Art Basel Miami Beach week started this year with yesterday’s Design Miami opening. Swiss Messe, ABMB’s parent company, is part owner of DM and decided to let the little sister bow first. It made for a lively day at the fair, however some of the celebrities that fly into town just in time for the ABMB opening seemed to be missing. The only star spotting at DM — other than the band OK Go, which was performing at the fair — was Naomi Campbell, although we later crossed paths with Pharrell Williams at the opening for Friends With You’s new shop in the Miami Design District.
Last week we showed you pics from the Hernan Bas opening at the Brooklyn Museum, and even sat down to interview the artist. So you can imagine our eyebrows were raised when we came upon this loaded charge in Ken Johnson’s review of the retrospective in the New York Times:
“At 31, Mr. Bas, who lives in Miami, is an artist of modest achievement, his career so far more promising than accomplished. So why is he the subject of a big, splashy retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum? That the exhibition was organized by and first appeared (in 2007) at the Rubell Family Collection, a private museum in Miami where Don and Mera Rubell exhibit their holdings, raises some red flags concerning relations between public museums and private collectors.”
Gallerists and collectors came as far as from London, Los Angeles, and Miami to celebrate Hernan Bas: Works from the Rubell Family Collection at the Brooklyn Museum on Thursday night. Flavorpill’s Paul Laster was there to capture Bas’s friends and supporters on film. CLICK HERE to see a photo gallery of his night.
Hernan Bas recently bought a house in Detroit.During an interview at the opening of his solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum last night, the Miami native wouldn’t divulge much more than that.But, when asked about the trademark decadence of his work in relation to the imploding economy, Bas referenced a giant plastic panther that he keeps on his Detroit lawn.He smiled at the interviewer and asked “how fucking decadent is that?”
Because we can’t all escape from our desks to enjoy 72-degree weather and international contemporary art, Flavorpill’s resident guru Paul Laster will be bringing you daily bold-face name littered updates and photos from Art Basel Miami all week. If you missed the first two installments, read them here and here.
