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Photography: Liliane Eberle Bouquet, Switzerland

11.28.05
A week without sleep
By By Carol Damian, Professor and Chairperson, Department of Art and Art History, FIU

Art Basel is back and with it an extraordinary array of exhibitions, projects, installations, and events – morning, noon, and night. The international art show from Switzerland has brought an international celebrity status to Miami Beach, and with it a community clamoring for attention has put its own creative side front and center. Every art and cultural institution in the area of Miami and Miami Beach has something special planned. There is something for everyone – from art aficionados to the novice and curious – in a whirlwind week.

Art Basel has brought out the best in community collaboration and cooperation. Using the fair’s schedule and hours as the guide, every part of the city lights up for the festivities. Exhibitions and events have been planned for a year and the success of the previous years’ events has encouraged even more activities for everyone, including children and students and emerging artists. In its Art Loves Crossovers programs, Art Basel features programs in the Miami Children’s Museum; Design District; Film studios; Haute Cuisine venues; Containers in Art Positions on the beach, and many others in a long list that defies any possibility of seeing and doing even half of what is happening. Private collectors open their homes and often rent warehouse spaces to showcase their collections as well. The downtown warehouses have attracted the attention of many others who are opening galleries and alternative spaces in the same vicinity, primarily the Wynwood section. Throughout the cities of Miami and Miami Beach there are tours by foot, bus and boats, breakfast events and late-night club scenes. It will take a military strategist to map out the entire area and view what it has to offer.

Undoubtedly one of the best things about all the energy surrounding Art Basel Miami Beach is the participation of artists in alternative spaces and independent projects that bring together the most diverse of personalities, media, experiences, professional and aspiring professionals, and the young with the more mature (I hesitate to say old). Students from all the local art programs, high school artists from DASH (Design and Architecture School) and the New World School of the Arts, and university students working towards their BFAs and MFAs, find opportunities to show their work by searching the city for any available space and the patrons to underwrite their efforts. Each year more and more exhibitions and events attest to their success and entrepreneurial skills. Students raise money with auctions and inventive projects, such as the MMAS – Masters’ Mystery Art Show – organized by the MFA students at FIU based on unique works of art produced on small cards by artists whose identity remains a secret. With the well-established professional art fairs that have accompanied Art Basel in other venues, such as NADA and SCOPE, burgeoning projects in the Design District and Omni area range from street installations, sound and light shows, performances and parades to full warehouse takeovers incorporating the work of a few to more than fifty artists who place their art inside and outside, even on the roof. This year the much anticipated soon-to-be-completed Performing Arts Center will present a multi-media extravaganza “Lighting the House” in its neighborhood concurrent with Omniart III, an urban intervention of curated exhibits and installations in near-by warehouses. The cities of Miami and Miami Beach provide support through grants to encourage the activities and bring attention to everything their cities have to offer the world. Not only do tourism and the cultural reputation of South Florida benefit, but the local artists, students, and residents are invigorated by the attention. Everyone has to admit a week without sleep is worth the price of all that Art.

11.27.05
Art & Architecture
The Historic Downtown Miami
by Paul S. George, Ph.D. Professor of History and Historian to the Historical Association of Southern Floridae

I conduct more than 35 different historical tours of Miami/south Florida neighborhoods and waterways. My favorite tour of all is the downtown Miami walking tour. There is so much in that quarter that is important historically, architecturally, and archaeologically.

The Alfred I. DuPont Building: our Rockefeller Center

Take, for example, the splendid Alfred I. DuPont Building designed by Marsh and Sexelbye and constructed between 1937 and 1939. The DuPont Building is our Rockefeller Center, since its Depression Moderne architectural style is quite similar to that of New York City’s famous Fifth Avenue complex.
The building reflects an excellent local adaptation of a prevailing national style as evidenced in the decoration throughout the major interior spaces.

The presence of the local flora and fauna, as well as the painted Seminole Indian motifs, throughout the interior surfaces of the building is indicative of the prevailing 1930s movement that emphasized "regionalism" in commercial architecture. The Moderne style was popularized by way of the projects undertaken by the Works Progress Administration, but its presence is a rarity within Miami's built environment. The DuPont Building is architecturally noteworthy for the excellence of its design, materials, and detailing.

