Context Saturday: Best day so far

We departed our beach hotel in Hollywood and will spend the next two nights in my cousin's fortress in Little Havana, as we have done for the last few years.

Different scent in the crowds at the Context Art Miami fair today; there are still loads of women as slim as rifles, and men in impossibly tight pants, but there are also a lot more folks at Context not to be seen, but to see the artwork.

Tim Vermeulen,me, Jodi Walsh and Georgia Nassikas

Saturday saw the sale of another Tim Vermeulen painting, two of my drawings, a major hook-up between Jodi Walsh and a NYC design firm, and Audrey Wilson got invited to participate in a curated show at Union College in upstate New York.

Context Friday: The collectors arrive

Large crowds at Context today and a different sense in the air... more purpose to the buyers.

We had multiple sales today at the Context Art Fair... both my large mixed media videos found homes, as well as several drawings, plus three oil paintings by Tim Vermeulen and a wall sculpture by Elissa Farrow Savos.

Also some visits by DMV artists doing some of the other fairs.

The curious case of Fidel Castro and La Quinceañera

Yesterday at the Context Art Miami fair, one of the cleaning ladies was nearby our booth and speaking on her cell phone using the machine gun steccato of Cuban Spanish that drives other Spanish speakers crazy.

"Cubans," once wrote the Argentinian writer Jacobo Timerman, "use Spanish as a weapon."

I could tell that she was trying to calm someone down on the other side of the conversation. When she hung up, she burst into tears.

Alarmed, I walked up to her and asked what was wrong. Prior to this event, we had exchanged pleasantries and she had told me that her family was from Matanzas. With tears on her face, she related that she had been speaking with her niece in Cuba.

It seems that her niece was in the middle of her Quinceañera party when the Cuban police showed up.

A Quinceañera party is the coming of age party that Cuban girls, and girls throughout Latin America celebrate on their 15th birthday. It remains one of the most important and strongest traditions of the Spanish-speaking world.

In Cuba, because of the extreme necessities of the Cuban people, setting up a Quinceañera party often takes years of preparation, usually in close coordination with relatives in other countries who can hand-carry and bring the required items needed to stage the most important social event in a young girl's life.

In this case, the teary cleaning lady told me that she had made half a dozen trips in the last two years binging party items, shoes, dress, candy, stockings; the list went on and on as she sobbed.

The local police showed up to the party, and informed the family that they were in violation of the official nine days of luto (mourning) for the death of Fidel Castro Ruz; parties and music-playing was strictly forbidden.

All guests' names were taken down and all were ordered to leave. When La Quinceañera's mother began to cry and complain to the police, she was pushed to the ground and punched in the mouth. When La Quinceañera's father tried to help his wife, he was also beaten and then arrested.

That's why this nice cleaning lady was trying to calm her abused family members across the miles, and then broke down once she hung up.

"Even after that desgraciado is dead, he's still abusing us," she sobbed in Spanish. I hugged her, and we cried a little together.

That's Cuba after Fidel, week one.

Context Day Two

Brutal drive to Wynwood to get to the art fairs - that needs to be fixed... how? see this.

Bit of a slow day, as all dealers seem to be commenting about how the separation of Context Art Miami from its sister megafair Art Miami has/will affect Context.

Personally I think that Context has begun to outshine its elder sister - not just me, but loads of collectors have expressed similar views; only time will tell.

With Audrey at the wheel of the huge cargo van, we arrived just in time after spending nearly an hour to go the last 2-3 blocks in Wynwood. By eleven AM we were set.

I strolled a little and spent some time speaking to Ciara Gibbons from Gibbons & Nicholas, a wonderful Irish gallery with a powerfully curated booth dealing with socially inquisitive artwork that addresses the worldwide problem of mass migrations. It would be good to see that artwork and those Irish artists in a DMV museum... very appropriate to these interesting times.

In the late afternoon we finally broke the ice and sold one of my drawings to a nice French couple from Miami Beach; it was soon followed by a sale of one of the very talented Georgia Nassikas to a Miami couple.

Later on the day there was a sports celebrity sighting in the booth, as legendary golfer Phil Mickelson and his wife dropped by the booth, took notes and pictures and admired some work... more on that later.

As the fair closed at 8PM, as we were packing we spent 45 minutes with a last minute collector who ended up buying two of my drawings and commissioning three more.

Day two done.

Artomatic is coming back on 2017!

 

Building on a partnership that started in 2007, Artomatic will return to Crystal City

to host a signature event in the spring of 2017. They anticipate attracting a large and diverse crowd showcasing a variety of creative work, including visual art, music, film, live performance, fashion, and more.

 

Look for more information about the next Artomatic in January when they kick off the New Year with a spring event in Crystal City!

The curious case of the Miami Art fair week, Wynwood, and traffic

There is a certain connection that exists between the success and survival of big events, the hosting city, people, businesses and traffic.

Make it hard for people to get to a concert venue, and they won't go. Make it difficult for people to get to a sporting event, and they'll stay home and watch it on TV.

Make it impossible for people to drive to art fairs during ABMB and they will not go to the fairs.

The cities of Miami and Miami Beach have a cash cow going on with the explosion of the Art Basel week of art fairs. By my unofficial count, there are no less than 26 art fairs going on around the Greater Miami area, plus countless side art events, plus museum parties, etc. They generate a lot of business for the local area, a lot of tax revenue for the cities and a lot of good stuff for Miamians.

And all that is in extremis if the cities (and the fairs) do not do a better job of traffic management.

"All they need is some police presence guiding and directing traffic!" noted the exasperated Uber driver. "Just like they do for concerts or football games; you never see this kind of traffic nightmare in those cases... why?... because the friggin' cops are on the corners directing traffic!"

I suspect that in those cases, the events/venues have a contract with the local police force, so that they pay a fee to get the traffic coverage. For the last two nights in Wynwood, traffic has been a nightmare, often taking over an hour to move one traffic light. I hear that in Miami Beach it is even worse.

Unless resolved, this is going to kill the fairs in Miami and Miami Beach. We've already heard complaints over the last years - this year has been the worst. "You can't get an Uber or a Lyft," noted an exasperated collector via text last night. "They can't get in the area!"

This has to be fixed.

All the Wynwood art fairs, and all the Miami Beach art fairs needs to get together and arrange for police support during the art fairs - there hasn't been any for the first day or two...this is not just advice, but a must do unless they see the traffic jams kill attendance and thus infect the subsequent death of the fairs. You never want to hear: "I used to go to the fairs, but now it's impossible to even get in... so..."

Art fairs are run by business entities; not artists - if this issue is this clear to most attendees and most exhibitors (who also have to get to the fairs in and out), then they must also be clear to the most casual observer.

Miami/Miami Beach: Fix the traffic jams, or the fairs will die off. 

Update: On Wednesday and Thursday night cops magically appeared (at least in Wynwood) and traffic improved significantly - it's still packed, but at least moving a little!