Greg Escalante spotted this guy up on an electrical pole.

He said this mural was just started last year – it’s pretty epic.

Scott Musgrove showed me his newest bronze sculpture!

Kris Kuksi (L) poses with Scott Musgrove (R) in front of his piece at Josh Liner’s gallery.

Kris Kuksi’s sculpture.

Detail.

Art dealer Paul Kopeikin in front of Deanna Templeton’s photographic installation. (thanks for the passes Paul!)

Ran into some friends from Washington, DC when I was talking to Scott Musgrove.

Kate Damon, Matt, Bebe Paz.

Trevor Young and Washington, DC art dealer Jamie McClellan of Civilian Art Projects, SCOPE.

My dear friend and Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Lucian Perkins’ punk photos were a blast from the past!

@Civilian Art Projects. Jamie said that she had sold 10 from the series.  I’m guessing it was the portfolio.

A very cool bronze sculpture by Jud Bergeron at Mark Wolfe Contemporary, @SCOPE.

Marsea Goldberg of New Image Art Gallery’s booth.

My buddy Charlie James in his booth with the works of Steve Lambert.

Deitch Projects in NY is setting up for a massive Miami Basel party tomorrow night. At the moment artists including Futura, Shepard Fairey, Aiko, Kenny Scharf and Os Gemeos are feverishly finishing massive murals for the upcoming exhibition and display. Got a chance to chat with Aiko as she has been on a world tour having just returned from Shanghai.

Futura was working solo on a giant wall while Fairey’s team worked on wheatpasting an equally large space. The old school Kenny Scharf was also putting the last touches on a mural. If you are in Miami stop by the exhibit in Wynwood.

Opening, Thursday December 3rd, 2009
NW 26th Street & 2nd Avenue, Miami, FL

AN OUTDOOR MURAL PROJECT PRODUCED BY DEITCH PROJECTS AND GOLDMAN PROPERTIES

Fifteen influential artists from Asia, Europe, Latin America and the United States have been invited to create outdoor murals on the warehouse walls of Miami’s Wynwood Art District. Tony Goldman of Goldman Properties, one of the major property owners in Wynwood, has made available a group of walls and buildings for artists to work on, concentrated in the area between 2nd and 5th Avenues and NW 22nd and 28th Streets. The project also includes an indoor space at 2550 NW 2nd Avenue where paintings by several of the artists and documentary photographs by Martha Cooper will be exhibited.

More Images + Info »

Art Basel Miami kicked off yesterday with a series of private parties and events. MOCA Miami opened up with a party hosted by Vanity Fair, Galerie Emmanual Perrotin hosted another large fete at their Miami space and the Viceroy Hotel launched their inaugural “Art Viceroy” curated by Renee Vara and others.

It was certainly an interesting way to start the week and it is not completely clear yet as to whether the art market has turned positive for the galleries here in Miami. Perrotin certainly scaled back from the lavish launch party in 2008. Gone were the never ending trays of hors d’oevres, the flowing bar (they ran out early) and the massive installations of large work. This year had a larger number of smaller works from his stable of artists including new furniture by Pharrell Williams, a small KAWS chum, Hernan Bas, Jose Levy and more. Things must be getting tighter as the gallery had a large print rack out with prints from Murakami on display…and even a mocked up bedroom on display with walls adorned with framed prints. No marching band this year but it was still a lively way to open the group show and certainly a good party. More info on Art Viceroy and pictures after the jump.

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Friday night DD attended the LA Art Show. The show probably would have been more impressive had we not just come from Art Basel in Miami a few weeks ago. Certainly a handful of impressive work, but not anywhere close to the scale and “bling” of Miami. Galleries were pulling out all the stops in Miami, but seemed to be just trying to mitigate their costs here in LA. No one seemed to be beaming as bright as DJ Hall’s photo-realistic ladies (pictured above).

After arriving early it seemed to be a light crowd for a Friday evening, until the GenArt “Art of Fashion” event started kicking in to gear. With well placed bars and Don Julio tequila tasting stations placed around the convention center, the crowd swelled quickly. While not as shiny as the Miami Fair, with over 130 galleries participating in LA, the show still had plenty of work to view including pieces from Damien Hirst, Crash and a selection of Chinese pop-art stars.

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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.

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A little behind in posts here, so I am going to keep them short and sweet. Two night ago we did the Bridge Fair preview. So far the weakest of the fairs with more “shock” art and seemingly tourist geared art. A few nice things, but the camera was certainly not out as much as it has been anywhere else.

After hours were great though as we hit the Beautiful/Decay Magazine party at Essex where it was a who’s who of artists and gallery owners including Ron English, Mars 1, Blek le Rat, Marci Washington and more. Also met some great collectors that I had only met over the phone. Great event all around…

From the B/D party the gang headed to the Delano Hotel and the Emmanuel Perrotin x Pharell x Le Baron party…

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Jeff Soto

The focus of the art world (at least in the United States) is clearly focused on Miami for Art Basel. While people talk about Basel as if it’s one show – the reality is there are numerous satellite fairs and events that collectively make the event much bigger than the actual Art Basel which is hosted at the Miami Convention Center.

