Art Fair, not Fair Art

Keem Ji-young, "Glowing Hour". One of my favorites.

A few weeks ago, early in the final month of 2022, chaos reigned as Art Week took over Miami, with events ranging for miles up and down the coast. For these few short days, where the nights are long and prosecco pours longer, glitz and glam take center stage at every event venue in the city. I had the privilege of attending a few events, including the main spectacle - Art Basel Miami Beach. However, as the time drew closer to attending the behemoth of the event at the Miami Beach Convention Center, I found myself filled with much disdain and ridicule.

As a lover of art and museums far and wide, it might initially be perplexing as to why I would have such a conjecture about an event that boasts to have some of the biggest and up-and-coming names in the art world. My real gripe with the event was the bejeweled, brand-name, brightly colored elephant in the room; money. It’s no shock that to run an event of such grandeur requires money, and lots of it!, but rather my fear lay in the prospect that the focus of the event had shifted away from the art and artists and instead shone the spotlight on the art markets, the sellers and buyers, and the ability for its attendees to display their wealth, no matter how poorly dressed they truly were.

It would be overstated and empty to make the claim that “art is dead”, as many have done and will continue doing so long as we may live, but at the very least there seemed to be a scent of decay in the air. I assumed that much of the art I would be seeing would be, for lack of a better word, meaningless. Think neon letter signs that say “Women Power”, which have become ubiquitous with cringey coffee shops and bars that lack any sense of unique personality and instead opt for an instagrammable wall. As usual, the rich seem to keep getting richer, and it is this demographic, what is often referred to as “the elite” in the art market world, that controls the art market and these art fairs, like Art Basel. Money talks…and also makes artists create. Boris Groys, a Professor of Aesthetics, Art History, and Media Theory at New York University, wrote the following in Issue #24 of e-flux magazine:

The relationship between art and money can be understood in at least two ways. First, art can be interpreted as a sum of works circulating on the art market. In this case, when we speak about art and money, we think primarily of spectacular developments in the art market that took place in recent decades: the auctions of modern and contemporary art, the huge sums that were paid for works, and so forth—what newspapers mostly report on when they want to say something about contemporary art. It is now beyond doubt that art can be seen in the context of the art market and every work of art can function as a commodity.

On the other hand, contemporary art also functions in the context of permanent and temporary exhibitions. The number of large-scale, temporary exhibitions—biennials, triennials, Documenta, Manifestas—is constantly growing. These exhibitions are not primarily for art buyers, but for the general public. Similarly, art fairs, which are supposedly meant to serve art buyers, are now increasingly transformed into public events, attracting people with little interest in, or finances for, buying art. Since exhibitions cannot be bought and sold, the relationship between art and money takes here another form. In exhibitions, art functions beyond the art market, and for that reason requires financial support, whether public or private.

As Dr. Groys makes explicitly clear, it is not only the high-end art market and artists that require this money, but it is also required for commonplace people like myself, a fresh college graduate, for such an event to take place and to grant me the ability to view works of art in person that I may have never been privy to in other museums or through the internet. Despite this fact, I still groaned slightly at the ticket price - $70, of which I only paid $55 by using my student I.D. It’s still a high barrier to entry for the average individual who makes an income of about $30,000 in the United States. Granted, I am aware that such an event will not appeal to everyone nor is everyone interested in braving the Miami traffic and additional parking fees that would be tacked onto that price, but I still had a funny feeling in my gut. Art is for everyone and can be made by anyone, yet the event can only be attended by those lucky enough to not be working during Basel and having enough disposable income and time to attend the event. Aside from the capitalistic rabbit hole I could continue down about privilege and art, another aspect that worried me was where the money for the event was going. Naive as I am, I hoped that a large portion of the ticket prices went towards the artists, but it’s more likely that it went towards Art Basel’s costs to run the event.

A trip to one to one of the local not-for-profit art complexes in Wynwood, Bakehouse Art Complex, also revealed what one could have suspected - that Art Basel does not do much to support the local artists. It would be wonderful if an event of similar magnitude was focused directly on those based in Miami, but in reality they find themselves being pushed out of the area due to increasing rent, gentrification, and overall increased cost of living. Much of the art coming from locals does not fit the “decorative” standards of the art in the convention center, instead taking a more radical approach, one that can’t really be capitalized upon by the art market, but is just as, if not more, necessary. I was able to see artists who work with scientists to bridge the disciplines and others who make installations that force us to reckon with our non-recyclable waste production as humans. As an added bonus, almost all of the artists in the Bakehouse Art Complex were present to answer questions about their work and their sources of inspiration. I don’t have an answer to what the best way to display art is, but coming here and mixing with other locals felt intimate and wonderful in a way that the convention center just didn’t.

