{"id":929,"date":"2010-12-06T19:44:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-06T19:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/raulmourao.com\/blog\/?p=929"},"modified":"2010-12-06T19:44:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-06T19:44:00","slug":"deu-no-nyt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archive.raulmourao.com\/blog\/?p=929","title":{"rendered":"Deu no NYT"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Oscar Hidalgo for The New York Times<\/h6>\n
Julian Zugazagoita and Catherine L. Futter, center, enjoy Ernesto Neto\u2019s installation \u201cCircleprototemple…!\u201d at the Fortes Villa\u00e7a’s booth, Miami Beach Convention Center.<\/div>\n

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Blue Skies and Blue-Chip Sales at Art Basel Miami<\/span><\/nyt_headline><\/h1>\n

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By KATE TAYLOR<\/h6>\n

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Published: December 3, 2010<\/h6>\n

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MIAMI BEACH \u2014 Wind, rain and even snow left some collectors making the pilgrimage to Art Basel Miami Beach<\/a> stranded for hours at airports in New York and Europe. But here, except for a few showers on Wednesday afternoon, the sun shone brightly, as if to demonstrate how much the little strip of South Beach, which each December becomes the setting for an art-world bacchanalia of buying, selling and socializing, is a place apart from the rest of the country, where unemployment and financial anxiety linger.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cThe art market is back!\u201d was the chorus this week among most of the major dealers at the fair, even though some combination of canceled flights and the new economic reality kept the number of attendees down from prefinancial crisis years. Many dealers had come feeling cautiously optimistic after November\u2019s successful auctions, but they were thrilled to see the new buoyancy playing out in the fair, and, in many cases, were eager to boast about it.<\/div>\n
\u201cI could have sold almost everything twice,\u201d said an elated if slightly exhausted-looking Marc Glimcher, of Pace Gallery, on Wednesday, a few hours into the fair, which runs through Sunday. \u201cEveryone\u2019s fighting over the de Kooning,\u201d he added with a grin, referring to a bronze sculpture, identical to one owned by the Stedelijk Museum<\/a>in Amsterdam, on display at the Pace booth at the convention center here, where the fair is taking place. He predicted that several prospective buyers would be disappointed and that he would have to take the blame, a possibility he seemed to relish more than dread. After all, a tug-of-war could not be more gratifying to the gallery, which just signed de Kooning\u2019s estate in September.<\/div>\n
Mr. Glimcher chatted on about the gallery\u2019s bright prospects, volunteering, without being asked, that he couldn\u2019t \u201cconfirm or deny\u201d rumors that Pace would open a space in London soon, in addition to another possible one in Shanghai. (Pace currently has galleries in New York and Beijing.)<\/div>\n
Other galleries, including David Zwirner, Gagosian, Andrea Rosen, and Gladstone, also reported strong sales, and works were swapped out of booths with regularity.<\/div>\n
The general sense seemed to be that while many people in the United States and Europe were struggling financially, some were doing very well, and a good number of them went to the fair with their wallets open. As one dealer put it, \u201cMoney is being made, and it wants to be spent.\u201d<\/div>\n
Several collectors voiced the same view. \u201cThe traffic is not overwhelming, but I think the quality of the people is good,\u201d said William L. Mack, the chairman of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, before turning away to greet the former Guggenheim trustee Peter M. Brant.<\/div>\n
In some areas of the fair, other perspectives could be heard. Martin Klosterfelde, of Klosterfelde Gallery in Berlin, sat in a quiet booth on Thursday afternoon. He said that he had sold some pieces, but that the weather and flight cancellations had made for a slow first day. In any case, he added, \u201cIt\u2019s a buyer\u2019s market now, so people have time to think,\u201d meaning that business is spread out over the four days of the fair rather than just the first two hours, which used to be a mad rush of speculation.<\/div>\n
Vladimir Ovcharenko, of Regina Gallery in Moscow, in his third year at the fair, said that while business had improved each year, the Miami fair was still a challenge for a Russian gallery.<\/div>\n
\u201cFor us, it\u2019s tough,\u201d he said. He mimed a fairgoer glancing up at the sign on his booth. \u201cPeople see Moscow gallery, they think, \u2018Eh, it\u2019s a bad country,\u2019 \u201d he said.<\/div>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not so big business,\u201d he continued, explaining that for him Art Basel<\/a> was more about meeting collectors and introducing the Russian art scene. For that same purpose, Mr. Ovcharenko is among the dealers behind a new art fair that will open in Moscow on Dec. 17, called Cosmoscow<\/a>.<\/div>\n
Latin American galleries, on the other hand, seemed to be thriving. That\u2019s not unusual, given Miami\u2019s geographical proximity and the fact that many Latin American collectors have homes here, but what was new this year was the level of interest in Latin American art from museums.<\/div>\n
Anne Strauss, an associate curator in the 19th century, Modern and contemporary department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/a>, was at the fair on Wednesday specifically to look at Latin American art, and she was apparently not the only museum representative doing so. The Mexican gallery kurimanzutto sold a Jonathan Hern\u00e1ndez collage to the Miami Art Museum, and a sculpture by Abraham Cruzvillegas was reserved for another American institution, according to the gallery owners.<\/p>\n

