Art Basel 2018 reviewed

My review of Art Basel week 2018 and recommendations on how to navigate the art fairs have been published in Gansevoort Magazine in New York.

Read it online here.

A tree fell in exile

Four years ago my father died on this day... here's my eulogy from two years ago:

"Hoy se ha caido otro roble en la selva del amargo exilio" is how I always thought that my father's eulogy would begin once he died.

"Today another oak falls in the jungle of bitter exile," began the eulogy for the man whose bloodlines my children and I carry on.

Florencio Campello Alonso died today at age 90 in Miami, the heart of the bitter Cuban Diaspora. Like many Cubans of his generation, he was the son of European immigrants to Cuba. His Galician parents left the scraggy mountains of northern Spain's ancient Celtic kingdom and in the first decade of the 1900s migrated to the new nation of Cuba upon its liberation from Spain.

Galicians have always been uneasy subjects of the Spanish crown, stubbornly hanging on to their ancient Celtic traditions, to their own language and to their bagpipes, so it is no historical surprise that they left their mountain homelands en-masse and headed to the new tropical paradise of Cuba, free from the heavy hand of the Spanish monarchy.

And thus it was never a surprise to me that my father was both a fighter against heavy-handed rulers, a lover of freedom, and one who was never afraid to re-start a life for the better, even if it involved discarding the old. 

My father could have been one of the privileged few who currently rule  atop the food chain of Cuba's Workers' Paradise. But instead of accepting the benefits of oppression, this most valiant of men chose the harsh path of right over wrong.

And he paid for it dearly (he spent years in Concentration Camps), but when he died, his soul was clean.

In his youth, my dad worked the brutal hours of the son of an immigrant who was slowly building a small financial empire in eastern Cuba. My father was pulled from school as soon as he learned to read and write, and like his two other brothers and eight sisters, he was expected to work and contribute to building a familial empire.

And he did, as my mother relates the stories of my father's childhood in the fields of eastern Cuba, a blond creole in a land of jingoist natives... he trying to out-Cuban the "real Cubans"... how he organized a labor union of the exploited Haitians who worked almost as slaves at the Los Canos Sugar Mill, how he joined a group of bearded rebels in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra in the fight against a tyrant, how he ran for the leadership of the Sugar Workers' Union and beat the Communists to the post, and how he spent years in a Castro Concentration Camp, jailed for the crime of refusing to join the Party, because he believed in Democracy and not Communism. 

And because of that stubbornness, in the 1960s he was offered the bitter pill of exile, and this brave man decided to choose family... and left his birth place, and thus became another immigrant within two familial generations and brought his wife and child to another new land.

And it is to him that I owe the greatest gift that a father can give a son: the opportunity to grow in freedom in the greatest nation in the history of this planet.

It is because of my father's courage that I was raised in this country and not in a land bloodied by brutality and oppression.

It is because of my father's teachings that I was raised with the conviction that freedom is not free and never to be taken for granted; after all, he fought for freedom and then Castro, the man who inspired  the fight, ended up being a worse dictator, eventually destroying all notions of freedom for all of his people.

It is because of my father that I was taught that every citizen owes his  nation some form of service, and that's the main reason that I signed (at age 17) to serve in the US Navy.

It is because of my father that I despise anyone who hides behind the mask of victimism to excuse failures and shortcomings.

When our family arrived in New York in the 1960s, my father began to work in a factory three days after he landed at the airport; my mother (who came from a privileged Cuban family and had never worked a day in her life) found a job as a seamstress five days later. That pattern was repeated for decades as they worked their way in a new nation.

"We thought we'd be back within a few years," was the answer given to me when I once asked the question about leaving their birthplace. When that didn't materialize, they became fierce Americans in the "United States of Americans" sense... these were the "America None Better!" set of immigrants, and in my Dad's case, you better be ready to fight if you dissed the USA.

"Americans"!

Always a fighter he was... and always for the right reasons.

Cubans are archaic immigrants... we love this great nation because we  recognize its singular and unique greatness; perhaps it is because our forebears had the same chance at greatness and blew it.

