Nicholas Gazin's Photo Blog

Every year Art Basel and about 20 other art fairs show up in Miami and I do too. It's called Miami Art Week, but most people refer to this week as "Basel." I come and I look at as many things as I can and I photograph the things I see and then I relay that to you. Art Basel is a Swiss art fair that has spread to two other continents. It is America's biggest craft fair and many billions of dollars change hands during Miami Art Week. Some art sells for millions of dollars, some sells for tens of dollars, and a good portion doesn't sell at all.

I came and covered Art Week last year when it rained the whole time and I got severely sick. I did it in 2014 too and got to see 2 Live Crew. I came in 2013., but was too busy doing art for Run The Jewels to write about it. The first time I came to Art Basel was 2012, which was also pretty good. Now we're all caught up.

I think Basel is less fun each year, but it's possible that I'm the one who's less fun. I've noticed more people making anti-Basel memes every year. The main reasons people go to Basel are because there are a lot of rich people in Miami with no taste and because it's a cheap excuse to flee New York's miserable winter. Like last year, everybody including me got sick. Everyone attending Basel should be forced to wear Basel gloves and an accompanying mask.

FRIDAY

I arrived Friday and immediately made my way to a very fancy condo, where I was scheduled to interview Jeff Koons at the unveiling of his giant new reflective steel sculpture of a giant seated ballerina. Sadly, that didn't happen. Jeff Koons is supposedly one of the top five richest artists in the world and other rich people seem to like giving him money. I wish to find this ability in myself. If Jeff Koons is reading this, I'd still like to talk to you.

Although I was unable to interview Jeff Koons, I stared at him pretty intently as he addressed the crowd of very expensively attired crowd who were mostly from Italy. He told the audience that he'd shown his work in the Louvre and Versailles and he could state with utmost confidence that every artist displayed in those vaunted halls would rather have a piece at the luxurious Oceana Bal Harbor condominium.

While looking for the bathroom,I found a large empty children's playroom. I played with this Brio train set until I felt the disappointment over not getting to chat with Jeff Koons slip away.

I headed from the condo to Churchill's, Miami's oldest punk venue. This is Nayib from Secret Celluloid Society and Tachyons doing live video art during a show that Psychic TV and Destruction Unit played. Look at all those cables!

Psychic TV performed a very pretty, positive, and psychedelic show. At one point Genesis P-Orridge encouraged everyone to hug a stranger near them and everybody did it.

I thought I could make up for my failure to interview Jeff Koons by interviewing Genesis P-Orridge what s/he thought of Basel but s/he was too tired.

SATURDAY

Many of the art fairs are in giant tents that are dropped right on the beach. Untitled is my favorite of the beach fairs. There's a mixture of established and new artists being shown and the quality of the art is higher than any of the other fairs besides Art Basel.

Here are my five favorite pieces at Untitled in an unspecified order.

Here's a great piece by John Wesley. He makes flat, graphic, unsexy erotic paintings and has for many decades. Fredericks & Freiser were displaying this.

This is a Christian Rex Van Minnen painting of candy flowers. He does all those great grotesque classical paintings of people who look like twisted piles of flesh. This was being shown by Richard Heller Gallery.

Here's a great Sebastian Breemer painting. He puts dots everywhere. This was in the Ron Mandos.

Devin Troy Strother keeps on doing new stuff. When I first became aware of him, he was doing his thickly painted collages. Then he started doing the neon. Now he's doing stuff where he collages and paints on a piece both underneath and on top of the frame. I like it a lot. They're like very shallow little dioramas. I don't mean they are shallow like vapid. I mean like the frames have limited physical depth. Richard Heller was showing the new Devin Troy Strothers.

This is a resin cast statue by Terry O'Shea, who died in 2002 and was quite a character. These fluid colorful shapes trapped in the see-through block are a lot more dimensional and pretty in person. This was at Nyehaus's booth.

My favorite gallery displaying at Untitled was Katherine Mulherin's. She shows solid new artists. Check her out.

I'd like to take a break from discussing the fairs to discuss the rising theme of art that I noticed.

In recent years I've noticed the major trends of Miami Art Week being lazy word art that would appeal to self-aggrandizing rich men, shiny circles, weapons, and cell phones/social media. Although there were small examples of all of those things at the fairs, the dominant theme this year was bathrooms.

The above piece is by C. J. Chueca and was being presented by Y Gallery. Although it doesn't have bathroom fixtures, the cracked tiles remind me of a deteriorating boys' room.

Jim Dine made a lot of pop art canvases that had towel racks and sinks coming out of them in the early 60s. I think everyone remembered how much they liked those all at once.

This is another tiled sculpture. I know you might be saying, "Bathrooms aren't the only things that are covered in tiles." This looks like the entrance to men's and women's bathrooms to me. It's by Simon Mullan and was being presented by Dittrich & Schlechtriem.

This was a mirrored towel rack by an artist who dresses up like an alien and created a logo that's in the top that is supposed to represent the idea that "Everything's Fucked." Do you see the bathroom theme yet, or do you still think I am an idiot?

