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guide to Art Basel art basel - Art Basel Miami Beach be considered a private spectacle or a public one? I wondered that when i headed off to the art world’s ritualistic week of gawking, power schmoozing and peacocking, which is now a decade strong. Certainly top collectors dominate the calendar, fire up the selling floor and preside over exactly what are sometimes ludicrous displays of privilege. But some also open their houses, or at best their warehouses, towards the masses. And while you may need a V.I.P. card to party alongside A-Rod or celebrate the most recent Ferrari model, as some revelers did this coming year, those that need to make art viewing the key activity have ample more accessible options. Not minimal of these will be the fair itself, which includes swelled to include some 260 international exhibitors along with a full program of outdoor sculpture, video and performance. And whether you want to be occupied by Art Basel or Occupy it, you can’t deny the event’s role in revitalizing Miami culture in the last 10 years. (Both the Miami Art Museum and MoCA North Miami have new buildings inside the works, and the Wynwood district is chockablock with galleries, studios and street art.)

art basel - Everything said, a backlash seemed possible this season. There were rumors of an Occupy Wall Street-style protest, along with a high-profile collector declared an intention to boycott the fair (Adam Lindemann, in the column inside the The big apple Observer). Mr. Lindemann showed up anyway. And the only activism I saw was folded, shrewdly, in to the fair’s “Art Public” section: a gathering space for Miami community groups, thanks to the performers Andrea Bowers and Olga Koumoundouros, enabling you to get a leaflet or purchase a T-shirt having said that “99%.” Nobody seemed particularly concerned with protests or the euro zone at the fair’s V.I.P. preview inside the Miami Beach Convention Center. The work, though, appeared more conservative in comparison to years past. The blue-chip selections were plentiful, one of them a classy display of Calder and Miró sculptures (at Helly Nahmad) plus a stuffy-looking but rewarding exhibition of Modiglianis, Soutines as well as other School of Paris artists (at Galerie Thomas). Those looking for much more of an event atmosphere could find it at Mary Boone, where Barbara Kruger’s huge wall texts shouted “Money makes money” along with other turns of phrase on the topic of filthy lucre. Just across the aisle, L&M had a likewise snazzy booth wallpapered with Warhol’s cows and festooned with a broad selection of his drawings. A great many other exhibitors used size to create a statement. Edward Tyler Nahem gave the majority of its booth with a 30-foot-long Frank Stella, “Khurasan Gate Variation III,” from 1968. Everywhere, dealers were taking out their tape measures.

basel art - The content, over-all, was “We’re here to work,” not “What does this all mean?” Only some dealers, like Peter Blum, took shots in the fair environment. At his booth two paintings from a series called “Bankrupt Banks,” through the Danish artists’ group Superflex, caused many double-takes with their prominent corporate logos. New to the range circuit was “Home Alone,” an exhibition sampling the Adam and Lenore Sender Collection. This show within the Senders’ bayside home was available only by invitation, that was understandable, due to the intimate spaces. The curator Sarah Aibel made mischievous technique home’s nooks and crannies, installing a Sarah Lucas rooster inside the master shower and two Elizabeth Peytons in the child’s closet. It had been an extremely private experience. But throughout the week - even over the course of each day - I had many public ones that were just like memorable. Because spirit was the renegade mini-fair SEVEN, where entry is free of charge, and galleries share space over a “salon wall.” There, a vending machine by the artist Jennifer Dalton dispensed wristbands of the sort accustomed to go through velvet ropes. They read, “What this says does not matter.” Art Basel Miami Beach runs through Sunday at the Miami Beach Convention Center; artbaselmiamibeach.com.