And my Dad loved this nation even more than he once loved Cuba... perhaps it is the genetic disposition of the serial immigrant. After all, his father had left his own ancient Celtic lands and kin for a new land... which he learned to love dearly.

My father always wanted to make sure that I knew that I was an "Americano" and not another forced-on label.

"Labels," he'd say, "are just a way to separate people."

By labels he meant "Hispanic" or "Latino" or anything with a "-" between two ethnic words.

I also remember as a kid in New York, when he bought a huge Hi-Fi record player-color-TV console... that thing was huge. He bought it "lay-away" and he'd pay $10 a week to the store and him and I would walk all the way from our house on Sackman Street to the store on Pitkin Avenue to make the payments every Saturday - he never missed a single payment, and that taught me a lesson.

It was soon playing my Dad's favorite music, which oddly enough was Mexican music (Cuban music was a close second)... and he knew all the words to every charro song.

Guadalajara en un llano, Mejico en una laguna... 
Guadalajara en un llano, Mejico en una laguna...Me he de comer esa tunaMe he de comer esa tuna.... aunque me espine la mano.

That Jorge Negrete song... being shouted often on weekends at the top of his lungs from our apartment in a mostly Italian neighborhood in East New York in Brooklyn must have raised some eyebrows.

My dad and I watched Neil Armstrong land on the moon on that TV set... we also watched loads of Mets games... and in 1969 and 1972 went to Shea Stadium to see the Mets win in '69 and lose in '72. He really loved baseball and he really loved those Mets!

When I joined the Navy at age 17, my first duty station was USS SARATOGA, which at the time was stationed in Mayport in Florida, so my Dad decided to migrate south to Florida and moved to Miami... just to be close to me.

He and my mother spent the next 40 years in the same apartment while I was stationed all over the world.

When I visited him today in Miami, he looked good and freshly shaven... this is a good thing, as my father was a freak about hygiene... and that's a common "creole" trait.

The Hospice nurse almost teared up when I told her that my parents have been married for 60 years.

I looked at this old "gallego"... his skin as white as paper, his eyes as blue as the sky, and his head (once full of blond hair) as bald and shiny as the old Cuban sing song ("Mira la Luna, mira al Sol... mira la calva de ese.....") and I saw the generations of Neanderthals, Denisovans and Gallego Homo Sapiens that led to my bloodlines... the generations of fighters, of strugglers, and of tough guys who didn't take no for an answer and who made a better place for others. 

And I felt at peace and grateful.

And as my father died tonight, after an extubation,  all that I can think  to say to him is "Thank you for your courage... from me, and from my children... and soon from their children. You opened a whole new world for them."

I love you Dad... Un Abrazo Fuerte! Thank you for your gifts to me and my children and it is no coincidence that you died on El Dia de Los Reyes.

Opportunity for Mid Atlantic Artists

Deadline: March 25, 2019. 

The Arlington Arts Center has announced a call for submissions for a new regional biennial, which will take place for the first time in the fall of 2019. 

Featuring work by artists from across the Mid-Atlantic, the exhibition will explore current material and conceptual trends with a focus on work that "addresses the concerns of the present moment, whether political, cultural, personal, economic, artistic, or all of the above." 

The exhibition and accompanying programming will include artists at various stages of their careers, with an eye towards exhibiting work by young and emerging artists alongside groundbreaking new work by artists with longstanding connections to the region and its art scenes. 

The exhibition will be curated by Blair Murphy, AAC Curator of Exhibitions. 

Notification Date: June, 2019. 

Exhibition Dates: September 21 – December 14, 2019. 

Submit an application here.

From 1978!

Holy 1978! 

These two paintings apparently were sold at auction this past June. They were done when I was at art school at the University of Washington in Seattle. I remember that I got a C- for them, and was reprimanded for "writing on my paintings, especially in a foreign language..." 

I sold them a week later at the Pike Place Market for $25 each to a Cuban-American airline attendant who used to fly into Seattle often... they then disappeared for 40 years! 

The verses are by Jose Marti

You can see the auction details here and here.

Art Scam Alert!

