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Independent Curator of contemporary Latin American art.
Art Baselita–Inverting Phenomena
I liken the phenomenon that has become Art Basel Miami (Beach) to that of a circus coming to town: tents and booths are set up, a myriad art objects and installations are put on display, and a plethora of events take over the city (some select parts of the city, of course) and thus the show begins. (In 2003, George Sanchez-Calderon’s Miami Midtown Midway installation in which he re-created a traveling carnival scenario, aptly played with these ideas) However, the other phenomenon, the one that is Miami as a community is relegated to a simple, two-dimensional, caricature of itself, functioning instead as a backdrop, a movie set to the mammoth European powerhouse that is Basel, the fair. The question of how Basel actually engages with the complex and often contradictory nature of Miami that lies beyond the surface of that entire spectacle begs to be addressed and challenged.
On many levels, Art Baselita is a response to that disconnect between Art Basel and the community it purportedly benefits. In its clever, humoristic and iconoclastic character, Baselita both addresses and turns on its head many of the more relevant social, political, and economic issues that get lost in the Basel noise: the frenzied who’s-showing-where, and whose-who that dominates the fair suddenly seems unimportant for the Baselitas; in exhibiting the work of numerous artists from Cuba without political fanfare, Art Baselita underscores the various multi-media channels and collaborative efforts that extend across geo-political divides through which art circulates today, beyond the mere surface transaction of objects or sought after works that takes defines much of the mood of Art Basel. Like the Brazilian movement, Anthropofagia in mid-twentieth century, in which artists appropriated the visual language of European modernism and recreated new forms using indigenous iconography, Art Baselita cleverly appropriates the marketing language of its big Daddy fair and spits it out in new form.
I chose to attend the Havana Film Festival over staying for the Basel madness this year. Having grown a bit fatigued by the anxiety that Basel produces: “will I make it to all the events, did I miss out on that one artist’s exhibition, that one party that could’ve changed my life, did I see everyone I needed to see and network with…” I’ll be interacting instead from an alternative site, one that Art Baselita has carved out for a different kind of conversation to take place. Join me.
Art Baselita–Inverting Phenomena
I liken the phenomenon that has become Art Basel Miami (Beach) to that of a circus coming to town: tents and booths are set up, a myriad art objects and installations are put on display, and a plethora of events take over the city (some select parts of the city, of course) and thus the show begins. (In 2003, George Sanchez-Calderon’s Miami Midtown Midway installation in which he re-created a traveling carnival scenario, aptly played with these ideas) However, the other phenomenon, the one that is Miami as a community is relegated to a simple, two-dimensional, caricature of itself, functioning instead as a backdrop, a movie set to the mammoth European powerhouse that is Basel, the fair. The question of how Basel actually engages with the complex and often contradictory nature of Miami that lies beyond the surface of that entire spectacle begs to be addressed and challenged.
On many levels, Art Baselita is a response to that disconnect between Art Basel and the community it purportedly benefits. In its clever, humoristic and iconoclastic character, Baselita both addresses and turns on its head many of the more relevant social, political, and economic issues that get lost in the Basel noise: the frenzied who’s-showing-where, and whose-who that dominates the fair suddenly seems unimportant for the Baselitas; in exhibiting the work of numerous artists from Cuba without political fanfare, Art Baselita underscores the various multi-media channels and collaborative efforts that extend across geo-political divides through which art circulates today, beyond the mere surface transaction of objects or sought after works that takes defines much of the mood of Art Basel. Like the Brazilian movement, Anthropofagia in mid-twentieth century, in which artists appropriated the visual language of European modernism and recreated new forms using indigenous iconography, Art Baselita cleverly appropriates the marketing language of its big Daddy fair and spits it out in new form.
I chose to attend the Havana Film Festival over staying for the Basel madness this year. Having grown a bit fatigued by the anxiety that Basel produces: “will I make it to all the events, did I miss out on that one artist’s exhibition, that one party that could’ve changed my life, did I see everyone I needed to see and network with…” I’ll be interacting instead from an alternative site, one that Art Baselita has carved out for a different kind of conversation to take place. Join me.
Elizabeth Cerejido
Miami, November 27, 2009.
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