Ready or not, Wyclef brings beat to Pamm
To the former Fugees frontman Wyclef Jean, “the way I paint my music” is a bit like the way Basquiat painted his canvases, Jean said after an energetic concert at Surface magazine's party at the Pérez Art Museum Miami (Pamm) on Monday night. Basquiat, whose father came from the musician’s hometown of Croix-des-Bouquets, just outside Port-au-Prince, is “someone I follow a lot”, Jean said. The late artist’s style of “leaving the painting up to the audience to figure out what it is, that’s how I perform—in an eclectic fashion”. Indeed, “eclectic” is an understatement when used to describe Jean’s hour-and-a-half-long performance, which careened from his hits with Lauryn Hill (Ready or Not) and Shakira (Hips Don’t Lie) to karaoke-style singalongs to classics by Guns ’n’ Roses, a rousing rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner and duets with his Miami-based sister, Melky. He occasionally freestyled lyrics to include Pamm’s billionaire benefactor Jorge Pérez’s name, and even rhymed “trustees” with “Fugees”. Twice he told the well-heeled audience, “If you don’t know me, Google me—I’m kinda famous.”
When the dealers go marching in
The president gets a motorcade when he comes to town, but when the dealers Larry Gagosian and Jeffrey Deitch roll into Miami, they get a royal “King of Arms” parade, spectacularly orchestrated by the artist Rashaad Newsome.
To mark Tuesday’s opening of Unrealism, the dealers’ show in the Moore Building, Newsome wangled a vogue dance troupe, a marching band, a motorcycle gang and a souped-up Lamborghini Murcielago for a float. Newsome confessed that, at first, he “wasn’t sure how my work related to the show”. But then he considered how Realist art “is more clearly defined as representational work, and I started to think also about lack of representation” in public spheres. To that end, Newsome enlisted 130 marchers of black and Latino descent.
Deitch, a veteran ringleader himself, never questioned the relevance of the parade, explaining: “I like the way a procession engages the community and brings art out into the streets.”
Robins and fashionistas take a walk on the style side The Miami-based real-estate developer Craig Robins led a gaggle of press and fashionistas on a walking tour of the city’s Design District on Monday, to show off the neighbourhood’s riches—cultural and otherwise. Robins, who donated the land for the new Institute of Contemporary Art and whose Miami Design District Associates firm owns 70% of the booming district, sported a Willy Wonka-esque blazer as he steered the crowd through his garden of delights, which included works by Le Corbusier, Daniel Arsham and Buckminster Fuller, plus high-end shops such as Fendi and Louis Vuitton. But the pre-tour bubbly left some feeling befuddled, with one clothes-horse quipping: “You can’t serve champagne before something like this and expect people to pay attention!” Fair point.
Sisters are doing it for themselves With only ten artists showing at Littlest Sister (until 6 December), the all-female fair is modest in size but not in attitude. Those at Monday’s preview received tote bags emblazoned with the slogan “Smallest art fair, biggest balls”—and many of the objects on view are as bold as the bags suggest. “Name ten female artists and I’ll give you a kiss,” read a $100 T-shirt by Nicole Nadeau, on the stand of the Miami-based pop-up gallery Design Pub. The artist didn’t have to dole out many kisses, judging by the $150 sweatshirts printed with responses such as “Pollock’s Wife” and “Rodin’s Mistress”. Nearby, a well-dressed woman paused at the nail salon Vanity Projects to eye the neon-ombré and palm-tree designs on offer. When her male companion gently reminded her that she had a fresh manicure, she looked down at her burgundy polish and said: “Yeah, but it’s not a Basel manicure.”
Turn, baby, turn “I know it’s early,” the instructor Soeuraya Wilson cooed over her headset as the sun rose on her 7.45am class on Monday at Soul Basel Miami Beach’s SoulCycle pop-up (until 4 December). “But this is Art Basel, so you’re gonna have to get loose.” The class, which convened behind the 1 Hotel South Beach, was promoting the under-construction fitness studio in the boutique resort. There was nothing overwhelmingly artistic about the event, besides perhaps the relational aesthetics in the contrast between the largely female, middle-aged crowd and the rough edge of the music blasted by the live DJ duo ASTR, who played tracks such as Juicy Jay’s Low (sample lyric: “Faded at the fashion show, tryna grab a bitch off the runway/I ain’t even pack no clothes, nothin’ but rubbers in my suitcase”). That and the fact that the artist Gregory Siff worked on a mural for the new studio, accompanied by words such as “tribe”, “sweat” and “everything” — feeding, he said, on the energy expended by those in the class. “It’s a stimulant,” the artist said. “And I’m like Andy Warhol up there, jumping down from the ladder, taking Polaroids in the crowd.” (Siff did this during the class, with a paint-stained camera.) Most of the sweaty cyclists did not smile for him. Afterwards, they drank cold-pressed juice and iced coffee, and were awarded T-shirts that read SOUL BASEL.
