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With the support of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs
and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board
of County Commissioners |
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November 23, 2007 |
Issue # 50 |
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Basel Bonanza
The Art World’s Swiss Miss
Takes Over
Miami Beach
By Leslie Pariseau
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La Racine Blanche, Fernand
Léger; 1943, 91 x 73 cm, Courtesy Cazeau-Béraudière, Paris |
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Where Switzerland brushes shoulders with France and
Germany, there is a city split in two by the Rhine River, picturesquely curving
to wrap around the bends of the water’s path. Fifteenth century buildings kiss
noses with the contemporary creations of today’s most accomplished architects,
and the sandstone façade of the city’s treasured Romanesque-Gothic cathedral
presides over it all. Housing more than 40 museums and hundreds of galleries,
Basel, Switzerland is said to be one of the greatest cultural capitals of
Europe.
Cut to I-195 East. Near the southernmost tip of the United
States, just before the monotony of flat terrain dribbles off into a chain of
tiny islands, there floats a strip of land between a dynamically active bay and
the Atlantic Ocean. The smooth curves of pastel art deco structures sun
themselves between the shadows of condo towers, while businessmen and beach
people appear and recede into cool restaurants and tacky tourist shops. To the
west lies its slightly older sibling, constantly wavering between boom and bust,
its incomplete high-rises looming over the darling younger. With 60 percent of
the 2 million plus population originating from foreign countries, Miami and
Miami Beach are said to be the capital of heterogeneity. |
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Under the Big Top
Art Miami Becomes One of
December’s
Greatest Shows on Earth
By Penn Bullock
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The Carrousel. Last Riot 2,
2006, 80 x 99cm, Lambda print on Ilfoflex, Edition of 10, by AES + F, a
collective made up of four Russian artists who have been working together since
1995. Courtesy of Juan Ruiz Galería |
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Art Miami is not Art Basel.
It won’t take place at the
Convention Center. Iggy Pop will not be singing at its
opening. Two hundred galleries will not be represented;
800 galleries did not apply to be represented. Very few
Chinese millionaires are flying into town specifically
to ogle its wares. It will not have a video lounge. It
has nothing to do with Switzerland.
But it does have something to do
with Art Basel. Art Miami has, for 18 years, run during
the first weeks of January. This year, the gravitational
pull of that other fair has sucked Art Miami into
December. Now, the two run head to head—along with many
other fairs of varying magnitude.
Why the change in schedule?
“Mostly for the survival of the
fair,” says Ilana Vardy, the director of Art Miami. “The
exhibitors were feeling the effects of coming three
weeks on the heels of the world’s largest art event. The
visitors, even locally, were spending their money at the
fairs in December. And our January dates were getting
worse—we would have had to open on January 3 in 2008,
which could not have worked. (But) we were very lucky to
find a large piece of land on which to build a great
structure.” |
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