Sunday December 10, 2006
Basel weekend: everything else
This one and the next one are the only thing I have from Pulse, which was pretty small, cramped, overcrowded, and cost $10. There were, however, lots of great pieces. This scary little photograph is by Roger Ballen. It totally fooled me into thinking it was a real Joel Peter-Witkin-style photograph, but for some reason on screen now it looks much more like what it is: a digital composite.
More obviously digital, this is a detail from a big image by Dionisio Gonzalez.
Jesus looks over the entryway to NADA.
This little joke piece shows up every year. At $200, (unframed) in an unlimited edition, it makes a killing.
Installation with a customized Gucci suitcase at the Sister gallery (L.A.).
An arresting photograph of an empty Jack Daniels bottle by Melanie Schiff, titled Emergency. Not the only alcoholic humor art we saw: a David Kramer print at Pulse prominently read, “WHOEVER IT IS THAT SAID ‘LESS IS MORE’ PROBABLY OWES ME A ROUND OR TWO.”
Here’s the NADA building from the outside. Very relaxing, with a big lawn, hammocks, and a little restaurant (nothing to write home to mom about there, though).
This guy performed on the lawn, heavily reverberated voice, guitar, and chime percussion. He sounded a little bit like Panda Bear, but he kept stopping to chat with his friends who came up. We got impatient and left.
An opportunistic resident outside Scope, spraycan-changing the price for parking on her property from $10 to $15. I think her logic was that if someone eventually did park there, she’d boost her profits by 50%. Unfortunately for her, everyone was just parking on the street.
One of the things I really enjoyed about Scope (oh, sorry: ~scope) was the outdoor scene. There was a lot more there then I’m going to show you, including a big stage, a bus with a tent in the back that you entered to see a light show, and some extremely fancy porta-potties. This is the immortal Eric Doeringer, hawking his bootleg versions of contemporary art. Eric is beyond cool: I have a picture of him holding up a fake Art Basel VIP card, with which he apparently got into the Vernissage, among other things.
The Blood for Art table. This idea is simultaneously great, depressing, morbid, and inadvisable on a long weekend of running all over town and spending most of your time on foot.
Oh the art. This amazing drawing by Mat Brown.
Other then the Nike logo, a great sculpture. Christopher Cutts Gallery, Toronto.
Sometimes you just can’t pass up a picture.
Locust Projects contacted Flight 19 (Tampa) to co-present something at Scope this year. They came up with this Negativland piece, Rightmanland, a singing animatronic Abraham Lincoln. Efforts to bring Negativland to Miami are in the works!
Photo Miami was excellent, and for some reason sparsely attended.
Here’s one piece, by Luis Molina-Pantin.
Opening/party for the Monster Show, Thursday night. This is a link to a photoset; click the picture to see more photos from the evening (probably not interesting unless you were there).
Opening at Carol Jazzar’s on Friday evening.
One last visit to Basel.
This wasn’t up before: a loop of magnetic cassette video tape hovering in the field between two fans. No artist info, sorry. Zilvinas Kempinas, Spencer Brownstone Gallery.
Saturday night in the Design District/Wynwood. This is the incomparable Cody ChesnuTT. Cody was performing a new suite of songs, solo electric, and recording it, so he asked us to hold our applause until the end. He was great, and a surprisingly agile guitar player, though I’m not sure the self-indulgence that bugged Pitchfork is waning anytime soon.
Cody’s crowd.
We spent the rest of the night hanging out at Lenny’s. The show he has up includes pieces from his private collection, including a Gregory Crewdson, a Robert Rauschenberg, and this lovely drawing by Hope Gangloff.
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FYI – the “hovering videotape” at Basel was by Zilvinas Kempinas from Spencer Brownstone Gallery.
What time did Cody Chestnutt go on? We left after that ‘fashion show’ hadn’t even started an hour after it was scheduled. Guess they were waiting for a bigger crowd?
re: photo miami being sparsely attended; much of the promotional material had the wrong address.
re:The woman changing the price for parking; on Thursday she was selling hot dogs for a $1.50. They were better than the pizza at NADA.
When will they get a centralized food court?
NADA had a mini-restaurant, which was mediocre last year, as I recall.
Basel had very nice euro-food at a couple of locations which was expensive ($7 for a one-ingredient sandwich) but probably not overpriced per se.
Scope had something, it smelled like sausage in there, but looking at my pictures now it looks like some sort of oriental food — maybe noodle things? More importantly, scope had a $3 suggested donation 16oz Grolsh beugels. Carlos Rigau aka Kenneth Cohen spotted them at NADA too, though they wern’t there when I went.
CB~ Cody hit the stage just after 10 pm. I’d just got there, and they weren’t letting people into the museum anymore.
Christopher~ Thanks; corrected.
Great photos. Saved me the trouble of going. As for that interesting piece of a Jack Daniels bottle emitting blinding light, I can attest that in fact quite often bottles of Jack do just that.
didn’t think much of NADA? NADA was my favorite again this year. to each their own i suppose.
Yeah, NADA was good . . . i was talking about their food?
I think I said I didn’t think much of Pulse. My favorite was Scope.
Yes, Alesh, you were talking about their food.
[What an unusual question to have asked! I suspect you of that new snide/sarcastic questionmark usage of which I thoroughly disapprove! I favor the use of the word “duh” in such instances, as in “Duh! I was talking about their food”. If you are going to be snappy, then snap, damnit!]
alesh: the guy that you saw at NADA- the one you said sounded like Panda bear, is non other than Mark Borthwick, he’s a great photographer and also did the Trees dvd for Cat Power, I was also ther e that day and took some pictures of him, too bad that people/fans/friends kept interupting him…
KH~ Right, the question mark in that formulation doesn’t denote a question. It’s supposed to read like a period, with a “wasn’t I?” appended. I only snap when I’m sure I haven’t made a mistake in my writing, which, obviously, is seldom. For crying out loud: on the other post I had a grid of Paul McCarthy photos with a caption attributing them to Alison something, and saying it was inlaid wood. Thank god someone sent me an e-mail.
J-J~ Oh, THAT guy. Cool.
ah, pardon my confusion.
KH – and tisk tisk! being snappy gets you nowhere!
thanks for the photos alesh. great coverage as usual.
Any notable moments at the cody chesnutt show??
I don’t know what counts as “memorable” for Cody, but yes, it was a great show. As I said, he was recording, and it was all new material, solo with a guitar. Not dissimilar to the acoustic stuff on THM, with plenty of interesting little moments but pretty stream-of-consciousness type songwriting.
Does anyone know of a website with photos of pieces from the different fairs?