Begun in 1937, the DuPont Building was the first skyscraper to be built in Miami since the completion of the Dade County Courthouse in 1928. The building constituted the first major construction project privately undertaken in Miami after the Bust in 1926. As such, it signaled Miami's economic recovery from the Depression.

Completed at a cost of $2.5 million in 1939, the building was the headquarters for the Florida National Bank, organized in 1931 by Alfred I. DuPont. This building replaced the early Miami's second most prominent Halcyon Hall hotel, built in 1905.

During the World War II, the DuPont Building was commissioned by the United States Navy and served as the fleet headquarters for the 7th Naval District until June 30, 1946. The Navy command took over two entire floors of the building and installed a huge map of the Gulf Sea Frontier territory. During its occupation by the United States Navy, the building was unofficially christened the "U.S.S. Neversink." After the war, the DuPont returned to its earlier functions, hosting not only the Florida National Bank, but also the offices of many of Miami and Dade County’s most prominent professionals.

PHOTOGRAPHY: JUAN VASQUEZ-WGSTUDIOS

The interiors of the DuPont Building are some of the most ornate spaces in downtown Miami. The elevator doors are fashioned in brass and embellished with palm trees, flamingos, and other tropical motifs as "bas-relief" decoration. The mezzanine level is not to be missed, always drawing “oohs” and “aahs” from tour goers, owing to its cypress ceiling enhanced by historical murals, and its stunning teller windows.

The building remains in mint condition and its interior is a textbook example of the Streamline Modern style with its geometric patterned grills, lanterns, and signage.

The Alfred I. duPont Building is located at 169 E Flagler Street, Miami

Info. 305.374.3677 www.alfredidupontbuilding.com

AN ANDALUSIAN PALACE
Directly south of the Alfred I.DuPont Building, stands the beautiful Gusman Center, which opened as the Olympia Theater in 1926. Built by Paramount Pictures and designed by John Eberson, this jewel, which many believe resembles an Andalusian Palace, has hosted generations of first-rate movies and a star-studded vaudevillian lineup. Converted to a performing arts center in the early 1970s, after it was saved from the wrecking ball, this great venue hosts hundreds of live performances annually and has recently completed a five million dollar restoration, which has restored it to its original splendor.
The Gusman Center stands at 174 E. Flagler Street

www.gusmancenter.org

A NEOCLASSIC REVIVAL
I also enjoy touring the Dade County Courthouse, designed by A. Ten Eyck Brown and August Geiger and completed in 1928. At 28 stories, it was said to have been the tallest building standing south of Baltimore in its early years! This stellar Neoclassic Revival structure remained the county’s tallest building until 1963. It has served not only as a courthouse but also as the governmental center for both Dade County and the city of Miami. Until the 1960s, the top floors hosted the county and city jails.
Located at 73 West Flagler Street

www.jud10.org/Courthouses/Dade/dade.html

RENAISSANCE STYLE & FLORENTINE DESIGN
The Ingraham Building at 25 Southeast 2 Avenue was designed by Schultze and Weaver, and named for James Ingraham, one of the top lieutenants of Henry M. Flagler, the city’s founder, the building bears a Renaissance revival style. Completed in 1927, it served for several decades as headquarters for Florida Power and Light.
Nearby at 101 Northeast First Avenue stands the former Federal District Courthouse and main U.S. Post Office building, with its enticing Florentine design. Designed by Charles Taylor Knox and Oscar Wenderoth in 1912, the building has been beautifully restored and is poised to serve as a jewelry center.
Located at 25 Southeast 2 Avenue

www.ingrahambuilding.com

REMINISCENCES OF THE SEVILLE’S MEDIEVAL CATHEDRAL
The Miami/News Freedom Tower was built in 1924-1925 according to a design plan by Schultze and Weaver, the Freedom Tower resembles the great Medieval cathedral in Seville, Spain with its iconic Giralda tower. The building was home to the Miami Daily News, the city’s first newspaper, until 1957. Five years later, the tower, now the possession of the United States government, reopened as a Cuban refugee assistance center. For the next twelve years, nearly 300,000 Cubans fleeing the Marxist dictatorship of Fidel Castro, received a wide variety of assistance in this beloved building. It remains a symbol and reality of freedom, and is among the city and county’s most beloved buildings.
Located at 600 North Biscayne Boulevard

www.mullinashley.com/PDF/Freedom.pdf

11.26.05
SAVE THE CONTEMPORARY ARTIST
by Febe Defelipe, artist

Baudelaire cursed God and Rimbaud swore he did not belong in this world. Andy Warhol believed that there was no salvation for his work, and Joseph Beuys thought the same was true about his mind.