Beware of this rat trying to rip off artists:

lingxuan8429206 --- lingxuan8429206@163.com

Dear Sir/Madam,

We are an import and export company from China. There are 160 villas that need supporting works of art. We look up your company's information online and ask about it. Please let us know more about the order. The most important thing is the artwork. Collection value, such as quotation, packing method, mode of shipment and payment.

Best blessing

Simon

TEL:+86  17173760327

Campello at auction

This is a steal at a starting bid of $35! Original framed Campello drawing from 1996 being sold by someone on Ebay!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/143065365902?ul_noapp=true

A Christmas Eve story from 2015

This is from Christmas Eve 2015:

Those of you who know me... know that I am not a what would be described as an overly religious person; that's not a disclaimer, but a fact. 

I went to a Catholic elementary school (Our Lady of Loretto in Brooklyn), but my family was also not religious at all. 

For 2015, we wanted to get Anderson an outdoor basketball hoop. As there are dozens of them around our neighborhood, we asked our neighbors if anyone wanted to pass one on, and one of our generous neighbors did. 

"We actually inherited the hoop from another neighbor," they said, "And our kids have moved on." 

As the hoop was going to be a Christmas present from Santa, and in order to sneak it into our yard at the last possible minute, last night, around 8PM, I trekked to their house, about a quarter of a mile away, preparing to drag the hoop over to our house. 

I vastly under estimated the weight of the hoop (pole, base and backboard), which has small wheels at the front of its base to allow for relocation movement, but clearly not designed to be dragged by one man for that long of a distance. 

About five minutes into the ordeal, and already soaked in sweat and breathing heavily, as I passed one of the light poles on the street heading to our street, I was startled by my own shadow. 

My shadow, stooped over and carrying the heavy basketball hoop, with the backboard on my shoulders and the pole dragging behind me, startled me because it looked exactly like a man carrying a cross. 

"I wonder what any neighbor who sees this from their house would think," I thought. In the dark of the night, with just some peripheral light from the light poles, it would be easy to confuse me with some zealous penitent carrying a cross. 

I struggled on, my shoulders really aching now, and my sweat pouring from my brow, and my baseball cap being crushed into my eyes by the backboard, so that I had to stop and take my glasses off, and re-adjust the red Nats cap.. 

As I stopped and lost the momentum, and I was on a slight uphill, it became really hard to get the hoop going again. 

"What I need now is a Simon to help me," I thought. The "Simon" being Simon of Cyrene, of course... the man who according to the Bible helped The Christ to carry the cross. 

Almost immediately a tall, gangly, dark-haired young man stepped out of the shadows, his hair full of tight black curls. 

"Sir," he said, "Can I help you carry that?" 

"Thank you!" I almost shouted as he put his shoulder to the backboard and together we trudged along; the task a lot easier now. 

"I really appreciate it," I told him as we carried the hoop side by side. "This is for my son," I explained. "Do you live around here?" 

He told me that he was a visitor, and was visiting his girlfriend, who lived in our neighborhood. 

We carried the hoop to our cul-de-sac, placed it in the right spot, and shook hands. 

"Thank you a million times," I said to him. "My name is Lenny, Merry Christmas." 

"My name is Simon," he responded as he walked away into the shadows..."Merry Christmas." 

I walked back into my house, soaked in sweat and breathing heavily, and then, and only then, it dawned on me.

Opportunity for art students!

VIEW MORE INFO
APPLY TO THIS CALL

Fee: $0.00
Event Dates: 2/17/2019 - 3/3/2019
Entry Deadline: 1/15/19

68th ANNUAL UNDERGRADUATE ART EXHIBITION

Bowling Green State University School of Art cordially invites all eligible undergraduate art students to submit work produced in courses taken at the School of Art for the 2019 Undergraduate Student Art Exhibition.

This exhibition is open to all freshman, sophomore and junior students who have been formally admitted to the University in a degree-seeking program, and who have been enrolled in the School of Art between Summer 2018 and Spring 2019. Senior art students not participating in the 2019 BFA Senior Thesis Exhibition are also eligible.

Students may enter work, not previously shown at BGSU, that was made within the past two years in an art course under the supervision of a BGSU School of Art faculty member. Long-term projects or works-in-progress will not be shown. Work of extraordinary dimensions or requiring special equipment or space may be rejected due to Gallery limitations.

