Capturing all the world's moments

Instagram as an artistic medium was the subject of one of the sessions in this year's Art Basel Miami Beach Talks programme, featuring four panelists with a combined 1.6 million followers. Amalia Ulman took the stage first, describing how she had created a fictional online narrative around the character who appears in selfies on the amaliaulman Instagram feed. Simon de Pury was next up saying he uses the service to catalogue pieces and items that he finds beautiful, followed by Hans Ulrich Obrist who talked about his handwriting project, a massive series where artists and cultural figures write short phrases on post it notes for his Instagram feed. Klaus Biesenbach then explained how Instagram helped him get over his aversion to revealing anything about himself, and co-founder of Instagram Kein Systrom wrapped up the session saying "our mission is to capture all the world's moments, but our core value is to inspire creativity."
Image: James Franco's post-it note for Hans Ulrich Obrists' The Handwriting Project.

Aerial art at Art Basel Miami Beach

This year's edition of Art Basel Miami Beach includes an aerial art project called Plane Text. Three planes will fly original texts by contemporary artists from 9am to 1pm each day of the fair from 5 - 9 December. The artists include a number of text based masters such as Richard Prince, John Baldessari and Lawrence Weiner.

Home Alone in Miami

Hedge fund manager Adam Sender has joined the ranks of collectors who mount curated presentations of their art collections during Art Basel Miami Beach. Sender's collection manager Sarah Aibel is presenting 70 works from Sanders holdings of over 1000 works in his vacant 5,0000 square-foot Miami property.

Instead of attempting the transform the house into a gallery, Aibel says she made the entire exhibition about toying with the notion of displaying art in a domestic space. Even the bathrooms have been given over to art. One is dedicated to Ramond Pettibon and in another Richard Prince's image of Brooke Shields hangs above a real tub in the children's bathroom.

Image:Urs Fischer's What if the phone rings, 2003

Hedge fund manager to show his collection alongside Art Basel Miami Beach

Hedge fund manager Adam Sender plans to show his art collection alongside Art Basel Miami Beach (29 November - 4 December). Titled Home Alone, the exhibition will be presented in his 5,000-square-foot Miami house, now empty and on the market. "We had an ability to rent it, but we figured why not throw a show for Art Basel", he said.

Sender was one of the first hedge fund managers to move into contemporary art and he is still an active collector who also sells. "If its not floating your boat anymore, you are entitled to sell it", he says. "What we do with the proceeds is we buy more art, and we buy younger art."

Following a stint with Steve Cohen's SAC Capital Advisors LP, Sender founded his own hedge fund in 1998, which stalled when Toronto-based Fairfax Financial Holdings (FFH) sued several hedge fund firms including Sander's. The suit alleged that the hedge funds acted to harm the firm because they were betting its stock price would decline.

Image: Adam Sender, art collector and hedge fund manager

Art Basel Miami Beach

This link takes you to an upbeat report on Art Basel Miami Beach published in the New York Times.

Image: The Gagosian booth at the Miami Convention Centre, Art Basel Miami Beach 2010. Photograph from the NYT

Art Basel Miami Beach Report

"Crowds are smaller at this year's fair, parties more intimate. Discounts are rumoured to be larger. The larger scene surrounding the fair, however, remains daunting, with upwards of fifteen satellite fairs and the usual calendar of parties and talks. From the evidence here, the art fair, as a species, is not endangered: collectors are too attached to its convenience and competitive vibe." Karen Rosenberg in The New York Times.

Image: visitors to Art Basel Miami Beach walk by Rosson Crow's Luna Park 1919. Photo by MIchael F McElroy from NYT article by Karen Rosenberg

Art Basel Miami Beach

Art Basel Miami Beach opened on 2 December amidst further reports that the market for contemporary art is in recovery. However, it remains to be seen whether collectors match the confidence of dealers and those in the art fair business - many collectors who have gone to fairs during the recession were there to look, not to buy. When the results of Art Basel Miami Beach are known, art market analysts will have a clearer view of the current state of the market for contemporary art and the outlook for art fairs.

A move in the right direction

In a recent article published in The New York Times Carol Vogel says: "Between the sagging economy and the proliferation of competitors, the organisers of art fairs have to shake things up continually to make sure collectors keep coming back."

When Art Basel Miami Beach opens in December visitors will find the main exhibition floor has been reorganised, giving dealers larger booths. Emerging artists who had previously occupied shipping containers along the waterfront, will move inside to the middle of the hall. The space formerly occupied by the containers will be used for a three-dimensional environment designed by artist Pae White, that will include piazzas and a performance platform, along with a series of scrims that change the appearance from day to night. Within this social space the fair will present panel discussions, concerts and performances.

Interestingly, fair co-director Marc Spiegler (shown above at Art Basel, Switzerland) came up with another reason for the changes - one that will register well with galleries. He says: "We're finding that a lot of galleries are doing fewer fairs, and those that are participating want better spaces." Everybody knows fairs need great collectors, but they also need galleries willing and able to participate in fairs in boom and bust times. Positioning Art Basel Miami Beach as a gallery-responsive fair, tuned to troubled economic times, is a timely move on Spiegler's part. 

You can read Carol Vogel's article on Art Basel Miami Beach in the New York Times.

Image: Marc Spiegler (righthand panel, centre), co-director, Art Basel.