The contemporary artists’ salvation comes at the hand of those few intermediaries, in between the artists’ work and the public, which exist and survive just like a species in danger of becoming extinct, while artists reproduce at a fast rate. And just as quickly, a whole lot of them are left behind along the way, like thousands of newborn turtles that scramble across the sand to reach the sea.

These strategists, who are saviors of communication in the art world, leaving out foundations, institutions, companies and acknowledgements for merit and blah, blah, blah…, can be placed within two main media powers. On the one hand, specialized magazines and on the other, international fairs, biennial exhibitions, among others.

What remains certain is that the people devoted to working with art don’t rely on mass media communication. The category of “super-star” artist does not exist. We don’t have stars in a hall of fame, or a Red Carpet, or anything remotely similar. Luis Vuitton, Stella McCartney and the Cartier Foundation just barely took the timid risk of lending their runways to a few privileged artists.

Publications
Going back to the publications in charge of exposing artists and cultural activities, the picture we have is clear to only a few of them, and too intricate for others. On one side there are those publications providing information, stating opinions and collaborating uninterestedly with the image and value of the work of art, thus helping its quotation on the market. On the opposite side, are those that live off the money they get from artists that couldn’t make a profit with their product and who end up paying for articles, ads and the like, in hope of something better coming along… and that is how they end up financing the media, for the tolerant approval of friends and relatives.

A great phrase of Andy Warhol’s comes to mind: “the day your family and friends can no longer gain access to your exhibition openings, you’ll have begun to be successful.” Cruel but true.

Fairs
The second group belongs to Fairs, another rung of salvation in the life of an artist. There are those fairs that promote artists for reasons of taste, likeability or an artist’s life work, which immediately become leaders in trends and prestige: Art Basel, Documenta … The art gallery directors participating in these fairs don’t feel the need - at the risk of suffering embarrassment - to exhibit the work of an artist they don’t believe in, just to pay for the spaces.

On the opposite side there are fairs that charge the artist per square meter of wall, floor, lighting, pamphlets and even for their mere presence.

These unmistakable relationships generate a dubious environment in which the general public ends up being the worst off, consuming the general artistic panorama in a confusing and unrealistic way, without really knowing if the great artist whose work is on display is no one but a mere lady showing us a collage made of a heap of earth and branches, reflecting the delirium of a mind without a future.

But that relative side to art can also teach us a lesson at certain times, such as the sudden transformation from that collage lady with her earth and branches, into a “respected artist”, which in the end continues to be what it always was: “a heap of branches and earth”.

Back in 1924 Andre Breton, as modern as the next man, told us: “The outer world seems to have a more and more suspicious nature”.

11.26.05
Collecting Art: A Leap of Faith
Interview: Guillermina Fanellie

Text: Natalie Boden

Photography: Andrés Hernández

“Not afraid of art” is written on a pin, a merchandising item at the bookstore of the Rubell Family Collection. Without a doubt, there is no better place for this saying than in this stylish reconverted 45,000-square-foot warehouse, devoted to some of the edgiest and most important works of contemporary art of the last 41 years. This interview reflects the passion and responsibility of a family devoted to preserving and transmitting their works of art to future generations.

Don Rubell, a 62-year-old, Brooklyn-born former obstetrician who met his future wife, Mera, in the Brooklyn College library in 1962, is stretched out on the couch in his huge library. They both regard it as being their favorite space; it’s that halfway territory between what is public and what is private. The Rubell family residence is annexed to the Collection, or we could say that the Collection, where the Rubell family receives over 1500 visitors on a weekly basis, is the residence’s great foyer.

