Art Review - February Issue - (Page 46)
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/mnt/data/www.nxtbook.com/fx/config_1.3/global.php on line 10 D I S PATC H
E S HITECTURE, FILM, SHOPPING, NEWS AND THINGS TO MAKE AND DO… ART,
MUSIC, ARCHITECTURE, FI TALES FROM THE CITY: Miami ords MARK RAPPOLT
Tolerance levels. Ultimately that’s what December’s Art Basel Miami
Beach seemed to be a test of. By now you’ll probably have waded through
enough reports on the seemingly endless parties and celebrity attendees,
so you’ll know that one of the tolerance levels Miami was all about
involved alcohol and partying. And if you view that in a positive light,
that’s because, by the organisers’ own admission, the event is no
longer just an art fair; rather, it’s ‘a new type of cultural event,
combining an international art show with an exciting programme of special
exhibitions, parties and crossover events, including music, film,
architecture and design’. Or as Art Basel director Sam Keller put it,
‘There are “wow!” type cultural highlights’. Wow! Sounds fun, huh?
While there are those who think that fun is absolutely not what art should
be about, most sane people will be happy for the feeling that art
doesn’t happen in a vacuum, that it has some relevance and relation to
other things in the world even if ‘the world’ in Miami seems to
consist solely of the rich and the beautiful . But equally, if you go to
Miami’s winter jamboree as an art critic, you find your body complying
with an unwritten imperative to feel morally outraged, in a
stomachchurning way, about the power of ‘the market’, the lure of
lucre and the insane but ultimately superficial socialising; you’ve got
to moan about the lack of any ‘real’ values in art - about what
happened to aesthetics, skill, meaning and all the other stuff because, as
a critic, there seems to be little space in which to operate. Value
judgements about art rise and fall despite anything you might say about
any of those special ‘values’. But as you crawl back to your spartan
hotel room as a critic you have to enjoy some discomfort to demonstrate
that it’s the art and nothing else that interests you to choke out an
article about choking on your own righteous vomit, you can miss the fact
that Miami is a lot of fun. OK, partly that’s because socialising and
partying is always quite nice. But also it’s because there’s so much
art sloshing around that it’s almost impossible not to find one amazing
thing you might not have seen otherwise. Perhaps that’s why you
encounter scores of sweaty critics comparing notes about the ‘highlights
of the show’ if you want to know, Red Eye, a show at the Rubell
Collection mapping out the current LA scene, was my favourite , just in
case they missed something everyone else saw and have to scuttle off to
some remote part of town in order to check it out. To the editor of an art
magazine this raises the intriguing issue of whether art, and the current
explosion of interest in it, can become too big. Of whether we, as lovers
of art, are being herded into an endless quest for the new and unexplored
at the expense of any real interaction with the art itself. There were
works by over 2,000 artists on show at Art Basel Miami Beach and its many
satellite fairs. Honestly, I’ve got opinions, both good and bad, about a
few hundred of them, but I think nothing whatsoever about the rest. Mainly
because I don’t know the work at all, or because I haven’t spent
enough time with it to form any worthwhile opinions. But if you’re
involved in the artworld today, events like Miami can make you feel that
this is somehow wrong or inadequate, particularly when there appears to be
an endless stream of collectors and gallerists asking you what you think
about this, that and the other. At its worst, opinions about good or bad
art are the end product of a herd mentality, second-hand reports and a
blind faith that it’s the cream and not the shit that floats to the top.
At its best, it makes you more determined to explore what you like and why
you like it - to establish your own values and ideals; what you feel up
for, and what you don’t. opinions are the end product of a herd
mentality, secondhand reports and blind faith that gives it its special
‘aura’. You know you’re supposed to whine about the wining, feel
bilious about the dining and be utterly nauseated by the sheer
commercialisation of everything. You’re supposed to bemoan the fact that
art is part of a social scene, with its A-listers, B-listers and
no-listers. And that there are VIP, VVIP and VVVIP guest lists for parties
and dinners that are supposed to map this hierarchy out. Partly you’re
outraged about this, ARTREVIEW w p 44,46 Dispatches AR Feb07.indd46 46
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Art Review - February Issue
Art Review - February Issue
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