Text by Drew Zeiba. Drew Zeiba seeks the source of infinity at the fairs, museums, parties, and performances surrounding Art Basel Miami Beach. My Uber driver is listening to the national anthem. I am staying at a hotel called the Cadillac, like the car. Is this a Lana Del Rey song? No, this is Florida. My balcony overlooks the beach and a mid-rise construction site.
The wind roils the sea. The Sleep of Reason spans two floors. Kai Althof anchors the first floor. Also, seeing so much at once. The consistency of vision but freedom of forms. The textiles, the creepiness, the puncturings. A Richard Tuttle tacked above a Virgil Abloh bench really draws me in. I and some others peek through glass-walled private offices to see the art usually on displayβeven without a tour group in attendance.
Noticing our wandering gazes, Karen Grimson, the curator of this current hang, jokes about remixing Zoom backgrounds, and I wonder what clients think when they see a mass of leering women rendered in low-contrast black on beige. I respect this choice. We continue, pausing for a while along a wall of works by the German painter Jana Euler.
In one, a messianic hippie inflected by sunset colors plays a recorder. In another, a mottled cow sits upright, looking metaphysically ran-through and forlorn, holding a takeaway cup. Their clothes run the gamut of all-logo high-end camel-colored Loewe shorts with curlicue cutaways, Prada sandals with little dangling triangles to all-logo freebie Dia Beacon hats. I see a guy with jarringly large brown eyes. How did I not notice these remarkable orbs before? Dinner-saucer-big black pools overtake his retinas.
Uhoh, do I look like that? I go to the bathroom to check my face in the mirror. I look perfectly normal. I traipse the Design District, checking out the new outdoor sculptures, inspired by Ndebele jewelry, by Nicole Nomsa Moyo.
