I’m every art star
The annual star-studded party held by White Cube at Soho Beach House always attracts the crème de la crème of the Florida art crowd, and this year’s shindig, held in a purpose-built marquee on the beach, was no exception. The bash, which honoured the artist Anselm Kiefer, proved difficult to access (security checked a special infrared mark stamped on partygoers’ wrists no fewer than six times), but once guests were inside, they chowed down on mini grilled-cheese sandwiches and mountains of seafood. A 360-degree photo booth proved popular with revellers, including Theaster Gates and Tracey Emin. But the real highlight of the night was an appearance by the soul diva Chaka Khan, who rocked the tent with hits such as Sweet Thing and karaoke favourite I’m Every Woman, prompting art-world luminaries to loosen up and get on down ’til dawn.
No More FOMO
If you can’t make it to Miami this week, don’t despair. An online event called Dream Miami is filling the gap, with 12 international dealers offering their wares on the web (until 4 December). A spokesman for London’s Limoncello Gallery, which is behind the digital project, explains how the quirky commercial platform came about. “We were so downbeat at a certain art fair in 2015 that we decided we’d send a fake preview to our clients for our fake booth at the next ‘certain’ art fair the following week. The idea was that if sales came from a project with zero financial output, we’d be quids in profit.” There are no fair fees for galleries that take virtual stands at Dream Miami. But isn’t this just a case of FOMO? “We borrow the model of the satellite fair for the obvious reason that we can piggyback on the hype of more established fairs. Perhaps it’s more a case of NoFOMO—creating our own opportunities,” he adds. Touché.
No reservations
When you’re a collector, there’s nothing more frustrating than being told that a piece is on reserve. How can it be both unavailable and unsold at the same time? And even if you are able to buy it, you feel like Gabriel Conroy in James Joyce’s short story The Dead—that existential dread of being a second choice. This year at Untitled, Magdalena Sawon of Postmasters Gallery has a solution: a stylish “reserve timer” that ensures decisions are made quickly. “It is my little joke, which, like many jokes, carries some truth,” Sawon says. It will surely come in handy for placing perhaps the hottest item on the gallery’s stand: a work by William Powhida that has been crumpled up and named Things Are Awful.
Model collector
It turns out that the Australian supermodel Elle Macpherson is more than just a gracefully aging face. “The Koons is great,” she said at the opening of Larry Gagosian and Jeffrey Deitch’s desire-themed show at the Moore Building. “And I really like the John Wesley because not a lot of people know him.” Is she a big art collector? “Big art collector is a strong word. Do I collect art? Yes. I started collecting in 1982, so I was buying Basquiat and Warhol in that period. From there it’s been Keith Haring, Damien Hirst, Lucian Freud, Tracey Emin—the British, I love,” she said. Later, around the corner at the Rubell Family Collection, lifestyle guru Martha Stewart bemoaned her own dearth of art. “I wish I had [collected] back then,” she said of all her friends getting rich off their collections. “I made a mistake.”
Mnuchin’s Trump card
The New York-based dealer Robert Mnuchin declined to speak at length yesterday about his son Steven’s nomination by Donald Trump for secretary of the treasury, as the VIP preview of Art Basel in Miami Beach opened and news of the president-elect’s latest cabinet pick ran on the front page of the New York Times. He said only: “I’m proud of my son.” On Monday, a group of artists and curators—including Cecily Brown, Rob Pruitt, Marilyn Minter and Dan Colen—held an anti-Trump rally in front of the New York home of the president-elect’s daughter Ivanka. But Mnuchin demurred when asked if he feared that his son’s association with Trump would cost him any artists. “We don’t have anything to discuss,” he said. The pieces on Mnuchin’s stand include a selection of works made by David Hammons over the past 30 years, including a 2015 sculpture painted in prison-jumpsuit orange from a series called, pointedly, Orange Is the New Black.