19/11/2001
by Kenny Schachter

Lesson number one for those contemplating staging an international contemporary art fair in the future: get more than a contract when signing up participants, get a deposit. The above-mentioned scenario is exactly what befell the organizers of Art Basel Miami Beach, which surely contributed to the decision to cancel the fair which was to be held from December the 12th to the 16th, 2001 in addition to the stated reasons of the terrorist attacks and increased insurance costs. What got the ball rolling in favor of calling the whole thing off was a series of letters in Europe, New York and California initiated by a number of the dealers requesting a one year postponement due to the warnings of potential attacks, the anthrax incidents and the difficulties in air travel. The New York drive in favor of cancellation was led by Barbara Gladstone and included as signatories Sandra Gering, Marianne Boesky, 303 Gallery, Marian Goodman, Pace Wildenstein, and Frederick Petzel among others. Not everyone shared the sentiment that halting the fair in Miami, the first foray in North America (maybe not the best term at this juncture) by Swiss Exhibition, the firm that runs the Basel Fairs, was the wisest choice. British dealer Jay Jopling said the dealers who were dead-set against making the trip were babies and that as a whole, putting off the fair was bad business for the art world.

The bear hug of a grip that Basel Miami had negotiated around the city is evidenced by the fact that any off site project to be conducted within a certain radius of the convention center had to be cleared with Amy Cappellazzo in advance. Cappellazzo, now head of Christie's contemporary in New York and a former curator of the Rubell Family Collection in Miami, was in charge of organizing projects around the city; and, no official permit for an art related special event could be issued without her specific approval. Due to co-inside with the Basel Miami were many, many off-site exhibitions for those that didn't feel like joining a waiting list for a booth, or for a container. The sponsors of the fair were actually renting out empty truck containers to be placed along the beach in close proximity to the fair for smaller dealers, such as Andrew Kreps in New York, to distribute their wares. The 38-year-old real estate developer and mega-collector Craig Robbins who is responsible for creating the Miami design district (and owns about 80% of it) strewn about with European and American furniture and housewares boutiques for the trade, but equally open to the public, organized some of the ancillary projects that were afoot. Robbins had planned for a painting exhibit organized by New York dealer Jack Tilton his primary art adviser (that was to have featured Marlene Dumas, Nicole Eisenman, Franz Ackerman, and others) and a German sculpture show (with John Bock, Andreas Slominski, and Olafur Eliason, and others) that was to be curated by New York gallerist and son of painter Georg Baselitz, Anton Kern, both of which have been cancelled as well. Nevertheless, Robbins will hang his collection throughout the design district, including an installation of Rirkrit Tiravanija's scaled down version of Phillip Johnson's glass house (that he owns) that was created for a Museum of Modern Art project in New York, to be utilized as a "playtime" space for kids. Big time Miami art patron Rosa de la Cruz, a major force in collecting emerging contemporary art, is considering a project at the time of this writing in conjunction with Robbins as well. Separately, Miami Art Exchange, which will be a group exhibit of local area artists like Lynne Gelfman, Karen Rifas and Glexis Novoa will be held, as will another local artist ensemble (45 artists including Janine Antoni, Teresita Fernandez and Quescaya Henriquez) curated by artist Robert Chambers, to be held at the newly renovated Bass Museum at 21st Street (and Park Avenue) in South Beach, from December the 12^th to Feburary 2002.

All in all the fair which was to be attended by in excess of 150 galleries was said to have lost an estimated $ 4,000,000 (€ 4,548,113) in printing costs and advertising related expenses as a result of the cancellation. Fantastically, in the letter acknowledging the end of the venture, the fair organizers solicited voluntary contributions due to the fact that the galleries could have been held to their contracts, but wouldn't be. Imagine the flurry of cheques being written at this moment-not! The death knell was sounded on November the 7^th, 2001 when none other than Page Six of the New York Post noted the obituary of the fair in its gossip columns. And, a full page advertisement in the New York Times appeared on November the 9th, with the schematic layout of the galleries, but with a fair date in excess of a year from now. So it will remain fresh in our minds, perhaps. On the bright side, maybe it freed up some more collecting dollars for the contemporary art auctions at Sotheby's, Christie's and Phillips last week.