After 10 years of relentless growth, the trend for Miami’s annual art week is now pretty clear: Art Basel Miami Beach, the main fair, will remain the blue-chip stronghold where the art and artists are recognizable and high-priced, while the satellite fairs offer the real opportunities to find—and buy—work by fresher new artists at prices that don’t approach the cost of a suburban family home.
At the same time, the number of VIP cocktail receptions and parties, not to mention artists’ commissions by Absolut Vodka and other luxury brands, is exploding. It is easy to be cynical about corporate sponsorship, but it may represent a new form of patronage for artists looking to realize ambitious interactive, frequently free, public installations. And who can argue with that?
The move beyond the big top of Art Basel Miami Beach has been happening for some time now, though its full implications are rarely signposted in the media. Nada, Design/Miami, Art Miami, Pulse, Scope, and newcomer Untitled are fairs of genuine significance and substance and, frankly, provide a more leisurely and relaxed experience away from the crush of visitors at Art Basel. The dealers there tend to have more time to chat about art and artists and make private recommendations on what to see.
I want to support that trend because diversity is what provides real engagement in the art world. The big fairs pull in the prominent collectors who make the multimillion-dollar deals, but the art world is more than that. It is textured, nuanced, layered in ways that are on abundant display— if fairgoers are willing to pay close attention.
Indeed, part of the evolution and success of the satellite fairs in Miami, and probably elsewhere, has been a widespread desire for the different: The bland uniformity of art, artists, and galleries at the big, branded fairs can be deadening. When everything looks the same, nothing really stands out.
The reality is that galleries showing in the satellite fairs often do so because they are priced out of the main event. As sales determine a fair’s success in the eyes of its stakeholders, that may never shift. But art world diversity spreads more than a patina of opportunities. These new, smaller fairs bring fresh air and energy to the sometimes lackluster establishment experience.
This Editor's Letter appears in the December 2013 issue of Art+Auction.