King Kong

Art forgeries....

Art forgeries of African American artists on the rise...

Rosenfeld says he first started to see forgeries of work by artists such as Lawrence, Bearden and Horace Pippin “20 to 30 years ago”, when their works first started to appear on the secondary market. 

See Art Newspaper expose here.

Call for art donations

VIEW MORE INFO
APPLY TO THIS CALL

Event Dates: 3/2/2019 - 3/23/2019
Entry Deadline: 2/6/19 

Cash awards and a chance to be featured in future Exhibits 

Studio Channel Islands, a 501c 3 non-profit organization, is seeking submissions of artwork to be DONATED. Out of the donated pieces our juror will go through a selection process to choose accepted works. (Note: If you enter more than one piece, each piece may be accepted) the accepted pieces will participate in a month-long exhibit closing with our annual Collectors Choice Fundraising Event at The Blackboard Gallery in Camarillo CA.

18 year old destroys artwork at Denver Museum

Eighteen-year-old Jake Siebenlist was arrested Sunday after going on an art-smashing rampage at the Denver Art Museum (DAM). 

Read the report here. 

New artwork added to the collection

On Saturday we (as we normally do each year) visited the open studios around Mt. Rainier and while at the Washington Glass School picked up some great original fine art glass by Debbi LoCicero and a cool outsider sculpture by Max DeMulder.

Anderson hypnotized by one of Tim Tate's sculptures

Anderson and Tate

My new sculpture by Max de Mulder and a new wall sculpture

Another great open studio tomorrow!

Please join Pat Goslee, Mei Mei Chang and Kathryn McDonnell for a holiday art sale and party. Come by for wine, hot cider and light refreshments to celebrate the season.

1-5 pm 
Sunday December 16th, 2018

29 King's Court SE, #6

Washington, D.C. 20003

Buy art for Christmas!

This Saturday is Washington Glass School's Annual Open House and Holiday Party is tomorrow! 

12-5 PM

Come on down if you get the chance. Tons of great art glass for sale and lots of new classes to sign up for.

And the best part is that there are a LOT of other open studios within walking distance! Check out the map! If you click on it - it expands!

I always manage to pick up a few pieces of original art to give away as Christmas presents and/or to keep.

See ya there!

New MSAC Creativity Grant!

The purpose of the new MSAC Creativity Grant Program is to strengthen the vitality and sustainability of artists and small organizations to maintain a strong and stable arts infrastructure in the State of Maryland. 

The Creativity Grant also provides opportunities to serve the growing needs of relevant arts projects and collaborations within Maryland communities.

 

For more information regarding eligibility and funding timelines, please review the Creativity Grants Guidelines. 

Another one bites the dust!

Thank you for submitting an application for the 2019 S&R Washington Award. We received over 600 applications from artists around the world, which made the decision process very difficult. 

We regret to inform you that you have not been selected as one of the 2019 winners of the Washington Award. We hope that this does not discourage you from reapplying in the future. Please note, because of the number of applicants this year, we are unable to give feedback regarding individual applications. 

On behalf of everyone at S&R Foundation, we want to thank you for your time and effort in submitting an application. We wish you continued success in your future artistic endeavors. 

All the best, 

S&R Foundation team 

Call for Drawings

No entry fee!

A Contemporary Drawing Exhibition

GALLERY:  The Downtown Gallery is located in downtown Kokomo. The gallery displays artwork by students, faculty, alumni and local, regional and national artists throughout the year.

ELIGIBILITY:  This juried exhibition is open to all artists over the age of 18, who reside in the United States.  Any form of contemporary drawing is accepted. All work must be original and completed in the last two years. All work must be accurately represented in jpeg images.  Work not meeting these criteria will not be exhibited.

PRESENTATION:  Professional presentation of each piece is required. 2D artwork must be framed and have a secure way to hang the piece if it requires hanging. For canvases, the sides and all staples must be covered.  Sculptures should be fully assembled and structurally sound and include detailed installation instructions, if necessary. 

