Wish I were there

If you click the title above it'll take you to some pics Paul Laster took at the MoMa opening for Marlene Dumas on Flavorwire, the daily dose of Flavorpill if weekly wasn't enough for you. Wish I were there. I love her work. Anyways, I was still recovering last Monday so no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn't get out of bed.
Instead, art came to me the other day while I was at work. Across from the Chelsea Art Museum a group of 20 0r so people dressed in head to toe white proceeded to wrap the building of the gallery and the trees of the sidewalk in white rope. Bizarre perhaps but as close to art as I got this week without having to physically go anywhere.
Seems like galleries are closing doors this season; I got an email from 31 Grand saying so and there are rumors about some other high profile LES gallery shutting down, and one other on Canal Street. Not surprising, or sad, just a sign of the times I guess.
I ran into Tod Eberle and Jeremy Kost on the way to the Gagosian Xmas party. I wonder how that enterprise is doing...I think it's pretty safe to think that some of Ponzi Boy's (Bernard Madoff) clients might have been clients of Mr. G. It's not far fetched and a small world in fact.
Yesterday I went to a Xmas party at Christian Scheiderman. He's the owner of Contemporary Conservation. I love going to his office because there are always wonderful works of art you can get close too. Yesterday there were three Joseph Albers, a Murakami LV painting, a sculpture by Paul Mc Carthy, a painting by Rudolph Stingel and some other random works scattered around. There was a nice mix of artists, gallerists and collectors. I had a good talk with Jean Miotte, who though he is over 80 and not always in top form, was really able to converse with me in English. I could see how in his time he would have been a force to reckon with, and quite a character in his circle of artists.
Tonight, more Xmas parties; Serge Becker's having one in the back room of Cafe Select. And my friend Anthoula is doing the last of her OLU parties before going to Crete for the next 3 months. She doesn't like people to take pics at her parties but I'll try.

Recovering

It's been a long week of lying in bed and drinking Theraflu and sleeping and sweating and coughing. Not sexy at all, according to my boyfriend, but thank God he loves me so it doesn't really matter. I've had the intention to go out and do some things the last few days but every evening around six my body starts rebelling and acting all achy and congested and I'm forced to comply by going home and resting. But this morning I feel my normal energy level coming back. The sun is peeking out after days of rain as well, and sunlight always makes me smile, like a flower opens up under the sun's rays. So today I have lunch at Cookshop with a new friend I hung out with in Miami. He's a photographer new to NYC and I'm going to help him connect to some people who may be able to help him get a footing here.

He came out the last night with me in Miami and it was loads of fun with the group we had and gathered around us. It doesn't hurt that he's a former fashion model and that girls and guys look twice when he enters a room.

In Miami we all ended up at the Art Basel Miami version of Le Baron every night. Le Baron is a club in Paris that used to be a bordello. The guys from there (Samuel and Benjamin) do something every year in a different location in Miami Beach during Art Basel. This year it was at the Florida Room at the Delano. I think I remember (go figure as it could be another night or some other place) seeing Mark Ronson there Saturday night. He wasn't djing, just sort of sitting around. He had dj'ed the Vanity Fair party at the Raleigh the night before though, which after awhile felt like you were at a Miami version of Beatrice Inn, sans the heroiny looking male and female modelesque types.

Needless to say the parties at Le Baron during Art Basel are fun and funny and go on till all hours of the morning. What's even funnier is to actually put some names to these pics: first one a dealer, first name Thorsten; second, one of the directors of Art Basel, first name Marc; third one me and Eric, Curator of the Andy Warhol Museum; fourth one photographer, first name Wyatt; fifth one crazy French guys (one wearing a leather SandM collar); Sebastian and David!

La Sandwicherie on Miami Beach

Follow the link. I went there everyday while I was in Miami, for breakfast mostly but sometimes for lunch. It is the most fun and cozy place with delicious stuff to put in your mouth; from smoothies to sandwiches, to coffees and croissants. Adding to the overall ambiance is the riveting presence of one of the owners, Olivier. With his warm charm and groovy French accent, girls and guys return for that oh so good sandwich! Once he suggested that I returned to see him and I answered "50-50" meaning I returned 50% to see him and 50% to eat something good that would sustain me until dinner which was on most days, hours away from that early morning rendezvous. I'd been coming to this little spot for years but this year something special happened when I woke up the first morning at the condo where I was staying and there was nothing in the house to eat. I looked online for deliveries and called Jerry's Deli and La Sandwicherie, both of which didn't deliver until 9, so I just got myself out of the house and into a cab and took it to the place I remembered and liked.

