OUTLOUD Newsgazine

Green Shadow by Lucas Samara

Review by: Patrick Pineyro
Photos by: Liana Minassian

Art Basel, which took place this year from December 2-6, revealed that Miami has become one of the biggest art cities not just in the country, but in the world. People from all corners of the earth flocked to the festival that conquers Miami every year and turns it into a huge hub for all things art. It can be overwhelming at a glance, and your best bet is to just close your eyes and dive right in. If you do, however, you will see that Art Basel is a festival on par with the best of the world, doing for art what Cannes does for film or Lollapalooza does for music.

Save & Share

	Share on Facebook

The festival kicked off Wednesday night with Art Loves Music at Collins Park, featuring a free-to-the-public performance by UK singer-songwriter Ebony Bones! She was accompanied by her many band members, which include two drummers, two keyboard players, a guitarist, a saxophonist, and two backup dancers and singers. They brought her “jungle-punk” to Miami in colorful costumes and no doubt ensnared new fans, who will be wondering why her debut album Bone of my Bones has yet to receive an official release in the U. S.

Ebony Bones, vocals

The performance was full of energy, with styles ranging from tribal percussion to indie disco, and many places in between. If Bones! was the only one dancing at the start of her set, that definitely wasn’t the case by the end of the show, and she left those in attendance feeling good about the weekend to come.

Attractions were varied throughout, besides the traditional gallery fare. One series, Art Basel Conversations, started Thursday in the form of a panel discussion with artist Ai Weiwei, and also included a panel featuring collectors of Latin American art. It concluded Sunday by having artists Raphael Montañez Ortiz, Pedro Reyes, Peter Saville and Kateřina Šeda participate in a discussion titled "The Future of the Museum." This was a nice change of pace and presented an opportunity to learn about art from different angles.

You could have stuck to the beach and been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of art just at the Convention Center and other “official” locations. But to experience Art Basel as a whole, you had to visit all the other places where the festival spills out.

Corporate Wars by Robert Longo

There was also Art Perform, which I attended on Thursday. Of the various performance artists the show featured, I enjoyed the opening act the most. UK artist Simon Fujiwara performed an autobiographical play called The Mirror Stage, detailing his first encounter with a modern artwork as a boy back in his hometown of St. Ives, Britain. Fujiwara played director, playwright, actor, and even audience. He spent almost all his time on stage breaking the #1 rule of theater — his back was to the audience. You could, however, see his face in the various mirrors which served as backdrop for the scene. After recounting the history of his town and his childhood memory with Horizontal Stripe Painting by abstract expressionist Patrick Heron, he asked a small boy on stage to play out the scene. The boy playing young Fujiwara (Keeanu) is 11 years old and looked nothing like the subject he portrayed. The show was bizarre and decidedly adult in subject — the painting not only made Fujiwara realize he wanted to be an artist, but that he was gay as well. Fujiwara's performance featured enough humor, psychology, and honesty to make it truly entertaining.

Anna's White Head by Jaume Plensa

You could have stuck to the beach and been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of art just at the Convention Center and other “official” locations. But to experience Art Basel as a whole, you had to visit all the other places where the festival spills out. There were satellite fairs (Pulse, Scope); group shows at restaurants (Art Whino); borrowed American Legion buildings which housed art displays (Multiversal Group Show); traditional gallery exhibits, which included the New World School of Art exhibit — the list goes on and on. You could get dizzy trying to schedule your weekend, but the best thing to do was to just pick a place and go.

Don Ramos, Multiversal Art Show at American Legion

Multiversal, for example, was my favorite spot of the weekend. This show took over a few rooms of the American Legion building in midtown Miami, and had the benefit of a bar/restaurant with live music in the back, and belly dancers/live painting/fire eaters in the front. The setting was perfect — no parking meters to worry about, food and drinks in the back, tons of great local artists, and the two things that makes Art Basel and the Miami art scene so special: community and fun. The people here were looking to make friends by talking about and appreciating art. Conversations turned deep in seconds: Why do we like visual art, and in what ways do we appreciate visual art differently than other mediums, like music or film? Most of the time, you don’t know if you’re talking to an artist or just some guy who showed up like me. And it was like this everywhere.

New World School of the Arts exhibit piece

The final event I saw took me by surprise like everything else. It was a student exhibit at the New World School of the Arts. To say that these kids are gifted is an understatement. I walked in, and to the left was a mammoth painting of a truck going through a brick wall. Titled Constituent, it was done by Felipe Kaizedo and displayed the technical skill and creativity readily apparent in every single piece there. The students at the school had a goal to work toward that motivated them, and no piece would have been out of place in a gallery exhibit alongside professional, established artists. Besides that, it was a pleasure to see the pride in all the families’ faces, and it was reassuring because New World will no doubt be producing plenty of spectacular artists for years to come.

New World School of the Arts exhibit opening

Art Basel is one of the premier art festivals in the United States and in the world, and an event of the utmost importance in the art world. For residents of Miami, it is an absolute must. Find the free spots, grab a couple of buddies, and lose yourself in the kaleidoscope of art. And if you live outside of Miami and are looking for a good excuse to get to South Beach in December, this is your chance. Whether you love art or not, you will find something to enjoy and good people to enjoy it with.

Art Enthusiasts, Tweet us your thoughts!