ENTRY:  All entries must be made through the CaFE website.  All entries will be chosen from high-resolution (300dpi) jpeg images.  Files not to exceed 5MB. For 3D works only, a second detail photo may be uploaded.  The gallery reserves the right to reproduce images accepted into the show for promoting and archiving the exhibition. Due to a generous donor, there will not be a fee required for entry. Questions should be directed to ugallery@iuk.edu subject line “A Contemporary Drawing Exhibition”.

DELIVERY and PICK-UP:  Delivery and pick-up of artwork will be the responsibility of the artist.  The artist may choose to either personally drop-off and pick-up the work during gallery hours or ship their work to the gallery.  It is the artist’s responsibility to send any shipped artwork in a sturdy, reusable box with a PREPAID return shipping label inside.  Any work not picked up 30 days after the end of the show will become the property of the Indiana University Kokomo Downtown Gallery.

IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER:

·         Entries due: 12/29/2018

·         Notifications to artist on or before: 1/5/2019

·         Delivery of Artwork: 1/16/2019-1/19/2019, (during gallery hours)

·         Exhibition Dates: 2/1/2019-2/21/2019

·         Opening Reception: 2/1/2019 5:30pm-8:00pm

·         Pick-up Artwork: 2/22, 2/23, 2/27, 2/28/2019 (during gallery hours)

GALLERY INFO:

HOURS:                Wednesday: 11:30am – 5:30pm

                              Thursday: 12:30pm-6:30pm

                              Friday: 11:30am-5:30pm

                              Saturday: 12:30pm-6:30pm

Email Address: ugallery@iuk.edu
Subject line: A Contemporary Drawing Exhibition

 Address for drop off:
                                   102 N. Main St.
                                    Kokomo, IN 46901
Address for mail delivery:
                                         Indiana University Kokomo
                                          ATTN: The Downtown Gallery
                                             2300 S. Washington St.
                                                Kokomo, IN 46902    

Art Scam Alert!

Beware of this scammer:

Henderson Ronald hendersonronald73@gmail.com

Mon 12/10/2018, 3:59 PM

Hello, This message is to make inquiry on the question below: Do you accept credit card for payment(my U.S.A Master and Visa card to be precise)? Kindly let me know your comments on these, before i send the items i am interested in purchasing from you. Though i already know of a freight forwarder that will pick my packages from you, since they ship lesser than any other courier and they are so effective in shipping my goods to me here in Victoria , Australia is estimated to be (2-3 days) I have used there service in the past and it was splendid Henderson

Art Basel Miami Week

I've put all my daily reports into one post for easy reading!

December 1, 2018

The art fair opens on Tuesday for the VIP preview and then on Wednesday to the public...

Arrived today and relax ops for the day as the work starts tomorrow...

December 2, 2018

Today LBK and Audrey Wilson, the key elements of the Alida Anderson Art Projects team in Miami's "big dance" of the art world, woke up early and by 8AM were at the marshaling yard for the Art Miami and Context Art Miami fairs.

By the time I got there around 10AM, the artwork had been unloaded and delivered to our two spaces at C321 and C322.

Booth C321 at Context Art Fair - the beginning

Soon the unpacking and hanging of the work begins, and the two begin the time consuming task of installation!

Konopinski and Wilson installing Erwin Timmers' latest piece

A few, exhausting hours later - the booth (this is C322) is beginning to look quite a bit, almost ready...

Next is the art of putting the labels up. It wasn't that many years ago that foofy galleries would not put up any labels for artwork, as the idea being pushed was that true art was too special to be addressed or commodified by something as crass as a label that gives you the basic information of the piece (title, artist, media and price).

That has essentially become a thing of the past.

We headed back to the hotel room, except for LBK, who still had a lot of work to do with the artists from the Scope Art Fair, which she's assisting as well!

December 3, 2018


Since we've done so much so far, and installations for Context Art Miami is moving forward well, today is a lazy start, and everyone hit the beach across from the hotel (Hollywood Beach) for a few hours in the sun.