On Friday night (12.5), one of the key highlights was the opening of Scion’s Installation 5 tour at the Raleigh Hotel. This is the second stop of this year’s tour which features Self Portraits in the form of paintings and photographs. Dailydujour attended the VIP event prior to the public opening.

As with prior Installation tours, the large group of artists is as diverse aesthetically as it is impressive.  From noted lowbrow painters to urban contemporary artists – the Installation artists present unique and compelling visions.  Quite a few of the top contemporary artists were in attendance including many/most of the Installation artists.

While the focus was on the art in the penthouse at the top of the Raleigh Hotel, the three custom Scions parked outside including one painted by Jeff Soto (above) drew plenty of street-level attention. In particular, the Taco Truck conversion definitely turned quite a few heads and drew plenty of smiles.

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I am a little late in blogging, as Aqua Wynwood had their preview Tuesday night. After Pulse, the show at Aqua seemed a little slower, but their was still a tremendous number of great works. Several of our favorite galleries were in attendance including the newly branded David B Smith Gallery. The former Limited Addiction Gallery had work from Josh Keyes and Jason Theilke, a pair of my favorites.

Aqua Wynwood had a lot of work I was already familiar with, but also provided some excellent surprises including some excellent sculptures and installations. I mentioned in an earlier post, but it feels like 3 dimensional work is showing more prevalently than at last years fair.

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The Pulse Fair opened its preview last night as well. Quite an impressive roster of galleries, and frankly some great work. I feel like there is better work this year at Basel than last – at least more art that I am enjoying. Noticing a huge resurgence in installations, sculpture and dimensional work.

Pulse also hosts GEISAI, produced by Mr. Murakami’s KaiKaiKiKi. Geisai hosts a group of selected artists to display their work in small booths. Nothing all that inspiring, all though it was certainly better than last years disaster.

I really enjoyed a series of sculptures from Korean artist Osang Gwan. Essentially life size sculpture encased in a series of 3-dimensional David Hockney styled photographs and all resined together. These were brilliant in person. Pick one up for a cool $20k.

Keep going for a ton more pics and witty banter…

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Art Basel kicked off this evening here in Miami, and we started it off with an epic event at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin – home of Kaws, Mr. and Murakami…

A literal “who’s who” party in Miami, there was a high school marching band, food, beer and wine, fur coats and some of the most famous contemporary artists in the world. Not just a gallery opening, but a true kickoff event. Takashi Murakami appeared in costume and was mobbed until his manager pulled him from the fray. Perrotin artist Kaws was in attendance alongside Pharell Williams and Chad Hugo of Neptunes/N.E.R.D. fame.

Click through for more images and details…do it.

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Arrived this morning via the red-eye into Miami. We spent the day unloading and hanging our show at Aqua Art Fair, and am going to take a quick snooze before heading to a few preview shows. Great lineup tonight with Aqua Wynwood, Pulse, Red Dot and the A-Ron the Don’s O.H.W.O.W exhibit and opening party.

Tomorrow night we get the actual Basel opening and some live music on the beach. Last year it was Iggy Pop. This year? not sure yet…

Stay tuned, ill have some updates later tonight AND hopefully a preview of our own show.

The gallery has been rapidly building crates and preparing our shiny inventory books for our first Art Fair at the invite only Aqua Art Fair. We are taking new work from our represented artists, including new pieces from Yoskay Yamamoto, Nate Frizzell, Melissa Haslam, Tessar Lo, Edwin Ushiro, Blaine Fontana, Alexandros Vasmoulakis and more…

AQUA Hotel   /   RM 106   /   December 4-7, 2008
1530 Collins Ave. Miami Beach, FL 33139.

If you plan on joining us in Miami and need VIP passes or invitations please email us at:

contact@cerasoli-lebasse.com.

We hope to see you in South Beach!

So after a great show with Nate Frizzell and Scott Belcastro, we are now gearing up for our first art fair at the Aqua Hotel in Miami. The fair is one of several high profile satellite fairs based around the Art Basel Miami. I am getting very nervous and excited about the upcoming fair, as we went last year but just as party-goers.

This year we are shipping tons of new work for out booth and will hopefully be introducing some new collectors to work by some of our repped artists.

We have some huge new pieces by Alexandros Vasmoulakis as well as new work from Melissa Haslam, Yoskay Yamamoto and even new pieces from Blaine Fontana. If you happen to be in Miami, I hope you can join us. If you are going to be in town and want to come, shoot me an email as we have a few more VIP passes to the fair.

Cerasoli:LeBasse @ the Aqua Hotel Miami: Room 106

Preview:
Wednesday evening, Dec. 3, 7-10pm *

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Public Hours:
Dec. 4: 11am – 8pm
Dec. 5: 11am – 8pm
Dec. 6: 11am – 8pm
Dec. 7: 11am – 4pm