Derek Larson made this, and Ada Gallery was showing it.

The very fun and silly Toilet Paper people were at Untitled last year, but this year they had moved up to having a presence at the main Art Basel fair with an installation hosted by Fondation Beyeler, and they had a weird fake art bathroom with a sink full of real spaghetti.

The Van de Weghe Gallery was trying to sell this Tom Wesselman drawing of a person in the bathroom and they had it in their most prime placement for hot selling. So if Miami Art Week is the primary yearly art event and a microcosm of the art market and also I am the most important art critic of this time, then I think it is clear that art about bathrooms is a dominant new fascination. I asked the Van de Weghe gallery attendant if he'd noticed bathrooms as a theme in the art on display, and he said he thought I was imagining it.

Down the beach from Untitled is SCOPE. SCOPE is similar in size and location Untitled but a good portion of the work shown at SCOPE is goofy and made to appeal to people with no taste. There's some good stuff at SCOPE too, but there's some really goofy shit on display.

A big thing at SCOPE is miniatures, but the only miniatures I see of real merit are these. Drew Leshko made this tiny six-inch wide art dumpster out of paper. He's made a lot of dumpsters, storefronts, trailers, and fenced-in areas containing shipping palates. Paradigm Gallery was exhibiting his little garbage art.

There were these other miniatures of violent scenes. I noticed a general decrease in art that seemed to fetishize guns. This is by Abigail Goldman from Spoke Art.

Another trend at Scope is paintings of libraries and bookshelves. Johan Kugelberg told me the other day that he noticed about five years ago that people stopped talking about books at dinner parties and instead spoke about TV shows. I think people want paintings of libraries because they want the illusion of class but they don't want actual books. 

Here's another big art piece portraying a library.

This one artist makes photographic collages of book shelves that are themed by interest. I watched an older woman buy one of the multiple editions of the hip-hop shelf as the gallerist gushed "I'm sorry but I think it's so hip that you're buying the rap shelf." I think this piece was $8000. For much less than that amount the art collector could have bought all of the books in this photograph and then she'd be able to read them too. I have two of the books on this fake book shelf, Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree and Peter Beste's Houston Rap book.

Here were the five best art pieces at SCOPE.

Here's a very nice dolphin by Andy Warhol from 1986. Dean Borghi was showing this off.

I am ashamed to say that I failed to write down who painted this but it's good.

This is by Leszek Skurski and it was being shown by Red Corridor. I love the figures appearing to float in the void while seeming to race cars in the desert. His paintings are both bleak and hopeful.

This is Lucy Sparrow who makes soft felt renditions of common objects. Not a lot of artists actually come and hang out by their art but she did for the entire fair. She constructed an entire deli counter where everything that could be constructed of stuffed felt is made of stuffed felt. The menu behind her, the cash register, the cutting board, the partially chopped cucumber and knife, all the little food ingredients in the counter has been hand constructed from felt. This upcoming summer she has a show in New York in which she is constructing a whole bodega out of felt.

Lucy Sparrow and her art are both unpretentious and refreshing. Calling someone's art "cute" is usually an insult but Lucy Sparrow elevates cuteness to a sublime place. She was selling like crazy. The whole deli counter and all the things around it sold to someone from Kentucky which Lucy had never heard of, not being American. Her cases of felt food and luxury products were sold in editions and each set had at least ten red dots next to it's name card.

While we were talking she mentioned that this year SCOPE had banned any art with Mickey Mouse in it this year and one gallery had to send back a couple Damien Hirst pieces.

I watched so many people walk by this and do triple takes. One lady turned to her friend and asked "Is that a vagina??" There are a lot of concentric ovular shapes in modern art and yes, they are all vaginas.

On the way to the next fair I saw this great Purple Rain themed motorcycle that was emitting the song Purple Rain.

Here are the five best pieces I saw at the N.A.D.A. art fair. Appropriately the first piece of art I liked was also about Prince. It was no musical motorcycle but I still thought it was good.

This is a painting by William Scott about Prince that was being shown by the Creative Growth Center. They help artists with physical, mental or developmental disabilities make and show their art.

This was my favorite painting I saw during my entire time in Miami. This is by Holly Coulis and it's called Bowls and Fruits. It's got Morandi style still life elements and also psychedelic outlines too. It was being shown by Klaus Von Nichtssagend Gallery.

I forget who did this one but I liked how much it resembled the gallerists' table. It was being presented by Canada New York.

I thought this was a cool arrangement of flowers and rectangular shapes.

I like cats. I don't know if this painting is any good to people who aren't really into cats. If you don't like cats then this is a bad painting. If you love cats then here's a picture of a cat but it is plaid. They say that art is a lie that tells the truth but this is a cat that is plaid. Art can be two things. This is by Sean Landers from China Art Object Galleries.

NADA always has pool parties during their Miami fairs. The one that was happening after the fair closed on Saturday was a little poorly attended and odd. There were some paintings leaning against chairs and blindingly bright misery lights illuminating these halfway nude women who struck poses. Puff Daddy showed up for some reason, maybe to promote his vodka, and sat on a half-pipe with people that kept his photo from being taken.