By two o'clock, we're all back at work, installing work, labeling work, etc. Artists J. Jordan Bruns, jet-lagged and bleary-eyed, but smiling, arrives from Japan and begins to hang his work. A little later, New York painter Matthew Langley also arrives and begins the process - and it is a process which Langley has developed - to hang his grid of paintings - and the second booth begins to look good!

Across the aisle, LBK begins to unpack the pedestals and her work that goes on it.

Meanwhile Audrey Wilson is up on the ladder, laboriously adding the tedious and precise task of adding the artists' names to the walls.

A bit later, the fair director walks by, and let's me know that the names need to be removed, as the fair does not allow them.

Puzzled, I remind him that I had sent an email several weeks ago, asking if it was allowed, and had an email from the fair management telling me that it was OK to put artist names on the wall. It is his turn for him to look puzzled, and I tell him that I will find the email and send it to him.

I do this, and find him again - I let him know that I am willing to take the names down, if it is such a big deal, but I need to know now - rather than later, as Audrey is still up on a ladder putting names up.

A little later, Audrey finishes putting the names up.

Just after that we get the official notice that the names have to come down.

Audrey goes back up the ladder and names begin to come down and about $200 is wasted in the process.

Years ago I learned that one shouldn't waste time fuming over things which cannot be changed or controlled, so we move on.

But this isn't the biggest set back of the day.

Later that night, the box containing two of Wilson's three pieces at the fair, which she shipped from her school (Kent State) have arrived at the hotel, and Audrey unpacks them in her room, to get them ready to be hung on Tuesday.

To everyone's dismay, the pieces have been seriously damaged during the shipping process.

Like the professional that she is, Audrey hits the road looking for replacement parts for her complex piece, which marries electricity, found objects, cast glass, neon gas and blown glass.

She returns disappointed ("the hot shop sucks", she notes), but armed with some supplies and  soon her and LBK and furiously working on repairing one of the two pieces.

The two work late into the night, and the morning of Tuesday, to rebuild one of the two damaged works - the other will have to wait for a visit to a lighting warehouse in Miami on Tuesday.

Tomorrow DMV area painter Tim Vermeulen arrives, sets up his wall, and we should be ready for the VIP opening at 4:30 PM.

December 4, 2018


The VIP opening took place tonight - started at a little bit before 4:30 for the illuminati, and at 4:30 for the "super" VIPs, and at 5:30 for the VIPs, which is essentially anyone in Miami with a relative showing at any of the many Art Basel week fairs in the very moist and warm Greater Miami area.

We showed up at out booth around 1PM, just to make sure all the loose ends were tightened up.

DMV uberartist Tim Vermeulen drove straight from the DMV and set up his wall on the second booth and all of a sudden, both booths were done!

And then the crowds arrived...

Including the "interesting" and "artsy" people in the crowd...

And there were a lot of photos being taken...

The opening night ended at 10PM, and after all those hours on our feet... and having seen and met many DMV area VIPs (such as uberartist Tim Tate, who is showing in several Miami art fairs this week)... multiple art dealers with sore feet headed to their temporary Miami rest places... the "real" fair opens tomorrow.

December 5, 2018

The Context Art Miami art fair opened to the general public today, as the illuminati and VIP holders had their night last night. I arrived a little early and walked the fair... below are some of my faves so far:

The DMV's uberartist Tim Tate also knocks this technology into new dimensions... below are his works at Context, right next to a Banksy piece!

Rolf Ohst's works with Munich's Galerie Benjamin Eck also stands out, not just because of the artist's spectacular mastery of hyper realism, but also his subject matter of big, beautiful women.

David Kassan's portrait of Raya Kovensky also caught my eye - not just for the gace and elegance of the subject, and the mastery of the artist, but also by the oversized hands. Kassan has legendary skill, which is evident in this work.

Also at Gallert Henoch, I loved Eric Zener's Cradle - one can feel the power of this dive, and the spectacular blue punches the solar plexus of the mind as much as the diver's punch of the water surface.

Ten Contemporary was full of great work, but I was particularly taken by the sculptures of Max Leiva.

I've admired Scott Scheidly for a long time now... and he's really delivered some brilliant new paintings to this fair - with really good price points - As it has been the case for the last couple of years, the Trumpinator is all over the fair, the subject of many artists... but no one does DJT better than Scheidly... note the tiny hands.

