Art Basel 2010

Its amazing how every year the art festivities start earlier and earlier- friends were attending pre-Basel parties LAST weekend, and Sunday and Monday were big nights this year. I started out on Tuesday with Art Miami, The Rubell Collection‘s party, and Gary Nader’s party. I pulled not one but TWO rookie moves that night- I had uploaded photos on my laptop earlier that day and left the memory card in the computer so I have no pictures of that night; AND I hit the open bars way too hard- which means its probably for the best I do not have pictures of the night!

Moving on! The Pulse brunch was fun, good food and drink and the outdoor lounge area featured performance artists and art installation/rope seating. My favorite pieces were by Al Farrow and were scale models of places of worship- cathedrals, mosques, synagogues made out of guns and ammunition.

I also loved the gorgeous installation by Heeseop Yoon at Mary Ryan Gallery. Up close the mural is swirls of black tape, standing back chaotic swirls form shapes and sketchy structures:

SCOPE had a brilliant installation by Olek at Christopher Henry the artist knit a car outside the fair and inside a room complete with TV, bathtub, bed… it was so so cool:

I also loved Matthais Schauwecker’s Godzilla Series- from a distance they looked like Kandinsky sketches, it was only up close that the various portraits of the monster became apparent:

I also found Colgate Searle‘s wire hanger sculpture/portraits of dogs absolutely charming. The artist also had a genius innovation for how to purchase his works by texting him!!

Spinello Gallery had more fantasy animals from Enrique Gomez de Molina

The Seven show had a mural that looked like the wall had exploded to reveal outer space courtesy of Adam Cvijanovic which I found beautiful:

I always love attending MAM‘s party on the plaza, this year they had a mac and cheese bar and hula hoop artists. They showed selections from the permanent collection and an exhibition by Susan Rothenberg that I enjoyed.  Then we hit the Sanrio 50th Anniversary Installation pop-up store to party with Hello Kitty! The shop featured candy “sushi” and a tattoo parlor, and Sanrio character art:

On our way to SCOPE’s party (which took place at a location where I am sure they must film porn!) we spotted these amazing dumpsters- proving that no space in Wynwood is off-limits for artistic expression:

As for the actual Art Basel, the big boy of all the fairs, its was overall sort of an underwhelming year. That’s not to say that VIP lounge wasn’t as glamorous as in past years, I did spot Gerard Butler and A-Rod respectively, but I can’t say that I saw anything that really blew me away. That’s not to say it wasn’t fun, I did like a few things I wouldn’t mind taking home with me such as the sculpture from Manolo Valdes and the owl print from Jean Pagliuso at Marlborough:

I would always, of course, love to go home with one of Hernan Bas‘ lush paintings at Fredric Snitzer:

We capped off the Basel festivities with a gorgeous fashion show for Chloe’s Spring line at the newly opened Miami outpost of the Soho House. Russell Simmons was holding court alongside the chic girls who will no doubt be sporting these looks:

All in all it was a fabulous week- Basel Tov!

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