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must not make nada in spanish joke
Post #677 • December 3, 2005, 6:47 PM • 16 Comments
NADA wasn't a disappointment because three different people told me that it was awful. I'll admit that not much jumped out at me. Now, the people were beautiful.
The art, not so much so, but I found a few things. Fergus Feehily at Green on Red Gallery:
Matthew Brannon at David Kordansky:
Josh Smith at Catherine Bastide:
Otherwise, this event characterized NADA well:
Power outages plagued the first day and started up again in my presence. Despite all the effort, there just wasn't enough juice to light up the place.
2.
December 4, 2005, 2:31 PM
So that's the cream of the crop?
Maybe it would be better to just photograph some of those "beautiful people"
3.
December 4, 2005, 5:59 PM
Did anyone see the early Jackson Pollock paintings at Joan T Washburn? Knock-Out-Gorgeous. Also had a lift in the gallery full of Morandi paintings. Can anybody please tell me why the same gallery deals Botero's work. I winced when I saw how bad they were next to Morandi's. Oh well. Hacket-Freedman had a couple nice things in their office safely out of view from most people. I snooped and got on their mailing list. Tiny little Joan Mitchell paintings that were exquisite. First paintings I've seen by her that had such a nice touch, usually hers is of the heavy handed variety. Maybe I haven't seen enough.
4.
December 4, 2005, 7:53 PM
I saw those small Joan Mitchell's too, they were georgous. Best Basel yet.
5.
December 5, 2005, 7:57 AM
Hey, that guy, are you talking about the small Botero still lifes? I thought they were really good. The colors of the fruit were electric. He didn't seem to have any of the size/scale distortion going on, but instead the color was the area of difference. Are you sure you're not cracking on him because of his rep as the guy who paints the fat people?
Oh, and Franklin--I swear I didn't see those things at NADA, but I did see a lot of stuff that I liked.
6.
December 5, 2005, 9:39 AM
It was the fruit paintings and they were horrible. The color was a big part of the problem. I'm glad you liked them. HIs reputation as the guy who paints fat people doesn't help here. Horrendous painting.
7.
December 5, 2005, 10:51 AM
As a Miamian art-consumer i see art basel as a sale that does not have the best of work by the artists whose work is on display. Unless someone is buying art , the main fair is a waste of time since better work is in private collections and museums. But of course Basel and piggy-backs stimulate an art-interested audience (good) and inspire non-profit programs which may be a benefit to those of us not buying or sellling (the benefits that most interest me). Are the folks who visit this blog interested in the fair and surrounding activitites for the potential it has in stimulating sales of their own work? Perhaps people see the potential art basel activities have for developing an art -collecting consumer in the Miami area? I wanted to understand people's interest.
8.
December 5, 2005, 10:53 AM
I agree about NADA - it was so, so. The only thing I really liked was that sushi bar installation at Kaikai Kiki (the gallery dedicated to Murkami's protegees).
9.
December 5, 2005, 11:30 AM
Everyone has their own motives, onefemale, but mine is to see good art. Basel has been a major disappointment in this regard until this year, when, despite all the inevitable garbage, there was too much good art to see in the time I had opening night.
Anyone who really loves art does not care that such shows, as they must, do not have the "best". Art lovers are always hungry, and a buffet of unseen work by good and great artists is always a treat, all the more so because you do not know what to expect and because it puts your eye to the test. Frankly, I am sated with the standard masterpiece I have seen twenty times. I want to see new stuff, good, bad, whatever. That's why, when I go to NYC, I go to the sales rooms of the auction houses.
Furthermore we have very little to see here in paradise. Basel is (and perhaps now will be) like a museum that comes to town for 4 days. Talk about hungry! This is a once-a-year orgy for all the starving art-bears who have been wandering in the woods all year.
10.
December 5, 2005, 12:06 PM
Oldpro, I'm pretty sure the art you liked at the main Basel fair was largely work by famous dead people. Such work is always welcome, even if it's only here a few days, but that's not what Basel is supposed to be about, or so I thought. Basel is supposed to be a highly selective and select showcase of the best contemporary art, or so they say. Given the hype, pretensions, and all the filters such work presumably goes through before being shown in the "big house," it was mostly disappointing and, in my opinion, negligible. If this is the best Basel can do, they need to do a lot better, and if this really is the best stuff out there (which I can't believe), I might as well forget the whole business.
11.
December 5, 2005, 12:25 PM
Franklin nixed my comment - it was a paridoxical joke. Looser and winner - and get it, a good eye?
12.
December 5, 2005, 12:46 PM
I didn't get it, and the part I understood was going to unleash a doodoostorm I didn't have time to deal with today.
13.
December 5, 2005, 1:23 PM
I got you. Just some personal views about Pollack that bother me - I think that he has been mystified - he could have been out on the streets if not saved. Then he through it all away.
14.
December 5, 2005, 2:31 PM
Yes, Jack, just about all the art I liked was made by famous dead people, with a few exceptions.
Aha, I hear them saying, well, that's just because old farts cant get with the new, vital art of the YOUTH.
Bear with me, youth. When I was a youth, many years ago, my friends and I went compulsively to every gallery we could find out about and we went to other artists studios and museum shows and anywhere we could see art.
We did not like 95% of what we saw then either, and we were youths very often looking at the art of other youths. That 95%, from back then, is gone. You cannot see it and you will not know about it.
The point is that 95% of any range of contemporary art is not much good. The old stuff by the famous dead people, the other 5%, is still around, because it was better. When I see it I still like it.
It is not a matter of being "with it", it is a matter of statistics. Well, a lot of it is, anyway.
15.
December 5, 2005, 4:22 PM
that's funny. i always use the exact same quantity in reference to the amount of bad to not-so-great work out there - 95%. on this we agree.
16.
December 5, 2005, 7:20 PM
I think it might be generous to say thet 5% is any good, but what the hell.
1.
mek
December 3, 2005, 11:02 PM
saw real painting show, saw Provisero & Trowbridge at dorsch, tooled around rubell fc, and hit up basel. met ed hirst and had dinner. he is very interested in my work. he filled me in on aqua, pulse, and nada. it's all good, all good. basel has resurrected my interest in miami.