Art Basel Miami Beach
Florida, USA
December 7-10, 2006
Various artists and performers
Art Basel Miami Beach is the brainchild of the world's most important and established commercial art event: Art Basel which has been running in Basel, Switzerland for decades. Early this decade it created a sister event for itself in the United States. A genius move to set the fair in Miami in december - a city without a serious gallery scene as such, but with serious collectors such as The hotel power family The Rubells, and a climate and party scene that has the dealers and collectors heading for the much hyped party and beach scene backdrop in droves. Glittery events mark each night of the occasion, usually in one of the upmarket hotels that are now charging double for their rooms on this particular week than they were when the fair opened five years ago. There was a significant amount of performative practice on off in Miami Beach this year, from Jens Hoffman's 'Art Perform' programme by the containers section (shipping containers sold to younger galleries as gallery space - clever, huh?), a livey beachside spot that has some of the best site specific works and allows for some en plein air action. There was much disussion this year about the rise and rise of performance, and about it's rupture from the 'anti-commodification' role it one heralded with pride in the 1960s and 1970s. Nowadays artists are treating performance as simply another medium through which to work through ideas, and something that can be sold to collectors as ingeniously as can be worked out. But first, a charitible cum commercial exercise on the part of MAC cosmetics to get the message out to that their lipstick is sexy - how? By getting someone to burlesque strip and then ride a giant lipstick like a bucking bronco, that's how! Please welcome, Dita Von Teese - pure Miami Beach material. The charity work continued for Dita as she took a live AIDS test on television, all to promote awareness and raise funds, though this was more the privvy of her diary holder than the beholden Delano audience.
On to some art performance now, and a Transmissions favourite Lali Chetwynd appeared in Miami under a differtn guise: Spartacus Chetwynd. Still with her loyal troupe of performers Spartacus put on two different play/performances. One as part of her exhibition in a converted shipping container - a section of the fair known as Art Positions, which meandered around this whole outdoor beach section, and another as part of curator Jens Hoffman's Art Perform, which was a series of multiple performances played out on a small stage outdoors.
VIEW ITEMS
Spartacus Chetwynd: The Adamites
Spartacus Chetwynd: Money - A Cautionary Tale
Daria Martin, Zeena Parkins and Nina Fog
Credits
Editorial Direction and Image Capture: Christabel Stewart
Editorial Assistance: Jenny Campbell-Colquhoun
Thanks: Alexis Marguerite Teplin, Spartacus Chetwynd, Nicky Verber
Selected Links
http://www.artbaselmiamibeach.com/ca/cc/ss/?lang=eng
http://www.dita.net/
http://www.heraldst.com/artists/chetwynd.html
http://www.harrislieberman.com/aaron_young/aaron_young.html
http://www.maureenpaley.com/maureenpaley.php?color=yellow&element=1889&id_cache=1-29
http://www.zeenaparkins.com
http://www.ista.co.uk/ista-staff/kwong-loke.htm