This is Nathan. He had a couple cabanas that he'd turned into a makeshift art t-shirt store. He gave me what he said was Haitian moonshine and it was good. He runs an artist space in Brooklyn called Helper. The Haitian moonshine tasted like ginger.

This is famous artist and former-Vice photographer, Maggie Lee. Her bag is like a plush stuffed animal and she cuddles it when she's tired.

While wandering to the next art event I saw a liquor store that was looking for an in-store DJ. I went and talked to the staff thinking I was a shoe-in but the approving owner wasn't there. I offered to mop the store during long house tracks. DJJ! Disc jockey janitor! You won't see Tommy Sunshine mopping up between his sets when he DJs liquor stores. I'm hungry! I really need this job.

This is Parker Day, famed photographer known for her portraits. She invited me to Goddesphere, a feminist strip club art event in an abandoned tape store.

Here are some of Parker's photographs.

Inside the Goddesphere party were many people who were much more attractive than me, like these two tall skinny skinhead twins.

This is Marina Fini who helped put the Goddesphere exhibit together and also makes plexiglass art objects. Police had shut down the space the previous night but somehow they were still up and going.

This lady invited me into the "Private Moments Room" where couples could pay $5 to drink champagne and have a private moment in an all white room with loops of romantic anime porn being projected onto all walls.

The Private Moments Room didn't stay private for long. All these interesting looking people started streaming in. Everyone looked so good.

At first I thought this lady's tattoo was a pretzel but then I realized it was the lesbian symbol. Then I heard a couple other people ask her aloud if she had a pretzel tattooed on her face.

I wish I could go to a place like this more often. This was a solid room to hang out in.

SUNDAY

On Sunday I went to Art Basel, the main fair that people come to Miami Art Week for. Although it is the most clout-having of all the Miami art fairs it is also the most stodgy in many ways. I'll see the same unsold Picassos come back to the fair two years later. It's not an art symposium or biennial. The purpose of Art Basel is to move product. There were a lot of things working against Art Basel this year. The art market took a sharp downturn this past summer and the Trump presidency seems to make a lot of people nervous about the future. People don't spend money on unnecessary luxuries when they're worried about the future. Also there's still some looming zika fear. Also the Miami Convention Center is under construction. Basel is corny in many ways but it's still a pretty okay way to get to see less common works by famous artists.

Oddly a lot of the art on display at Basel made me laugh out loud. Here are the sixteen pieces that made me laugh the most.

It's a fifteen foot tall triple pickle statue.

The School Teacher by George Condo (Skarstedt)

From Aten Reigh by James Turrell (Pace Prints)

Bather by Caroll Dunham (Two Palms Gallery)

Clown Suit by Jane Hammond (ULAE)

This is a wall of plastic bread slices.

Here are some giant keys.

The radiators had a child and it went to the bathroom on the floor.

I liked these two tire pile guys.

This feels like it was inspired by watching a kid play with Playmobils in the bath. I'm not knocking this painting. It brings me a lot of joy.

Look at how much exuberant joy there is in this painting!

It's important to destigmatize vaginas. In Big Lebowski it's mentioned that some people are even uncomfortable with the word; vagina. I still think this is funny.

I think this six foot long statue is a statement about how cell phone imagery in art is old hat.

Floor bones.

People were posing on all fours in front of this piece.

This vertical screen played a looped video of a lactating woman shooting milk into the air like a sprinkler. A family with kids came by and were baffled. I love when kids see art and loudly ask what is going on. I'm noticing more vertically oriented video art which I guess is inspired by our telephones. How long before movies start getting shot vertically instead of landscape style? How long before movies are just women lactating wildly into the air for two hours?

Here are the two best dogs I saw at Art Basel.

This is Marlon.

This is Pixel.

Here are the best pieces I saw at Basel.

Here's a great Henry Darger piece from Andrew Edlin Gallery.

Here's Maggie Lee's exhibit of floor tile art and video art and little terrariums. Terrariums are big this year. One video is about Maggie going to visit her dying father who she never knew growing up. The gallery is Real Fine Arts.

Here's a great old Andy Warhol illustration. Richard Gray Gallery had this.

Paul Kasmin's Gallery's booth always looks like a shrine. It's carefully put together by an architectural team. The Brancusi in the front didn't sell but the Lee Krassner painting in the back did.

Paul Kasmin also had this great Picasso. No one bought it for the eight-million asking price. Maybe next fair.

This is Two Cake Slices by Wayne Thiebaud. Acquavella was selling this.

Looking at the cake painting made me need real cake. I ate this real cake in the photo above.

Here's a great Alex Katz painting. It's very calming. It belongs to Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac. At 5pm the speakers in the Miami Convention Hall chimed and a spooky voice told us that Art Basel was closed. Then we all exited the premises. You never get to see as much Basel as you think you will. It's neat that it's unconquerable. Does anyone ever make it to every fair? Does anyone get to go to all the best parties? Probably not.

This will probably be my final article as I have elected to stay in Miami with my new friends. I'm going to miss New York a lot but I think it's clear that my place is here.