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.

The Miami Art Fairs (Art Basel Miami + satellite fairs) can be a bit numbing after awhile — fair after fair, gallery after gallery.  So it’s helpful and refreshing to see what others find interesting or particularly noteworthy.  Annie Adjchavanich is in Miami and just posted up some of her picks on her Dailydujour blog including the lovely Mark Ryden piece above which was shown as at Art Basel Miami proper by Paul Kasmin and reportedly sold for 900k.

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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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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