DECEMBER 12, 2012
BY 
By Chloe Helton-Gallagher
For the past 12 years a sin­gle week in Decem­ber has seen the pop­u­la­tion of Miami swell by over 50,000 peo­ple. Drawn by the glit­ter­ing allure of the self-described “most pres­ti­gious art show in the Amer­i­cas,” atten­dants of Art Basel Miami Beach pack a sur­pris­ingly high pro­por­tion of unprac­ti­cal shoes to tramp around the more than 260 gal­leries which show in Basel proper alone, not includ­ing the dozens of satel­lite fairs and hotel shows.
 Basel is one long cat­walk for the fash­ion­able and the hiply unfash­ion­able. (Sun­day morn­ing as the fair wound down, a woman in a head-to-toe felt dinosaur cos­tume was seen roam­ing the streets despite the 80 degree tem­per­a­tures). But, set­ting aside the sto­ries of pool par­ties, fash­ion faux pas, and peo­ple falling down, the expe­ri­ence of Art Basel Miami yielded a breath­tak­ing expo­sure to the pulse of con­tem­po­rary art around the world: the good, the bad, and the ugly. The name­sake fair, the largest and most high-end of the fairs, is held in the Miami Beach Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. It is gar­gan­tuan, and more than one day could eas­ily be spent roam­ing its halls. Top gal­leries from around the world, from Gagosian to Haunch of Veni­son, show here, exhibit­ing name brand artists like John Baldessari and Tracey Emin.
Ivan Navarro’s incred­i­ble instal­la­tions at Paul Kas­min gallery were a major high­light. Look­ing for all the world like the Piranha Plant pipes from Mario Broth­ers these large pieces made from wood, neon and one way mir­ror were por­tals to another dimen­sion. Look­ing down into them a viewer sees what appears to be a lad­der lead­ing down into infin­ity with neon words like “SCREAM” and “MOUTH” echo­ing end­lessly into the depths. Both ter­ri­fy­ing and elec­tri­fy­ing they exem­pli­fied the small per­cent­age of art at the fair that tran­scended the realm of purely con­sum­able objects.
Each fair in Miami had its own kind of fla­vor. SCOPE Miami cre­ated the most suc­cess­ful atmos­phere for view­ing art, care­fully avoid­ing the aes­thetic pit­falls that made other fairs feel like a cat­tle call. Local hero Hamil­ton­ian Gallery from D.C. had a fan­tas­tic booth, with work from Washington-based Matthew Mann and Baltimore-based Milana Braslavsky and Amy Boone-McCreesh. Nada at the Deauville Beach Resort is on the younger side, exhibit­ing new art deal­ers like CANADA Gallery and Shoot the Lob­ster. High­lights included Owen Kydd’s dig­i­tal tableaux vivants and the clever instal­la­tion by Devon Dikeou enti­tled “Not Quite Mrs. de Menil’s Liquor Closet,” an inter­pre­ta­tion of renowned col­lec­tor Dominique de Menil’s real-life, art con­gested liquor cabinet.
Among the shin­ing stars there were utter duds as well. Foun­tain Art Fair was so bad it was wor­thy of a refund. Most, if not all, of the art was so shock­ingly kitschy, poorly ren­dered, and down­right tacky it was start­ing to feel like a cruel joke. An aban­doned bal­loon ani­mal found dis­carded in the court­yard was by far the best piece in the show.
Exhaust­ing and at times dis­heart­en­ing in its base cap­i­tal­ism, Art Basel Miami  still pro­vides a valu­able oppor­tu­nity to sur­vey the most cur­rent works of artists from all over the globe.  Incred­i­ble art is still being made and the con­ver­sa­tion sur­round­ing its power is still being held with impas­sioned voices. It was a cel­e­bra­tion, devolv­ing at times into a shit show, of all that art has to offer. As they say in Miami, “Basel Tov!”