46 review AT 10 Art Basel Miami Beach is now 10 years-old and still attracting a sizeable raft of institutions and collectors from the Americas and beyond. South Beach roared with parties and the fair showcased fantastic art. Myrna Ayad reports on the last leg of the 2011 art fair calendar. S ome say it started in the 1980s with the comeback of South Beach and the Art Deco area. Miami’s transformation into one – or probably, the – cultural hotspot of the Americas was a vision foreseen by some of the city’s top collectors. Among these was Norman Braman, who, along with fellow art visionaires in europe, North and Latin America, sought to re-jig the city’s bad rep. in the 1990s, Miami’s drug industry brought in billions of dollars and with that came the cars, the condos, the clubs and of course, the crime. Before the arrival of Art Basel Miami Beach (ABMB), the city polished itself up and, significantly, with the fair now a major catalyst, it has become one of the world’s class art acts. its wynwood area, formerly a decrepit depressed district, is now home to numerous art gal- leries; starchitect Frank Gehry’s New world Centre building, home to the New world Symphony, America’s Orchestral Academy, opened in early 2011; 1111 Lincoln road is Herzog & de Meuron’s concrete shop- ping, dining, residential and parking spot (the Swiss firm is also designing the Miami Art Museum); and fellow Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid recently won the bid on a parking garage in South Beach. Let’s not forget that Design Miami was born in Miami too and its seventh edition boasted 28 galleries and a record 29,000 visitors. Yet, however many rave reviews Miami spawns on its art scene, it is also the capital of Party. The city has got a magical way of squeezing out that last ounce of energy at the end of a frantic art fair calendar. it is a gruelling marathon – Frieze and FiAC in October, Abu Dhabi Art and Contemporary istanbul in No- vember and the auctions in between, but Party is Miami’s modus operandi and no city does it better. But art fairs are about art, aren’t they? ABMB’s 2011 edition marked the fair’s 10th anniversary with over 260 participating galleries and a whopping 150 museum groups in attendance. And like its previous edition, the Brazilians were back, pumped with cash from their economic boom. The two who stole the show were Warhol and Bourgeois. Facing page, clockwise: A detail shot of the interior of L&M gallery’s booth containing works by Andy Warhol. A replica of the Barberni Faun , part of Madrid’s Galería Helga de Alvear’s Amigos installation by Elmgreen and Dragset. Ulf Küster, Curator, Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Nancy Spector, Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York, artist Tracey Emin, and Louise Bourgeois’s longtime assistant Jerry Gorovoy. 47 – a recreation of the atmosphere of a mythical sauna in Denmark, which tackles the theme of homosexual culture during the height of the AiDS epidemic in the 1980s. A locker room, a massage room (with twin urinals), a sauna and a colour pho- tograph of the Dioskouroi and Antinous sculpture superimposed with pink neon that blares the word Amigos, comprise the installation. Mr B is in there too – the same figure floating face down at the Nordic Pavilion at the 2009 venice Biennale. Lest we forget the pièce de résistance : a replica of the Barberini Faun – a blatant nod to eroticism – but hooked to a blood-filled intravenous drip, referec- ing AiDS. Shown at the gallery in January 2011, the installation caught the eye of a european institu- tion at the fair. it is practically im- possible to indulge in all of Miami’s cultural of- ferings in the first week of December. Aside from the mother fair, there were 17 ancillary fairs this year, with the galleries rolling out their shows and top-notch collectors opening up their homes and other spaces. Thankfully, apps can fill in some of the gaps, as can the ever-churning Miami rumour mill. THe SHOwSTOPPerS ABMB’s official press release reported a record 50,000 visitors. Like the last edition of its big sister fair, Art Basel, ABMB’s viP vernissage was hampered by throngs of art groupies, much to the dismay of collectors. Just how many from the swarm- ing crowds were collectors anyway, remains a mystery. The Art Newspaper reported that Art Basel will double its invitation-only viP days, but no change was noted on ABMB. But what a show it was. Art dealer and director of rove London, Kenny Schachter, summed it up best in his article for artnet.com – “Art fairs are like casinos, with no outside light, and no sense of time or place.” Oh so true. in nano seconds, you’ve suddenly realised it’s 6pm and you haven’t seen a quarter of the show. Many an ABMB-goer will admit that the floor-plan became an unnecessary reference – blue chip and other galleries have consistently demonstrated the art of territoriality in each fair edition. But they did, however, pull out all the stops with the works they brought – richter, Polke, Condo, indiana, Giacomet- ti, Freud, Stella, venet, Judd, Albers and wesselman were all there, and then some. But the two who stole the show were warhol and Bourgeois. Pieces by the Pop artist were scattered all over the fair and his cows were wallpapered on L&M’s exterior; its interior was also covered in his self-portrait and decked floor-to-ceiling with 160 works on paper and drawings by him from as far back as 1958. This ‘salon-style’ installation took just over a day to set up and was intended to highlight “the under-explained area in warhol’s career,” noted the gallery’s Begum Yeser. works were priced from as low as $12,000 to as high as $450,000; his Brillo Box