Lady Bunny, alien robots, BBQ and beer
Wednesday evening marked the public opening of Public, Art Basel in Miami Beach’s annual sculpture garden in Collins Park. Visitors took refreshments from Rob Pruitt’s Stretch, Grill and Chill (2016), a vintage white limousine ingeniously converted into a barbecue at one end and a beer cooler at the other. (Crisps could be had by reaching into one of the windows.) The normally peaceful park was transformed into a raucous scene by Naama Tsabar’s Composition 18 (2016), a sound piece in which three all-female bands competed for dancers’ attention by playing over each other. This was rounded out by Lady Bunny’s gloriously tacky Intergalactic Disco (2016), presented by the legendary drag queen herself. The queue for the dance went deep into the park, but inside Public’s curator, Nicholas Baume, could be seen boogying to Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines with one of the alien robots in attendance, who boasted coloured lights on their fingers and were resplendent in silver sequined body suits.
Thinking with the wrong head
“Beth DeWoody got Zika,” Joel Mesler said in room 1245 of the Deauville hotel on Thursday—the site of a secret show for the “Estate of Joel Mesler”. The prehumous artist was not referring to the microcephaly-inducing, mosquito-borne virus itself, but to a painting the collector bought in his show (all “priced to move” at $6,000) that features a swimmer’s arm and the word “Zika”. If Art Basel week seems quieter this year, how much of this can be attributed to fears of the illness, the effects of which are often misunderstood? “Doesn’t it cause the testes to shrink?” Mesler asked David Feldman, a doctor and collector who acquired Mesler’s Sigmund Freud-related work. “In that the brain of some men is located in the testes?” Dr Feldman retorted. “Then yes; otherwise, no.” Hearing the exchange, a 20-something female attendant said: “I’m never having children—ever.”
Unlucky for some
The final day of an art fair is usually the quietest time for galleries, with some dealers looking a little glassy-eyed after days spent manning the stands. But one dealer has come up with a novel way of lightening the mood. Katharine Overgaard of New York’s Franklin Parrasch Gallery beats the boredom with her own version of bingo, giving an arty twist to the numbers game. “Throughout the week, I identify trends or types of visitors; this week, for instance, I saw a man in a silver sequined blazer, so I’ll add sequins to the board,” she says. The game is proving popular; last year, she gave out 40 copies of the bingo card. “In Miami, board shorts are also a popular entry,” she notes.
One cool Katz
The Edition hotel was home to at least seven parties on Wednesday night, and amid all the hustle and bustle (plus a performance by the singer Nelly Furtado), you might have missed the coolest person there. The 89-year-old artist Alex Katz was spotted drinking in the lobby from the depths of a high-backed chair. Katz was there for a party to promote his collaboration with the clothing giant H&M, an appropriate partnership given his popularity with hipsters—even if the artist himself is a long-time J. Crew model. The Katz swag (T-shirts, mostly) is being advertised all over town, mostly with a 2012 portrait of a shaggy Gavin Brown that gives the New York-based dealer a 1970s, Bob Seger vibe. What made Katz choose his dealer as a subject? “The same reason I choose anyone,” Katz said from his chair. “He has an interesting face.”
It’s five o’clock somewhere
Dealers at Art Basel in Miami Beach work hard for their money, so it’s no surprise that some feel like taking a well-earned, behind-the-scenes break. Eivind Furnesvik of Oslo’s Standard gallery revealed that the backroom store on his stand is laden with a smorgasbord of goodies, including a carefully chosen selection of refreshing beverages. “Five o’clock is beer o’clock,” he says, pointing out the treats hidden away behind closed doors. And we always assumed that there was just great art tucked away in those cubby holes.