Mera is in one of the 29 exhibition spaces observing the installation of Kara Walker’s
"Camptown Ladies", one of the works that is present during this edition of Art Basel Miami. She’s blissful. With that simplicity typical of someone who is at peace with what she has achieved in life, she greets me without really paying more attention to me than to the work that is being mounted. It’s obvious, she doesn’t need press.
The Rubell’s museum is located at 95 NW 29 Street in Wynwood. It once served as a Drug Enforcement Administration storage facility for cocaine and cash seized from drug dealers. The Rubells moved to the neighborhood about 13 years ago when just a few artists were living here and no developer was even considering the area for any sort of future development plans. Today Wynwood is the hippest art district in Miami,
Don and Mera Rubell began collecting art with a $50 investment in a piece found during a European summer vacation. After that, they established a $25 a month budget for collecting original art. Ten years later, they crossed an important benchmark as serious collectors when they invested in a painting by young Italian artist, Francesco Clemente.
Along the way, art has brought this family closer together. The children are now largely involved in the Collection. Daughter Jennifer, who earned an art history degree from Harvard before relocating to Miami in the mid-1990’s at the age of 25, works with her 31-year-old brother Jason, who earned an art history degree at Duke after launching his first art collection at the age of 14.
Today, the Rubell Art Collection comprises more than 20,000 pieces - addressing a number of important and controversial issues - by celebrated artists such as Keith Haring, Peter Halley, Damien Hirst, David Salle and Cindy Sherman, as well as important local talents such as 62-year-old African-American folk artist Purvis Young. The collection is a representation of every major influence in contemporary art over the last four decades. It includes paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, installations and videos.

It’s Saturday afternoon. The interview takes place in the library.
What is needed to become an art collector?

It’s a bit of magic…It’s a leap of faith, - declares Don.

Some people have a gene that commands them to acquire objects that are the treasures of our time. Don is such a person, - says Mera - For others like myself, collecting has ended up becoming a way of really explaining my life and explaining all the things I didn’t understand about it – more like a therapeutic and life-assisting journey.

What does it mean to be an art collector?

It’s a much-abused term. It’s a term that people give themselves too quickly. It’s a process. A very long process – answers Mera.

In Don’s words: On the one hand, by definition, you’re an art collector the day you buy your first art piece; on the other hand, maybe you’re not an art collector until the day you buy one more piece than you can hang on the wall. [Laughs] In essence, the day you purchase an object out of the sheer love of just having that object without any real plan as to what you are going to do with it, that is the moment you cross over to becoming a collector.

Do you define yourself as an art collector?

Yes, but we are not owners of this art, only of its physical existence: the universe that every one of these pieces creates in terms of thought, challenges and ideas, is out in the world at large: we’re just the keepers of the physical element.

How many pieces do you acquire every year?

We don’t have a quota. We never go out thinking we’re going to purchase a piece; there may have been a year that we didn’t find any. In fact, we were just in Berlin and we had decided not to buy any pieces, especially not from this particular artist (of whom we already have 14 pieces). We even had a meeting and discussed it and came to the final decision that we weren’t going to buy anything. And then when we arrived, we saw the most quintessential piece this artist has created, so there we were, what choice did we have?

Can you define Contemporary Art in your perspective?

The formal definition of modern art is art made after 1945 but that definition is now over 50 years old. All art starts out as contemporary art by definition, since there is always a now. Every artist was a contemporary artist in his time. No one was born an old master. If you’re interested in contemporary art you are saying that the moment in which you are alive has a place, as it relates to the past and as it relates to the future; that it’s not an invisible moment. So when we collect this art we are saying somehow that people will be interested in our moment. [Don chuckles saying that we are fooling ourselves because during some periods of time, there was art that did not exist or there could possibly be periods in which none of the art was relevant].

Is the art collector in fashion today?

It’s always been in fashion, reflects Mera. It’s a privilege and people like to associate themselves with this position of privilege but like all privileges it carries a tremendous responsibility.
Most people who have those ‘collector’ genes use them to isolate themselves from the world and their families. Their children grow to hate the objects. The collector can be an excluding individual. What makes Don different is that he puts out the proposition of the possibility of collaborating to the entire family.

Let’s speak about a particular case: Miami. In the last few years the art movement has become increasingly important in this city. New collectors, new galleries, new museums, new art fairs…and new neighborhoods dedicated exclusively to the arts. What do you think about this? Is it just a temporary movement or has the art scene arrived to stay?

Miami is a metropolis in motion. It’s a city in progress. It’s a truly contemporary city and a powerful intersection between North and South. You’ve got every country in South America represented here. Miami is sympathetic to art. Art needs support and infrastructure and right now Miami has those elements. We wouldn’t be able to do what we are doing here in Miami, in New York – a 45,000-square-foot space. We’re here for the same reasons the artists are here.

On that note, today there seems to be a big abyss between Miami’s community at large and the city’s cultural life. Miami is still ‘underdeveloped’ in this sense, so to speak, and the world still sees it more as a resort city than as a cultural destination.