stood at $750,000. Another eye-catching solo artist booth was Madrid’s Galería Helga de Alvear, which showed elmgreen and Dragset’s Amigos 48 review Beautiful, varied works by Bourgeois were dotted around the fair. The Beyeler Foundation showcased the French-American artist’s seminal Cell (12 Oval Mirrors) which, stunning as it is, also belies – in trademark Bourgeois confessional style – sub-layers addressing issues of confron- tation and communication. The abundance of works by ‘Spiderwoman’, as Bourgeois has been dubbed, was complemented by a panel dis- cussion, Remembering Louise Bourgeois , which included the artist’s long-time assistant Jerry Gorovoy, the Guggenheim’s Nancy Spector, the Beyeler Foundation’s Ulf Küster and artist Tracey emin, who all recounted precious memories of the late artist. “i was petrified of her! But she liked me a lot and there was vulnerability there,” smiled emin; “i was holding hands with history and working with her gave me some humility.” incidentally, the Qatar Museums Authority will stage Conscious and Unconscious , Bourgeois’s first exhibition in the Middle east, which will showcase multimedia works from 1947 to 2009 from this month up until June. THe exPeCTeD AND THe exTrAOrDiNArY Speaking of western artists vis à vis the Middle east, russian artists ilya and emilia Kabakov’s Ship of Tol- erance docked in Miami; one of its previous desti- nations was Sharjah during the emirate’s last bien- nial. And then of course, there were Stella’s works inspired by the Middle east; one of which, Kufa Gate , was shown at New York’s Loretta Howard Gallery/Nyehaus, alongside pieces by Flavin, de Kooning and rosenquist. it would be hard for one not to become enraptured by Stella’s phenomenal Khurasan Gate Variation III at edward Tyler Nahem. At $2.8 million, the 310.8 x 914.4 cm work is part of the American artist’s Protractor series (one of which Sadly, Middle Eastern art presence was slightly diluted at ABMB – not that it has been particularly robust in previous editions, but one always hopes to see a new Middle Eastern face on the ABMB circuit. 49 is showcased on page 114). “In his mind, he reflect- ed geometric forms of each city though shapes,” said the gallery’s Paloma Martin Ilopis of the work which caught the eye of an American institution. The gallery had shown a similar piece during its participation at Abu Dhabi Art in 2010 and which was reportedly sold to a private entity in the UAE capital. Also on display was Calder’s Bent Propeller , which was exhibited at Abu Dhabi Art’s last edition as was a Picasso at Acquavella Galleries. Sadly, Middle Eastern art presence was slightly diluted at ABMB – not that it has been particularly robust in previous editions, but one always hopes to see a new Middle Eastern face on the ABMB cir- Facing page: Nabil Nahas. Cockatoo . 2000. Acrylic on canvas. 116.8 x 116.8 cm. Image courtesy Sperone Westwater, New York. Above: Left: Hassan Sharif. Trees – Walham Grow Road – London . 1983. Photographs on Cardboard. 83.99 x 59.5 cm. Image courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York. Right: Mona Hatoum. (Detail) Conversation Piece II . 2011. Chairs, wires, glass and beads. Variable dimensions. All photography by Myrna Ayad unless otherwise specified. cuit. No Iranian art was exhibited and only a handful of collectors from the region were present. Pieces by Middle Eastern ‘usual suspects’ at Art Basel fairs were on show – Ghada Amer, Walid Raad, Latifa Echakhch, Mona Hatoum and Kader Attia; the ma- jority of which were exhibited at more than one gallery. A stellar installation by Hatoum, Conversa- tion Piece II , was on display at Galeria Continua; it is the same work exhibited at Hatoum’s show, Interior Landscape , at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia during the 2009 Venice Biennale. At $300,000, Con- versation Piece II features six chairs connected by a web of crystals and speaks of fragile relations and crystallised conversations between people. The work is dated 2011, however, because the chairs have been replaced by antique versions. ABMB wasn’t the first time Sperone Westwater brought a fractal work by Lebanese artist Nabil Nahas. Cocka- too was on hold to an American buyer for $95,000 at the time of press. When asked why the gallery doesn’t showcase pieces from Nahas’s trees paint- ings, Sperone Westwater’s Maryse Brand smiled, “because there aren’t any available!” Alas, like a bolt of optimism in the face of scant regional representation at the fair, New York’s Alexander Gray Associates exhibited a 1983 work by Hassan Sharif – most likely the first time an Emi- rati artist has shown at an Art Basel fair. In March 2011, the gallery’s Alexander Gray had visited Dubai and was “blown away by Art Dubai and taken by complete surprise!” One thing led to another, and the gallery signed Sharif onto their roster; his first solo show at the New York space begins on 5 Janu- ary and the gallery will participate at Art Dubai for the first time this year with pieces by Sharif and Luis Camnitzer. “We want multiple spheres of influence,” added Gray, “and our reason for opening this gallery is to focus on underpublicised and underrepresent- ed artists.” Gray’s sentiments are echoed by many a Middle Eastern art practitioner. We all seek greater publicity for our prized regional art arena. The good news is that two of Dubai’s galleries – Green Art and Isabelle van den Eynde – will be among those who will hold the torch for the Middle East through their first-time participation at Art Basel this year. And so, new chapters in the ever-expanding tome of re- gional art will be added. Patience and perseverance are the rules of the game. REVIEW