs are not so much about appreciating art as they are about buying art; as I read in Smithsonian Magazine, Art Basel and its associated art fairs is an “art Costco for billionaires” and this is no exaggeration. Art was flying off the shelves, even the gallerists who took the risk of actually making a focused statement with their temporary gallery spaces in lieu of showing a miscellaneous mix of sellable work, did well. Take John Connolly Presents for instance, who brought a wall work by ? which was specifically created for the shipping container gallery on the beach. The work went from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, made of panels of vertical or horizontal foam strips of color and texture. The colors were blazing and well accented by the opposite facing mirror-paneled wall; that piece sold for $100,000 on opening night. The containers on the beach were not even considered a separate fair, but an adjunct category of the main fair.

My last day of art viewing was the most satisfying, mainly perhaps because, while we traveled from fair to fair in groups, I saw the work on my own. Don’t get me wrong, the women (the artists) I stayed with were awesome: they were great company, they got me into every event free, and they networked me like crazy to every artist, gallerist, writer, and collector we met, but traveling in groups and tending to everybody’s non-synchronized needs tends to be a slow ordeal.  Although, in retrospect, without my running shoes, I don’t know if I could have fit in any more art than we did.

Yesterday, we hit the aforementioned containers on the beach, PULSE, and SCOPE. I’m not quite sure how a gallery decides to be in one fair or another. In discussions with other artists, we’ve surmised it goes something like this: a gallery applies to several fairs with booth rates within budget (Art Basel itself is enormously expensive), once approved, the gallerist will juggle booth location and fair visibility to the gallery’s best advantage. What happens is that although many of the fairs have popped up in reaction or as an alternative to the blue chip expenses of Art Basel, they are really all a motley collection of work that can mostly be bought and kept in the house; that is, mostly paintings and photographs, fewer sculptures, fewer still videos and digital works, and next to no performative or installation work.

In order to keep my eyes and psyche from simply glazing over, I tended to notice pieces that created a presence or a stillness around them, especially in the crowded, boisterous noise of all the art-viewers/shoppers. I also began to search out pieces using embroidery and other craft techniques – because handwork or even machine-made “handwork” like digital embroidery seemed to be coming up all over the place. Perhaps it was just that I was getting sick already of the works using collaged pornography and all the spread butt cheeks, but the hand crafts seemed to running alongside the fashion trend of embroidered jeans and Ed Hardy baseball caps. Clearly Angelo Filomeno, represented by several galleries, is riding the embroidery wave; Five Steps for a Suicide, five panels of minimal but lacy silver embroidery on five plain linen panels caught my eye and calls for further investigation.

Another work that caught my eye was at Nicola von Senger Gallery. They had a compact robotic beast with six monstrous claws tucked up underneath it like ancient crustacean with the heft of tractor equipment. It was tethered by its thick black twisted electrical cord on top of a concrete slab, which had been especially created so that the work would not damage the convention floor. Whichever claw had the least resistance would begin drawing itself inward followed by the rest of the claws, creating a slow lumbering movement reminiscent of an overturned turtle trying to right itself. The gallerist kept saying, “It always wants to get away!” as he would turn the beast off, put on his work gloves, and huffing and puffing pull the beast back to the center of its platform.

I know I live in southern California, twenty minutes from gorgeous Laguna beaches, but I discovered this morning, that’s not the same thing as being in Miami. We rolled out of bed this morning and headed straight to the beach for a wake-up swim and the water was glorious: clear, blue and warm. It was carribean bliss. We could’ve swum all day, but we got too hungry and we knew we had A LOT of art ahead of us. So, we met the rest of the crew for a quick breakfast at Jerry’s Deli on Collins Street, and then headed over to the convention center for the main attraction: Art Basel Miami Beach.

Basically, in a nutshell, this is the largest U.S. art fair and most major players in the gallery world have a foothold in some part of it, whether at the main convention hall or in one of the other surrounding dozen art fairs going on at the same time. Each gallery rents a “booth,” a white room with no doors, and hangs just a few of their best and/or most sell-able work. While some of the blue chip galleries are pulling out older works by blue chip artists: Baselitz, Roni Horn, Eva Hesse, most are showing recent work representing their stable of artists – and so the visitors: collectors, dealers, artists, writers, and other curious art types get a peek at one or two works of the large majority of represented artists you can name in LA and New York. This results in a massive, overwhelming scan of the art scene right now, today. Pretty fantastic. But there were no cameras allowed, so I don’t have a single image from inside to share.

I can tell you that it was like white-walled labyrinth crowded with the best-dressed people I’ve seen in decades and every few steps you could see artwork of every imaginable type: mobiles balancing quail egg sized lumps of melting ice, carpets of peacock feathers, quivering towers of blank CDs held together only with super-strong magnets, an infinity loop of magnetic tape hovering in the air suspended by the air blowing out of two steel fans… wait, that’s just art supernova, the corner of the hall dedicated to up-and-coming artists.

We only got through about half the fair before our eyeballs were bulging, our feet had swelled, and our stomachs were growling for another meal. So we took off in search for Cuban food, leaving the rest of the fair for another day. After a meal, a tiny bit of shopping, and a nap, we were ready to tackle the evening’s art at Art Positions, twenty or so cargo canisters set up on the beach as temporary galleries for more edgy art. That was too crowded to really enjoy the work, but I have to say that the feltwork (piles of it) was the only thing I saw that might convince me to come back for another look. Truthfully, I had come, like everybody else, because of the promise of a free concert on the beach by Iggy Pop and the Stooges. I called it a night shortly afterwards.

It’s funny, now that I’m a mother I am ultra-prepared when I travel, even when I’m on my own with no kid to mind. Good thing too, because on the plane they ran out of turkey sandwiches ($5/each) before they got to my row. What would I have done without sustenance for five hours? I shudder to think of it. My own turkey sandwich on a bagel was hearty enough to carry me through to a late dinner at the fancy Delano Hotel (where I split a $38 steak frites).

My travels began with a trip to LA last night to Corrina’s house. Her house was an excellent segue between my pre-trip jitters and the actual trip: she prepared a wonderful mozzarella, basil, and tomato salad with french bread for a late supper and then we goofed about online sitting on her queen size bed until bedtime. My bed was already made and she got me a lovely, comfy pair of socks as a gift! Very nice send-off. (Thanks Corrina.)

This morning we hightailed to LAX with toasted bagels and cream cheese in hand and made the trip in ten minutes flat.

I met up with my friends and we all made excited plans for the week. They’ve been kind enough to wrangle passes for most events for me too, so lots of art fairs and openings are on the agenda. We all knew people on the plane from the LA art world, so it was a bit like a school field trip to Art Basel, and people all over the plane were hobnobbing and talking art. I read most of my November ArtForum in one sitting; a feat I haven’t been able to accomplish for over a year now. I could hear the guy sitting across from me say, “Yeah, she’s definitely going for the fair.”

The Sherbrooke Hotel where we are staying is perfect: low-key, kitchenette, queen-size memory foam mattresses, and no reception – we just have a  key to the front of the hotel entrance. It’s like we have a private little apartment for the week.

No art yet – just lots of people. Lots and lots of people dressed great. Fancy hotels with beautiful poolside lounge beds and pillows and good art conversation. The strip on Collins Street here feels completely safe (I walked home alone at 1 am and there were other single women doing the same), and I look forward to checking out good Cuban food tomorrow.

I’d post pics, but I’m too dang tired. And my roomie, who showed up sloshed and giggling, minutes after me, is already slumbering peacefully in our bed. It’s all good. I just didn’t want you to worry.