Everyone seems to say the same thing, but we don’t feel it; we have a constant flow of visitors from a broad spectrum of different religions, races, sexual orientations – it’s not just a place for people who understand and collect art. The entire community comes here and they’re not all art collectors.

This year you are exhibiting ten Miami artists. What is the commonality?

They all deal with a journey, with a culture of movement, memorials to their family and friends that did not make the journey from Cuba or elsewhere, a sense of home that should be here but isn’t. So where is home? And how do you make a new home? These are the common threads that these Miami artists are dealing with.

What does Art Basel Miami mean for Miami?

Some of our favorite pieces are from Art Basel, where we have been going for 27 years. To encourage them to come here was a major victory and it created a huge opportunity for Europeans, South Americans and Americans to come together in Miami not only to buy art, but to have conversations about art. For an entire week, everyone is immersed in art. Because of Art Basel, Miami has become a major intersection within the whole artistic universe.

NEW EXHIBITIONS AT THE RUBELL FAMILY COLLECTION

During Art Basel –and until October 2006- visitors can view at the Rubell Family Collection eight new exhibitions curated by Mark Coetzee: Poles Apart
Contemporary Polish Art; Against All Odds, Keith Haring; Seriality; Jim Lambie; Andrea Lehmann; Norbert Schwontkowski; Andro Wekua; and Maurizio Cattelan.

11.28.05
Welcome to Art Basel Miami Beach
By Samuel Keller, Director of Art Basel

It gives us great pleasure to welcome artists and art aficionados from all over the world to the international art show in Miami. An exciting program of art-centered exhibitions and events awaits our visitors.

We would like to thank all those whose commitment and support contribute to the continuous success story of Art Basel Miami Beach. First and foremost, the over 1500 artists whose works surprise, challenge, and delight us. We are particularly grateful to the participating galleries for the trust they have placed in this art show and for their unsparing efforts to present artworks of the highest quality and diversity, such as can be seen and purchased nowhere else in the Americas. The daily work of galleries is a significant cultural contribution and a prime reason for the worldwide dissemination of contemporary art.

At the core of Art Basel Miami Beach are the exhibitions of the 195 galleries from North and Latin America, Europe, Asia, and South Africa, presenting works by established and emerging artists. Participants were carefully selected by an international jury of respected gallery owners.

We are introducing a new addition this year called Art Kabinett. Fifteen selected mini exhibitions staged in separate rooms of the booths of exhibitors in the Art Galleries section will offer everything from single-work presentations to solo exhibitions, homages, and curated group shows of both modern and contemporary art.

Art Basel Miami Beach will be the place to make discoveries. To that end, we have enlarged the Art Nova section to 52 galleries, each presenting new works by a maximum of three emerging artists. Many of today’s hottest galleries are participating in Art Nova. Our dedication to promoting young and new art continues with Art Positions, featuring 20 cutting-edge projects of young galleries in shipping containers converted into temporary beachfront art spaces. We are also installing the Art Sound Lounge there, with a curated program of music and audio artworks. New this year is the presentation of a daily performance program curated by Jens Hoffman of the ICA in London. A favorite with the public, Art Positions is where everybody gathers after sunset to listen to live performances by bands and DJs. In the streets linking the Miami Beach Convention Center and the Art Positions area, we are exhibiting public art projects. The Botanical Garden right across from Entrance D will be the location of the Art Video Lounge and the auditorium of the Art Basel Conversations. The conversations will be one of the week’s highlights and, together with the many receptions at Miami’s museums and art collections, provide an opportunity to meet leading art world personalities.

One of our missions is to connect the art scenes of Latin America with those of North America and Europe. We also hope to contribute to the promotion of contemporary art from and in Latin America. Serving as a cultural bridge between the hemispheres, Miami is the ideal place to host this new kind of art event in the multicultural setting of the Miami Beach Art Deco District. We are always delighted by the hospitality of South Florida’s art community, which warmly welcomes tens of thousands of participants and guests during the international art show. Our exciting program includes museum exhibitions, visits to private collections, panel discussions, book presentations, parties, and crossover events featuring music, film, fashion, and design. The goal is to provide visitors with the experience of discovering art while establishing stimulating relationships with others who share their passion for art.
We wish you exciting encounters and unforgettable experiences with art and the people who share your passion for it.