Seen: Art Basel Miami ‘08

Evan Penny

It’s been about a week since Art Basel ‘08 in Miami came to a close.  Since this was my first trip to Basel, I didn’t know what to expect short of a steady diet of excellent art.  And how…  When most people speak of Basel they are talking about the entire dizzying array of satellite art fairs and gallery shows that have sprung up around the official Art Basel show which is held at the convention center in South Beach.

Having had a week to decompress and reflect upon aisle after aisle of art, we’ll start our focused coverage with Art Basel at the convention center.  After we quickly realized that bringing you all or even most of the show was an impossibility, we settled on focusing on art that caught our eye.  Where possible we have included artist credits – many pieces were not clearly marked. Basel and most of the surrounding art fairs challenge the viewer to make sense out of widely varying styles and genres from one booth to the next.

In terms of our personal highlights, Evan Penny’s amazingly and eerily life-like Murray, Variation #3 sculpture (above) drew large crowds and with good reason.  From the individual hairs to the true-to-life skin, the piece is impeccable.  Note also that it’s slightly distorted towards the back — very subtle effect.  In terms of paintings, Mark Ryden’s new large piece shown by Tomio Koyama gallery stood out partly because well it’s a Ryden and two because of the provocative style featuring bubbles emanating from the girls crotch.  Finally, on the lighter side of life  Mr.’s candy-colored photograph of a female fire team begged a second and third look.  Be sure to check out our photo gallery of sights of Art Basel including the pieces mentioned here, after the jump.