Cara Despain, a regular contributor to 15 Bytes, is visiting Art Basel in Miami this week, so we asked her to send us some posts about her experience there:

Day one:  Art Basel Miami officially opened at the convention center yesterday.  We got a somewhat late start, so we didn’t see too much last night.  I CAN’T BELIEVE HOW MUCH ART IS IN THERE.  When we looked at a map at dinner of what we had covered, it was a tenth of what is packed in there–over 200 galleries from all over the world.

Yesterday I saw some German and Japanese galleries that were pretty sweet.  One of my favorites among galleries was Tomio Koyama Gallery from Tokoyo, who appears to represent a buncha awesome contemporary Japanses artists.  They had mostly paintings there that were odd and
lovely.  We also checked out Supernova, a section of newer, emerging artists.  Most of them were represented by galleries in New York. Pretty exciting stuff.  And its just the tip of the iceburg. 

We are about to embark on today’s venture through the convention center. Hopefully we will be able to check out the Rubell family’s warehouse–I’m anxious to see more from their collection.  If I can pull off this press pass business, I may get to talk to some of the artists and exhibitors–which would be most excellent.  There was a ball for artists last night at Vizcaya, John Deere’s mansion, but we got denied–invite only:(    Maybe next year.  How are you ever supposed to begin plugging in to this art world bs? 

Whenever I look at art, I like to try and write down names for further research, and so I can remember what I’ve seen, and so I can keep up with contemporaries.  So for those of you who are interested in checking some out, here are some names I collect from yesterday:   Christine Rebet,  Tessa Farmer, Carol Bove (wow, giant carpet of peacock feathers!), Noah Sheldon, Thaddeus Strode, Richard Wathen, Masahiko Kuwahara.

We’ll see what today brings!

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UTAH’S ART MAGAZINE SINCE 2001, 15 Bytes is published by Artists of Utah, a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.