The Galician mass murderer and suffocater of the Cuban people also makes an appearance in Scheidly's talented universe in a memorable new depiction of Castro.

More works by this brilliant artist, apparently obsessed by Republican presidents:

This gallery (Art Spoke) also has a series of outstanding and more intimate paintings by Scott Listfield, where an astronaut is the central figure in a series of somewhat unusual settings - The Trumpinator makes an appearance there as well.

I think that Spoke Art should really look at the work of DC area artist F. Lennox Campello - he would really fit in this stable of artists!

When I first saw the below sculpture from far, I thought it was a new work by the DMV's Mark Jenkins...

It wasn't...

I also liked these sculptures being showcased by Paris' Nil Gallery... no labels, so no idea who this artist is... there's a lesson there.

Opening time was getting close and I ran out of time in my walkthrough of Context, but not before I came across this painterly display of talent by Rafel Bestard from Catalonia's Galeria Contrast.

We are next to Miami's Projects Gallery, which is showcasing its "Janis Project", which has been to more cities than I can recall! Some really excellent work by Frank Hyder!

And here's the artist (Frank Hyder) with the "real" Janis... DMV uberartist Michael Janis!

More as time permits over the next few days...

December 6, 2018


Halfway there...

Traffic to Context Art Miami has been really good - it is clear that the management listened to last year's signage issues, and now visitors know how to get to and from Art Miami to Context Art Miami.

A BZ to the Art Miami management for that.

After almost a decade and a half of doing art fairs, my experience has been that most art fair managers think they know what's "best" and seldom listen to the feedback from the galleries, which they so furiously seek! Good examples of that has been the prodigious down spiral of Scope, Pulse and others...  and the same prodigious recovery of those same fairs - once they started listening to the constructive criticism and feedback.

How are sales?

I have no idea how other galleries are doing, but in the seven years that I have been doing this art fair, and the dozen+ years that we've been coming down to Miami for Art Basel week (#artbaselmiami), the triad of Friday, Saturday and Sunday is when the majority of the sales of art take place.

So far, we have sold a few works - including a cool Batman video piece from my "Naked Superheroes" series.

And lots of fair goers are still loving life as part of my interactive video piece Your Portrait in a Gallery of Portraits.

Anyway... today I sold a 2009 drawing, a recent Frida drawing and the Batman video piece... so feeling cool and OK.

Also yesterday I got a GIANT commission to do an interactive video piece for a new building in McLean (thanks Paula).

Erwin Timmers (co-founder of the Washington Glass School) also got a commission to "re-do" this piece, but with red glass instead of clear glass... cough, cough...

December 7, 2018

Friday is usually the beginning of when the photo-takers and collectors begin to flow back and buy art.

A first happened yesterday and was closed today: We actually made an Artsy-aided sale!

Here's how it breaks down...

Last night, late into the night, as the beach wind whistled past my fifth floor windows at the Hollywood Towers in Hallandale Beach (or are we in Fort Lauderdale Beach?), I got an email from Artsy.

---- Please Respond Above This Line -----

Hi, I’m interested in purchasing this work immediately. I saw it at Art Basel this afternoon and fell in love with it.  Please contact me at 561-XXX-XXXX as soon as possible so I may purchase it.  Thank you So much! About this collector: XXXXXXX has been an Artsy member since December 2018. This artwork is on view at CONTEXT Art Miami 2018 through Dec 9. F. Lennox Campello Daphne II, 2018  Charcoal and Conte on Paper  Contact For Price This is an inquiry sent through Artsy regarding interest in the work “Daphne II” (2018) by F. Lennox Campello. Please respond to this inquiry by replying directly to this email.

And there was no scam here... it was the real thing - so this work was sold to a very nice lady from Boca Raton who first saw it at the fair, and emailed and image to her daughter, who then found it on Artsy's page on the Context Art Miami fair and contacted us to reserve it for her mother!

We also managed a nice sale of two of uberartist Michael Janis' scraffito works to a nice Villanova couple.

Saturday next...