Sick

After a week of day and night activity (more night than day) this is all I have to offer. I'm sick in bed and can barely speak as my throat is exhausted from talking and god knows what else. I'll let the pictures do the talking. There's everything from poolside baby floater at the Setai (Jeff Koons inspiration) to Marilyn Manson and Marc Jacobs at the Raleigh to Olga Sviblova at the opening of her exhibition at the Bass Museum to lunch with friends at the Standard and a pic of my cute Asian friends which includes Ian Tong (with glasses) who's a photographer.

Let the games begin!

After a relatively productive day - lunch at the Victor with some visiting friends from Paris; hair salon; quick meeting at the beach outside the Shore Club - last night was a whirlwind, as expected.

First I went to Art Miami to see the curated Video Art Lounge because one of the curators is my friend. Then onto the Design Miami vernissage which was loads of fun to see everyone, say hi, sip champagne and watch your name being written on the floor of the Audi showroom by an artist.

Perrotin's party made my night though as every few minutes there was something else amusing happening: a marching band and cheerleaders from a local highschool performed; Pharrell showed up; Murakami came dressed as a flowerball; Gabriel, the artist from Berlin who created the playful sculptures on the second floor of the gallery whirled me around on the dance floor till I was ready to throw up, then whirled me around in the opposite direction to stabilize me.

Finally I met my friend Louisa at the Mondrian for the David Lachapelle's party. It's so humbling to come to Miami where no one knows you and have to wait at the door of a lowly hotel bar until someone finally recognizes you and whisks you into the party; and even this after kiss-kissing David at the door as he went outside for a brief air break!

Today Scope where I saw a range of wonderful work but Jonathan Levine's Gallery with wall to wall Shephard Fairey took the prize for most compelling. Worthy of note was galerie heliumcowboy artspace featuring Nina Braun's hand-knitted and sewn art works which are super labor intensive (0ne piece took 600 hours!), videos by Marck at Licht Feld (all of them beautiful and reasonably priced), paintings at Priska Juschka Fine Art by Nicky Nodjoumi, Ryan Schneider and Dana Melamed, and a Tibetan artist (I forget his name) at Tibetan Bridge Foundation's booth in Art Asia.

Most of the offerings at the Art Basel preview were good but nothing was as exciting as the stuff offered at Deitch Gallery. Deitch always manages to keep the essence of the art work alive, even in a sterile environment like an art fair. Recent works by old guards like Francesco Clemente and Julian Schnabel along with a 2008 diptych by the popular Russian duo Dubossarsky and Vinogradev just screamed to be taken off the walls and taken home with someone with a discerning eye and deep pockets.

Other things that interested me were gallery Continua's Loris Ceccini's "Gaps" (delicious!), Helly Nahmad's full on Dubuffet booth, Jablonka Galerie's treasure trove of super desirable Philip Taafes and of course Gagosian's playful Murakami painting. And the women: Yayoi Kusama; Cindy Shermans; Robert Miller Gallery's full offering of early Lee Krasner's, Louise Bourgeois.
Tonight I think I'm going to indulge in everything Russian with a show of Russian curator Olga Sviblova at the Bass Museum, but who knows where I'll end up.

First night in Miami

I had jet lag so was up at 5 something in the morning yesterday. This didn't keep me from staying out until midnight though. I saw my friends, Don and Ivan, along with Angelina, Don's 4 year old daughter for dinner at El Rancho Grande. Whenever I come to Miami Beach this is the first place I go for dinner. I don't know why, but I like it there and that's how it's been for years now.

Ivan has a wonderful new pad on Indian Creek and 28th Street, two balconies with view all around. Lots of light. Huge. It's also unheard of what he's paying for it. NYC dwellers would cry.

Next I went to Casa Tua to meet my friend Alain. All through the restaurant and upstairs in the member's lounge the portraits of the artist Mark Seliger were installed. One of the staff introduced me to the artist upstairs.

Alain then took me to the party next to his house (an art collector) where he had been earlier. Everyone was there; i.e. everyone related to the art world that I'd seen around for years; Benedict and Lauren Taschen, Sam Keller, Marc Spiegler the new co-director of Art Basel, Emmanuel Perrotin, Kamel Mennour and many others. I ran into some friends from NYC; Stephan Walter and Rob Crabb, two handsome partners in crime. I put a picture of David Kaumann, the artist who designed the costumes on the girls, as well as one of my friends, Eric who looks so dapper in pink which matches the blog.

The performances of the girls along with those of the guys who played the violins to hip hop music were superb. Needless to say the art throughout the house was breathtaking; loved the Anish Kapoors, the Hirst medicine cabinet and I'm not sure but there was a light sculpture on the floor that looked down through a series of LEDs into a seemingly black hole by Yayoi Kusama?