Close up on Public Artists at Art Basel Miami

Almost nothing that captures the public imagination was displayed at Art Basel Miami.  Looking and looking and finding very little that I could present to community with a positive spin.  The work was empty without messages and the formal, color works can be found by other artists in the local art scene for much less money.

Art Basel did provide me the opportunity to see the tactile, real nature of artworks by public artists that I only see online such as Jacob Hashimoto and Henrique Oliveira.  Hashimoto works of layered mini-kites are beautiful at 12 inches, but beyond five feet, just turn to mush.  Oliveira bending layers of thin wood veneer sucked me in.  Really sensual.  I asked the price for an temporary installation.  His current Paris installation cost more than $400,000 for just the fabrication and installation.

Some dealers try to make money from small objects by artists that excel at large scale.  Alice Aycock (who is experiencing a fantastic and deserved late career surge – thank god) made beautiful drawing in the 1970s for sale.  Today, her small sculptures are missing the power of the drawings or large sculptures.  A dealer was trying to sell a drawing by Marjetica Potrc with her brilliant (yet very cheap) water transport barrel.  Yinka Shonibare was selling large dolls at two booths.  (One dealer did not understand my question regarding the similarity of one doll to traditional Seminole dolls.  Of course, the dealer had no ideas where she was in the world.)  Ernesto Neto just cannot make small works.  Awful compared to the grandeur of the installations.

Jaume Plenza’s 5 foot tall peaceful, female head was so peaceful.  I loved the giant head in Madison Square and it somehow held its space in the streams of people in Miami.

Outside I was slightly disappointed in the Shonibare’s dancing scarf.  The fiberglass construction and paint did not sail with the wind.  (I would still recommend a client purchase one.).  Nancy Rubin‘s new sculptures of rusting kids playground animals drew me into the sculpture, but the work at the site failed to hold its shape and find its edges.  I would put the work in a tight courtyard with one side open to the southwest.  From the Fourth Plinth in London, a small version of E and D boy on a rocking horse was hidden under a tree as curator Nicholas Baume tried to hide or save the dull artwork.  Even the kids were not interested.  I did not even bother to photograph it.

I am still trapped in the 1970s and 80s.  In addition to Plenza and Hank Willis Thomas, Dan Graham and Georg Baselitz win for best in show.