December 8, 2018


The weather for Saturday was fantastic! And the aisles of Context Art Miami and its sister fair Art Miami were packed!

Wall to wall people.

Just as its larger companion piece did last year, my "Your Portrait in a Gallery of Portraits", which is an interactive video drawing that employs a hidden miniature camera to bring your image into the artwork, attracted a lot of attention and a lot of selfie photos.

The first celebrity sighting of the fair occurred when Professor Alan Dershowitz, who has taught law to more Presidents and Senators and Congressmen/women than all other law professors combined, dropped by the booth and ended up with a small lithograph of President Obama in his collection. "I voted for him!" he told me.

We then sold a nice tryptich by former DC area artist Amy Lin, who now lives in South Africa! It went to a local Miami private collector.

Amy Lin

Then the following happened - and this has happened many, many times before, but never with the end result that I'm about to relate.

A very attractive lady and her equally pretty daughter came by and were quite taken with one of my "obsessive series" drawings - the one that I've always titled in some variation of "Suddenly she wasn't afraid any longer", and which depicts a figure - usually female - jumping into a void of white paper.

This work is charcoal and a little, tiny bit of watercolor on the body of the woman. Using the double encrypted "form" of writing that I've developed over the years and which marries Celtic Ogham and Navy Falcon codes. On her back I've written in this code "No fear" and a double hand gesture for "freedom."

After I described the work, I could see that they quite liked it - but they walked away nonetheless.

A few minutes later, a young woman came by, became mesmerized by the work and bought it. I packed it and got it ready to be delivered the next day.

Half an hour later, the first two ladies returned, and were shocked to see that the work had been sold. Things became very emotional and the younger lady began crying.

It broke my heart! I've never seen anyone cry because they liked one of my pieces so much that they became emotional over the loss.

I consoled her and let her know that I could try and reproduce the work - after all, it is one my obsessive images. She would not be consoled and walked away in tears.

A while later, a bit calmer, she returned, and we began to discuss a possible commission, which we eventually agreed on - I then gave her a small lithograph that I had done in art school as a present.

There are lessons there for all kinds of things; more later when I produce the new work.

Tomorrow is the last day, and then the grueling dance of re-packing, re-loading and driving the work back begins...

December 9, 2018


Sunday opened with typical Miami style rains: hard and boisterous, but short! My cousin's gardens around his house near Calle Ocho in Little Havana smelled of liliacs as we departed for the fair.

The fair opened at its usual time (11AM) and the crowds were plenty and numerous until closing time at 6PM.

By the time Sunday arrives, feet hurt, the body aches and the brain is experiencing sensory overload. It is also the time for some galleries to rejoice if they've had a financially successful fair, a bad one, or even a business-ending disaster. As usual, there were galleries who did well, some which broke even, or were "in the black" and those which did not sell a single work during the event.

The feedback noise from the many experienced collectors this year all seemed to reflect the same sort of impression - they're no doubt that the fair "phenomenon" is undergoing a market check in a sense. 

The most common comment about the namesake fair (Art Basel Miami Beach) has now been the same for a while: that it has become somewhat "stale" and too "secondary market" in its selection of works and artists.  

What was surprising to me was the uniform feedback on the decline of a couple of other satellite fairs which for many years had a sterling reputation. The opposite to that negative feedback was the consistent feedback that the "newish" Untitled Art Fair was one of the best fairs this year and it has now fully established itself as one of the Miami art week top of the food-chain art fairs, somewhat bypassing once power fairs such as Pulse and NADA.

I was super busy at my our booth in Context Art Miami, and as usual I no longer have the time to personally verify this collector feedback, but seeing that it came consistent from multiple sources, it seems like it is solid and decent feedback from experienced collectors.

All of this is not that unusual as fairs and fair directors influence who, what and how art is selected (and even displayed).

At our fair, it was very crowded... and yet, for the first time in a dozen years, we had no sales on the last day of the fair.

The packing started; then the van performed the van dance of coming onto the grounds; then the carrying of the packed art and loading back onto the van for the long trek back home, with the dreaded "snow" word hanging in the wind.

Then LBK headed north.