Faves and Raves: Miami Basel Alt-Fairs

Some favorite work from three of the Miami Basel alternative fairs: Pulse, Nada, and Aqua -- sprinkled around the Wynnwood area of Miami. These choices are just a small squadron of mostly digital media work among the thousands of artists and artworks. More about more artists to come. The whole experience is fun, fascinating, and fabulous.

***********Pulse***********
Rave:
Lincoln Schatz: Esquire's Portrait of the 21st Century 2008 / CUBE Portraits. Bitforms Gallery

Shatz was standing with a beautiful multi-screen installation of his portrait series and spoke with enthusiasm about the use of his CUBE digital portrait environment and the software he uses to randomize 24 different video streams that he compiles into digital portraits, generating effects and layering them programmatically in real time. When asked about working with the different subjects and the things they chose to do while sitting, Shatz said, "I ask them what they do with their free time, relaxing, and almost everybody says they're on their laptop." While some subjects need to be encouraged, others are naturally inspired to bring a more personal metaphor to the table. Shatz cited Georgie Clooney's decision to dance with ten women to ten different Frank Sinatra songs, one of whom was Shatz's own mother; LeBron James' choice to play a basketball video game in which he himself is animated as the lead player; and Craig Newmark, founder and sole operator of Craig's List, who alone was depicted sitting with a computer.

Portrait of George Clooney

Masami Teraoka, Catharine Clark Gallery

Teraoka mixes traditional Japanese woodblock and painting techniques with commentary about AIDS, gender, sex, consumption, religion, and the hypocrisy of Western cultural, religious, and political life, like a sexy and sardonic pillow book.

Two of his works had sold during the fair, including Adam and Eve / Surge Protector (1995), for $85,000 and Confessional Series (1994) for $65,000.

Although primarily represented by Catharine Clark, Teroka also was on display in the Samuel Freeman Gallery exhibit at Aqua Winwood.

Sarah Anne Johnson, Julie Saul Gallery
Johnson's work has centered around photographed real and recreated scenes in nature. The piece that stood out at the Julie Saul Gallery exhibit was a lenticular print of a pine forest, composed of sequential images of the pines moving in the wind. Part of a series about tree planting, the trees had an affecting hyper-reality. Other work, in which the artist's nature projects are re-staged with tiny sculptural figures standing in for the original humans and re-photographed, is quite different.

Brandon Morse, Conner Contemporary Art
Morse's framed digital animation depicted two three dimensional wire cubes pulling each other in different directions. Simple and timeless, like a zen koan, it showed the inevitable dynamic of all human relationships, reduced to a formula. Available as one of an edition of 6, the the high-resolution work sells for $2500 and can be displayed at any size or on any screen.

John Gerrard, Grow/Finish Unit (Eva, Oklahoma), Hilger Contemporary
Silvery and mesmerizing 3D digital video animation revolves slowly around modern farm buildings in the wide open space of Oklahoma. This Irish-born artist travels the U.S. taking photographs of various scenes that he then recreates in 3D animation software.

Rave:
Ori Gersht, Falling Bird, Angles Gallery
Named one of Alistair Hicks' "Ten Talents to Watch," Gersht's digital painting loops from a hypnotic meditation on water splashing to a digital trompe l'oeil à la William Harnett, in which a dead pheasant is dropped in the water. Packaged complete with frame, screen, computer, and DVD for $45,000. Edition of 8.

Hell'o Monsters, Untitled, Think 21
The collective of four Belgian graffiti artists worked together to produce this piece, their second animated painting. Gallery rep Christel Tsilibieris reports that they are interested in monsters and anatomy books, and the intersection of eastern and western popular culture. The obvious reference to Hello Kitty is played out in the colorful wall painting, which they came and applied personally. The animation is projected onto the painting, and playfully comments on the functions of the body. The piece is unique, and will be destroyed unless bought. The artists will recreate on site. 3000 eu for the work alone, or 4000 with projector.

***********Nada***********
Marcus Coates, Dawn Chorus (2007), Workplace Gallery
This video installation is probably more staid than Coates' typical work. The project involved recording morning birdsong in Northumberland and northern England, and then video taping various trained amateur singers singing the songs much more slowly. (Similar to Nina Katchadourian's Please, Please, Pleased to Meet 'Cha?) The installation features each of the singers on separate video screens, sped up so that they sound like the normal bird song. Lovely and funny. Ha ha, not peculiar, like this picture of Coates in performance:

Still, Journey to the Lower World, Workplace Gallery

***********Aqua Wynnwood***********

Jim Campbell, Home Movies, 1040-1 (2008), Hosfelt Gallery
LED lights hang in a grid against a large screen, flickering a ghostly black and white home movie to life, barely, like a whisper. Like Shatz, he's got a programmer's mind. See his slide talk on computer-generated art.

Rave:
David Fried, Self-Organizing Still Life, Sara Tecchia Roma New York

Impossibly analog sculpture that moves in reaction to sound, adding motion as the balls click and clack into each other. Wonderful and mysterious, a perpetual motion machine that can be put to sleep by silence.