Basel Fossil Report 2

Welcome to Treasure Island

Arguably ArtBasel and Design Miami Fairs have together grown bigger than the mega Boat Show, but they have also condensed the shopping season into a one week Bizarre Bazaar.


Curb Your Enthusiasm

It is with reserved sobriety that euro-visitors and natives endure the frenzied pace of visual indulgence here at this year's Basel Miami Art Week. With all their senses, the interested parties are partaking in an orchestrated dance of a poetic exercise scripted by the Old Artistocracy for the New Bohemia.

Undonecitencure

In a town that has it's share of ghostly unfinished business in a seeming construction limbo...
the local official deciders still manage to impose the "One Britto Each Week" public art policy for the world to identify with miami, our place in the swamp.

Planet Planners

Fortunately, everything is done twice... first on paper then for real.
The old canons of world-class creativity remain the wellspring for ripe aficionados and a starstruck generation of MFA's that together comprise the new Artzigarchy.

Nextcitecture

For a better tomorrow, the Miami horizon is looking most picturesque with the much deliberated plan for a new mausoleum for art scheduled to open when the contract expires on Basel and the glitzy affair moves on to another unsuspecting American city.

Expert Artvice

Who doesn't like nice things?
Miami is a place that convincingly markets luxury with habitual results.
But don't take my word for it, just ask the experts.

Bygone Hay-Days of High-Brow

Bold face types Uncle Andy, Basquait, Bruno "Blue Chips" Bichofberger
and Francesco Clemente, whose giant watercolors are at the old moca in wynwood.

No Shortage of Talent

It has become abundantly clear that there is a glut of creativity and individuals more than willing to act on ideas for the sake of experiencing art first-hand and presenting the works for whoever will wander by the hundreds of booths at any one of the many satellite fairs in town this week.

The Passion of the Deal

Better wear your walking shoes.
Some folk never stop searching for beauty. Beauty is many things. It is also best left attainable because to have it would mean the end of the game of courtship, maybe even the abandonment of fulfillment.

The Elephant in the Park

A Gumbo Limbo Tree grows and grows while art is bought and sold.
Though it can not run away, the tree is unaffected by the seriousness of the art markets.

Hermitage by the Vernissage

Cristina Lei joins Lobo's encampment at the Bass Museum.

Imported Talent

With deft street smarts, Santiago bombs Locust Projects.

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Knight of Mischief

Nicolas Lobo is arguably the leading proponent of Miami Fringe.
With ramshackle cleverness that defies the Brittoesque doldrums of Miami's art image, we hereby crown Lobo the Fox in the Swamphouse . One can overlook Lobo only if blinded by mundane and contrived notions of what sculpture aught to be. In these times the evidence is abundant, wildly new artworks are popping up with regularity. These daring expressions of things to come deliver more than meets the eye, but admittedly the stuff is not for everyone.




Mess Gets in you Eyes

If you have not heard of Nick Lobo it is because he is intent on destroying the things he makes.
Such was the case with this life-size diorama made entirely from homemade play-dough mixed with cough syrup. The monochrome depiction is inspired by a somber photo of a meth-head's living room he found on the web. If you thing anyone can do that, try going to CVS to buy all the cough syrup on the shelf and you will quickly understand the complexity of Lobo's endeavors.

Well That's Just Chippy

Lobo has perfected a brand of brash and irreverent sculpture that transcends convention. It take a particular kind of disposition to be comfortable with the goings on inside the ingenious ignoble minds of artists that are not squeamish or concerned with predictable works of art. Be it Soylent Green or live fish eggs in popcorn, Lobo redefines the artist palette with the confidence of a mad scientist and the results of a seasoned composer of experimental noise.




Deep Miami Bass

Native of Miami, home-schooled Lobo is most comfortable outside the boundaries of the enclaves of fine art. But somehow the work is apropos for todays sensibilities. His most resent WTF is perfectly at home in the open air courtyard of the tony Bass Museum on Miami Beach. A quasi-public space, the concrete island surrounded by a placid water feature is often a makeshift shelter for the ever pungent and unsavory homeless transients known to haunt SOBE. With precise Lobo form, the tropical igloo creation provides a disconcerting visual to the otherwise uninviting institutional facade.



100 Points of Departure

What I can't show you about this partial geodesic enclosure is the audio component. For that you will have to actually visit. The buttery bungalow is outfitted with a battery of transistor radios tuned to every kind of station, creating a veil of noise that blankets the auditory senses with a jumble of sounds and information at a decibel found in elevators. The orientation, the scale, material choice and vulnerability define this sculpture as a seminal work for Lobo.




Dome Away from Home

I was fortunate to encounter this fascinating freaky homeless dancer fluttering about the place. Our transient butterfly guy was kind enough to allow for a few snaps of the old camera obscura in return for a caring smile and a couple of bucks to keep things equitable. If i didn't know better, I would think the clever cretin had built himself a manic makeshift deluxe nomadic tent right under the ski-slope nose of the Bass Museum.


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Mums the Word

There are murmurs in the dark and stylish undercurrents of the art world in the tropics, rumors and vapors of contested deeds, of provenance and piranhas in a resurgent cloud of mummy dust. The eyes of three thousand years are opening, winking and freaking people out.
But lips are shut as if sewn with the floss of art history, dreaded desire for death and rebirth and answers.

Question is: Scooby-Doo Where are You?



Body Farmer

The original "Body Farm" (started by William Bass)

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee (CNN) -- Nearly everything known about the science of human decomposition comes from one place -- forensic anthropologist William Bass' Body Farm.


"I'm 72 and I'm sorry I'm getting so old because I have all these things I've got to do," said Bass, who started the farm with one body and a small plot of ground in the fall of 1971.

Bill Bass is a star in a day sky.



Extract of Mummy

Local lightweight paper Sun Sentinal got the scoop on the Bass Mummy ( no relation to Bill Bass). We should all be astounded to the bone at this ghoulish discovery in the swamp, the tense traverse to Aventura Medical and the fate of this Boy from Cairo.

The Egyptian mummy, belonging to the Bass Museum of Art is at least 2,600 years old and is tucked inside a wooden sarcophagus.


Another blog said this of the 2500 year old tourist from Egypt.

After using 3D scanners to take a peek beneath the ancient bandages, it was what wasn’t inside that most surprised the doctors.


The mummyboy must have a good health insurance plan.



No Ticket, No Laundry.

The Bass Mummy may have charmed his way onto CNN inadvertently because if he knew what is being reported in major papers around the world, he may have been better preserved tucked away in the basement of the Bass.


PARIS — France's culture minister agreed Friday to return five painted wall fragments to Egypt after a row over their ownership prompted the Egyptians to cut ties with the Louvre Museum.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/09/france-to-return-stolen-e_n_315402.html

Hawass also cut ties with the St. Louis Art Museum after it failed to answer his demand to return a 3,200-year-old golden burial mask of a noblewoman.

Hawass also wants the return of the bust of Nefertiti – wife of the famed monotheistic Pharaoh Akhenaten – and the Rosetta Stone, a basalt slab with an inscription that was the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics. The bust is in Berlin's Egyptian Museum; the Rosetta Stone is in the British Museum in London.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/09/france-to-return-stolen-e_n_315402.html

Rosetta Stone Fortune Teller Child

and from a recent ocean drive puff piece.

With a chuckle, he asks, “Did you know we have a mummy? An actual Egyptian mummy! Think of all the children in Miami Beach who would otherwise never get to see a real mummy!”




Best Closing Sentence Ever...


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