The booth of the Brazilian gallery Fortes Vila\u00e7a was dominated by a large installation by the artist Ernesto Neto. A rounded wooden structure raised slightly off the ground, wrapped in red nylon, it looked a little like Cinderella\u2019s carriage after midnight, if it had turned into a strawberry instead of a pumpkin. Inside the sculpture, titled \u201cCircleprototemple …!,\u201d a bench encircled a large drum, over which dangled a hefty drumstick. The work was first exhibited at the Hayward Gallery in London this year. Alessandra Ragazzo d\u2019Aloia, one of the gallery\u2019s owners, said she hoped it would go to a Brazilian museum. <\/span>

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<\/span>In the meantime, however, the sculpture made an attractive resting place for tired fairgoers and, over the course of the fair, it hosted a shifting party of people chatting in English, Spanish and Portuguese. On Thursday evening the artist himself arrived, straight off a long flight from S\u00e3o Paolo but still in impish spirits, and held court inside his \u201ctemple,\u201d where he played the drum vigorously in between otherwise uninterrupted streams of conversation.<\/span>
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Mr. Neto explained that the work was inspired by a <\/span>Jorge Luis Borges<\/span><\/a> short story, \u201cThe Circular Ruins,\u201d and that the red structure was meant to be a heart, with the drum providing the heartbeat. Then (prodded by a reporter\u2019s questions) he went into a long and hilariously animated discussion of his next project in Rio de Janeiro \u2014 a series of projections of photographs he has taken, many of them of his friends \u2014 and of the difficult logistics of planning the accompanying late-night beach party.<\/span><\/div>\n
Apart from encounters like these, artists often seem marginal to the social scene at a blue-chip fair like <\/span>Art Basel Miami Beach<\/span><\/a>, which is dominated by dealers, collectors and museum trustees, who use these four days to reinforce their business and personal relationships at often opulent dinners and parties. (Artists are a bigger presence at the satellite fairs.)<\/span><\/div>\n
A \u201cfamily reunion where you get to pick all your relatives\u201d is how one collector described the fair \u2014 an accurate enough statement, except that it ignores the millions of dollars changing hands within the family.<\/span><\/div>\n
One family member who had changed roles was <\/span>Jeffrey Deitch<\/span><\/a>, the former New York art dealer who this year made the unusual transition from art dealer to museum director. As usual, on the opening night of the fair he gave a party on the beach at the Raleigh Hotel, where he danced to the band LCD Soundsystem.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cI was always central to Miami,\u201d Mr. Deitch, who now runs the <\/span>Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art<\/span><\/a>, had said earlier in the day, confessing that he was \u201cnostalgic\u201d for his years as a dealer there. \u201cThey didn\u2019t even replace my booth \u2014 it\u2019s a group of benches now.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n