RUBELL COLLECTION
My first stop on this list (I think it was last Friday that I hit all these spots) is the Rubell Collection.
It was, perhaps, the grayest and sweatiest of Miami days.
The collection was (needless to say) impressive, with a venue to match.
An interior shot of the ground floor (I didn't want to post too many pics of this level because it seemed awfully heavy on the Nate Lowman)
Cady Noland's installation on the second floor
Mark Handforth's "Honda," 2002
Overall thoughts on the Rubell Collection visit = HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. It was totally worth the sweat.
IT AIN'T FAIR (no really, it AIN'T fair)
This was the point at which I tried to visit the 'It Ain't Fair' art fair. After my sweaty walk, I reached the locked building, and the only visible clue that an exhibition continued inside was this shot from a Plexi-doorway:
If you glanced over my earlier blog posts, you already know that I never made it inside this fair. And maybe that's the point of the "It Ain't Fair"....just maybe.
AQUA
Sadly my camera battery died just about this time. I did manage, however, to snap one (not great) shot of the Howard House booth at the Aqua Fair. They were showing works by Robert Yoder. It was an elegantly simple booth, and my photo certainly does not do it justice. The work was beautiful, and at a price-point your wallet would like. Other booths worth mentioning were Gregory Lind's booth featuring work by Barbara Takenaga and whimsical sculptures by Seth Koen; Michael Rosenthal Gallery was showing large works by Megan Whitmarsh; SVA's booth had interesting sculptures by Brandon Davey.
HOWEVER, I will mention that Aqua felt like a giant maze, and was a bit hit-or-miss overall. I do fondly recall, in days of yore, when the fair took place in the Aqua hotel on Collins. And I overheard one or two other people say the same thing.
VERGE
Sadly, I would not have put Verge in my list of Top Things to See. It was consistent in that it remained a hotel fair, but the limitations posed by a hotel fair were all too apparent here. My biggest complaint probably would have to be the lighting. It's hard to see art properly when you're squeezed into a tiny room with somewhere between 2-4 bodies shuffling around, and you're lucky if there's an overhead light AND a desk lamp on. Not to mention the distractions posed by patterned bedding. It's just difficult--that's all. But it's certainly a great option for someone looking for great art at a lower price point. It's the most accessible of the fairs too, for that matter. For one thing, it was on Collins Ave (no looking over your shoulder as you book-it through the raaaather unappealing Design District). And it's friendly. It's sociable. People were mingling in the hallways. It was that kind of atmosphere.
I have no pictures (sorry), but the galleries to note from Verge were Judi Rotenberg (showing Zach Storm's awesome drawings) and Antidote Gallery from Brooklyn.
stay tuned for tomorrow...I know you're all wanting to read about Scope/Art Asia and that thing they called The Market.
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