Distinctly aware of the economic disparities that are omnipresent at the event itself, Brooklyn-based art collective MSCHF created an interactive ATM that displayed the bank balance of individuals that came forward and gave their information. What’s a more perfect way to display the sign of the times than an interactive exhibit that garnered extreme attention and publicly displayed the top bank balance at $3 million with a range all the way down to $0? Admittedly, I laughed at the ATM when I saw it in person; at the way people were so eager to display their wealth, so nosy about other people’s wealth and eager to snap a picture for social media at the literal social experiment taking place, and at the too “on-the-nose”-ness of the artwork for me. Definitionally speaking, it was a work of art, but to me it felt reminiscent of artwork that tries too hard and ends up saying nothing new about the artist or society, it rather presents a well-known and popular subject (wealth) in a new, flashy (i.e, instagrammable) way.

In a similar vein, were the the expensively dressed yet tasteless individuals, i.e, characters, to be seen walking the corridors of the convention center. With outfits costing well over $10,000, yet wearing brand name clothing that just displays the logo - nowadays almost all in sans-serif and uniformly ugly - in a way of signaling money but no fashionable or unique tastes. Money can’t buy taste, as we all know, but nowhere is it more egregiously in your face than during Basel, in the oppressively humid Miami winter. Nevertheless, I must admit that I did get to feast my eyes upon many people dressed elegantly, avant-gardely, uniquely, and most importantly, with fun in mind. People who, to me, dress themselves with full confidence of what they are putting on in the morning and exist in such a state of nonchalant-ness that even if they were to wear a dress made fully of yellow caution tape (as I really did see!), not a single smirk would arise, because who can laugh when the wearer is in on the joke? The gift of being able to see this spectrum of fashion and expression all in one place is one of the unlisted bonuses that comes with the pretty penny of the ticket.

Moving onto the actual focal point of the event–the art! I was pleasantly surprised to have my preconceived notions of distaste thrown to the side, for the most part at least. If you’ve never been to Art Basel Miami Beach, it feels less like a museum and more like a labyrinthine game, in which any internal sense of direction has suddenly evaporated while you are trying desperately to see every corner and crevice of the fair before you you find yourself running on empty, with not even a cafecito and empanada able to replenish your energy levels. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of art and trying to make worth of your ticket means trying to see as much as you can, even if this isn’t the preferred way of viewing art - slowly, with time to digest and appreciate. As is representative of the age we live in, I found myself snapping photos of the art, and their descriptions, that I loved in order to be able to cherish them later and research the artists further. As is clear, this is an art fair, not a museum, so the context in which an artist made something is often lost to the nature of the event itself as there are rarely any blurbs describing the artist’s creations. The hefty amount of pictures on my phone are a clear indication that despite what I may have thought prior, I loved what was on display. From vibrant paintings spanning an entire wall to austere, almost neolithic sculptures, I was in awe.

Despite the chaos, the sheer enormity of the event, and human traffic jams occurring in every corner, I found myself standing silently in front of many pieces, taking the time to let my eyes wander and soak up the various textures, hues, and techniques in a piece. Good art lets your mind wander. It makes you question, reflect, and appreciate. “Art and love are the same thing: it’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.” Chuck Klosterman wrote. More than that, it’s about seeing the world through the eyes of another. With tired feet, a sore back, and hours of walking under my belt, I had ultimately left Art Basel with a renewed appreciation for life and inspiration for my days going forward. I found myself staring at the Miami sunset a little longer on the drive home, noticing where the pink hues blend so effortlessly with the orange, and thinking about how for thousands of years we’ve been looking at it with love. I noticed the sounds of the city, louder than ever during that busy week, and thought about the kind of future we were actively shaping for those who come after us. Will Art Basel Miami Beach still exist, when waters rise? How will the art of the future reflect whatever social unrest exists at that time? What new technology will forge new paths for how we view and create art, and will it be more sinister than dreaded “interactive” art museums? Only time will tell.

Gillian Wearing, "Me as Jean Cocteau after Berenice Abbott".