L.A. Surprise at Art Basel Miami Beach, Florida

"Why are you here and not somewhere else?"

These words in blue neon on one of the Miami Beach Convention Center's walls haunted me while walking Art Basel Miami Beach 2004.  Considered the annual winter gathering of the international contemporary art world, this "sister" show to Art Basel Switzerland ran December 1 through 5 and boasted representatives of over 195 galleries culled from some 500 applicants.  The work of over a thousand 20th and 21st century artists from North America, South America, Latin America, Europe and Asia was gathered in one place.

The impossible-to-miss question shocked me since I'm a writer on deadline, and I was playing hooky with my seasoned art collector significant other.  I had no business spending time strolling exhibits of any kind, much less one of modern art about which I have little (to no) knowledge.

However, notably, this particular show is not just a collection of otherwise logistically-impossible-to-see artwork, but a destination event that provides a gathering spot for art cognoscenti.  It is a place where art meets beautiful people, and the glamour of women in couture clothing combined with the buzz attainable only from discovering a true art "find" play as large a part in the experience as what's hanging (or painted) on the walls.  It truly is, as the media likes to report, the "place to see and be seen" - both at the Show and in the trendiest of Miami Beach nightclubs after show hours- and the place where anyone who's "anybody" in the contemporary art world needs to be.  Of course, this is irresistible to a journalist!

Work in the Convention Center was presented, for the most part, by well-established houses, including much from our own L.A galleries.  Additionally, ancillary events, including special shows by emerging artists, newer galleries, public art projects, and video, sound, and digital art groups, took place in surrounding areas, including the famed Miami Art Deco district.  Billed as "a vital source for discovering new developments in contemporary art and rate museum-quality art works," the Show reportedly prompted artists and galleries with work that didn't make the juried cut to set up their own exhibition venues along the beach a few blocks from the main venue.  As well, an organized version of this upstart exhibition style, dubbed "Positions," treated art enthusiasts to seeing work in the transport vehicles in which they arrived.  Not surprisingly, the daily show newspaper reported December 3 that ALL of the art being shown out of these containers had already been marked "sold" just after opening day.

Walking the Convention Center alone (my significant other has little patience for beginners), I continued pondering that question in blue neon, as well as (unpopular, I'm sure) questions such as "Why is art that can make someone feel so uncomfortable so valuable?" (My response to one artist's suggestion that we "f*ck shame") and "Who owns a ladder big enough to dust that stuff?" (See below.)  At the Art Basel Show this year, boundaries were played with ad infinitum.  One artist took high-end antique sterling silver serving pieces and flattened then, then threaded them and hung them from the ceiling to form a horizontal plane (see my second question), another presented a likeness of a woman's body bent backwards with its head in front between its legs, tongue extended, all in silver glitter (see my first question).  My beloved expressed interest in a painting he was considering purchasing.  "What do you like about it?" I asked.  "I don't know," he told me.  "It has a lot of lines in it, I guess."  "Oh," I said.

I said, "Oh," a lot as I walked around- sometimes, even, "ooh" ("ew"?)- and not in a good way.  That is, until I fell upon the exhibit by the Mackey Gallery out of Houston, TX.  They featured the now quite famous mixed media work of the Clayton Brothers, two men I'd met prior in San Francisco, now L.A. fixtures.  Their lively, colorful work had sprung from the cover of Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope magazine a year or so ago and, as such, I'd had the pleasure of meeting them at the celebration for the launch of that issue at a posh SOMA gallery- a jam-packed event during which Rob and Christian Clayton invited guests to contribute penciled words and drawings to work they'd started.

The Clayton Brothers are a bright spot in the modern art world, not just because they are such fine people themselves, but also because their art speaks of so many of the intriguing aspects of life.  Teachers as well as working professional artists, they're also two artists who can actually collaborate.  In fact, their work is almost always a collaborative effort with one brother starting the work, the other finishing it, or with both working back and forth.

"We really enjoy the shenanigans of trading off each other's work," Rob Clayton said.  "We just started to thrive on it, and it just started to take off."  All of their work has what he calls an "architectural history start."  "For each of our individual actions there is a reaction (by the other brother)" Rob added.  "The narrative direction splinters."  Yes, indeed.

Much of their ideas come from found objects.  Their exhibit at the Basel Show, entitled "I Come From Here," was their first Basel on the heels of their debut in Texas in October.  It included an installation in the style of a child's playhouse that had been engineered and adorned with words and images inspired by an otherwise mundane experience and an inspiring find.  I couldn't help but linger inside; admiring everything I could put my eyes on.

The bright spot for me at the Show was that both brothers just happened to arrive at the booth while I was there, a very lucky moment, too, since their appearance was for the benefit of a small collection of journalists who were enjoying a private tour of the Show.  I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

The other journalists nodded their heads vaguely at the artists' words and then were on their way.  I'm not sure they "got" it.  But I surely did, and what a moment for me to discover that I was actually knowledgeable about some kind of contemporary art- and some of the best of it.  Of course, I took my moment to charge in and introduce myself by way of gushing about the San Francisco party.  Fortunately, both Rob and Christian are gracious (read "patient" men) and fielded my questions, i.e. "Why an entire house- especially when it's hard to sell something that large?"

"We were walking our dogs one day," Rob Clayton explained, "and it was trash night.  Somebody had thrown out this suitcase and, of course, we had to open it and see what was inside.  Lo and behold, the case contained all of these photographs, an entire family's history."  Yes, I got that, alright, from the black and white photos on the wall and their accompanying drawings explaining who these people could be and what their familiar pecking order could be, such as "brother" Fred or "sister" Sue.  Their imagined stories about the individuals were understandable and thought provoking, too.  So, again, "Why a whole house?"

"Evidently," Christian Clayton explained, "this family had built a pigeon coop together, so we got the idea to do a very tiny house.  We made a sequence of events out of the family photographs."  Ah, of course!  Some of the drawings inside included the imagined family characters being chased by birds, and oh, what fun to consider the amount of family therapy that a group who built a pigeon coop together could need!

Very understandable, all.  But then, what about all the collage images of poodles on the interior?  "There were also a lot of photos of a poodle (in the case)," Rob added.  "You know, the family pet always gets included in photos like this."  Ah, of course, brilliant.

Other neon messages at the show included "Space here becomes time," and "Time here becomes space."  I pondered this after looking at my watch and discovering that, after finding nothing prior that could truly draw my interest, I'd been inside the Clayton's pigeon coop for over forty minutes, musing over photos and drawings, reading descriptions, aphorisms, and otherwise enjoying myself.  I pondered this again when I realized I'd had to travel all the way across the country from California to Florida to get reacquainted with fabulous artists' right in our own L.A. backyard.

Art Basel Miami Beach turned out to have a delightful surprise for me- as it promises for anyone visiting there.   I've discovered I'm no dummy, after all, when it comes to contemporary art.  I simply "likes what I likes," as they say.

So, I'm coaxing my collector significant other into going back to the gallery and looking for one or two Clayton Brothers' pieces to buy for me for Christmas.  The one I'd wanted, "Encourage Me," was sold before I'd even entered the booth.  Guess I know a good investment when I see- and can understand- one.  And I suppose that answers the very first question in blue neon I encountered, now, doesn't it?

For information about the Clayton Brothers' work visit the Mackey Gallery web site at ww.mackeygallery.com.  For information about next year's Art Basel Miami Beach visit the organization's web site at www.ArtBasel.com