[NB: It’s Art Basel week here in Miami, and I’m sorry if this blog post seems a bit rattled, but it’s been insane around here.]
1. First off, my “I’m Not Delusional Show” has been a fantastic success so far. What can I say? People love it. It’s not even the big weekend yet and we’ve been deluged. More than that, we’ve met some REALLY interesting people.
2. Visiting the more conventional parts of Art Basel earlier, it was certianly impressive, the scale was unbelievable, and gets more insane every year.
3. I came away, well, quite relieved I don’t really belong to that world, to be honest. Although there was a lot of different kinds of art on display (of course there frickin’ was), after five minutes even the good stuff started looking the same.
Like Malcolm Gladwell talked about in his latest book, It’s why the Impressionists decided not to join the French Salon, back in the Nineteenth Century. They would’ve have been were just another couple of snowflakes in the big art establishment blizzard.
“When others zig, zag” etc. Sounds like a good plan to me.
4. Instead, we had the show in the best co-working space in town, The Lab Miami. This meant instead of the dozen-or-so art works that would normally be allowed to be displayed in a traditional art fair booth, we have 300 pieces on display. 300! So people come in and they’re entirely overwhelmed with the work. It created a real art experience for them. And since it’s in the co-working space most associated with startup cuture in Miami, it was a contextual no-brainer. Of course my work belongs hanging in a place like that.
5. To be honest, even though we still have a few days left of this annual art fair insanity, I’m not even thinking that much about Art Basel any more. It’s a lot like SXSW, after the first 24 hours the brain turns to cornflakes. After 24 hours, it just doesn’t feel that meaningful or new.
6. And why should it? I’m already thinking about something way more interesting: How to use art to make the lives of entrepreneurs and businesses far more meaningful. To Hell with the art world, the business world is way, way more interesting. Life is short.
7. If you’re not in Miami and missed the show, here’s the gallery website where you can browse most of the stuff online (about a third of the work can only be seen live). Onward! Thanks.
