黑料不打烊

MA: What are your favorite parts or highlights of the 22nd edition of Art Miami?
NK: One of this year鈥檚 biggest highlights, is, in my opinion, the Mandarin Oriental Miami VIP Lounge, designed by artist Juan Montoya. I asked Juan to transform our 2,100 square foot VIP lounge for our guests and sponsor Mandarin Oriental, Miami. He has an amazing level of passion, experience and natural talent and is truly an artist in his own right. Juan is very cautious and particular in how he approaches a project and we are honored that he has accepted our invitation to take on this challenge. His design of the Art Miami VIP Lounge (pictured below) elevates the ambiance of our fair and will set new expectations for all other art fairs. It takes a really talented, experienced person to take on the challenge of designing a private lounge within a public space that will reflect a premier sponsor like the Mandarin Oriental, Miami, while also being functional in its use and highly visible to the thousands of attendees that the fair will attract. While the lounge only will be accessible to VIP cardholders, it will be visible to all who attend the fair. If you have seen the renderings, Juan has really envisioned an energy and atmosphere that has never before been seen in association with a VIP lounge at an art fair. We are really excited to see the reaction of our attendees and exhibitors when they experience the lounge firsthand. The space will create the perfect backdrop for our premier attendee audience to relax at Art Miami, enjoy a cocktail and converse socially and culturally with each other while pursing their passion of acquiring the finest contemporary art that the market has to offer.

MA: What do you make of the whole ABMB spectacle?
NK: Art Basel was the catalyst for the growth of all the surrounding fairs and they bring along with them a large European contingency, great reputation, strong history, mentality, strategy and system that has worked successfully in Europe, America, and now Asia. Sometimes such power and influence can create an overbearing confidence in the market that becomes out of reach or unobtainable for certain galleries and collectors. We believe that with more than 20 shows happening at the same time, the holistic definition is really 鈥淎rt Week Miami鈥� 鈥� not just ABMB. The continuation of Art Week in Miami is extremely important for the growth, confidence, and creativity within the global art world. It鈥檚 where the very best of the best in talent and galleries collide, offering an unparalleled importance to collecting side-by-side with social and cultural engagement. It鈥檚 an environment that provides great economic impact to the South Florida region with a positive influence globally as well. New collectors are cultivated while seasoned collectors are satisfied. The careers of emerging artists and galleries can take off while others may fade. It is the litmus test for the contemporary art market in America...the main stage that you must be a part of if you are a gallery or artist. (Below, Perversion Aversion by Ryan McGinness, from Galerie Forsblom)

And now check out our interview with one-of-a-kind curator Julia Draganovic, who talks about this year鈥檚 edition of Art Miami - in particular, the cutting-edge new media segment "ZOOOM! Decoding Common Practice", which presents six videos by artists examining the human condition.

Q&A with Julia Draganovic, Curator of Art Miami

黑料不打烊: How long have you been involved with Art Miami?
Julia Draganovic: This is the fourth time I鈥檓 involved with the video lounge. In 2008 I presented a project by Bjoern Melhus called Deadly Storms. In 2009, I curated Mapping the Blank Spots together with Asher Remy-Toledo. In 2010, I presented the video show In What We Trust, and together with Nick Korniloff selected the pieces shown in the sculpture project. This year I鈥檓 presenting the video show ZOOOM! Decoding Common Practice and again curated the artworks for the sculpture project. On top of this I鈥檓 working with two artists [Kaarina Kaikkonen and Sofia Maldonado] on site-specific pieces for Art Miami.

MA: Which artists did you choose to work with?
JD: I鈥檓 working with two women coming from very different geographical and cultural backgrounds: Sofia Maldanodo is a young Puerto Rican painter who, coming from the Caribbean urban street culture, depicts powerful images of feminine figures. You will find a lot of street culture elements, like skateboards, graffiti and the feminine aesthetics of the Caribbean in her work. Kaarina Kaikkonen is a well -established Finnish artist, who works as well with feminine imagery, but of a completely different kind. Her sculptures and installations are often made out of clothes. For Kaikkonen, the material carries the memory of the previous owner, which is an integral part of her work. Her pieces are charged with spiritual energy and effortlessly explore complex notions relating to ethics and ecology. (Right: The Gate, by Kaarina Kaikkonen, from Galerie Forsblom. Below: Concrete Jungle Diva by Sophia Maldonado, from Magnan Metz Gallery. Both artists have created site-specific installations for Art Miami).

MA: How will the exhibitions be installed?
JD: As in previous years, you will find selected outstanding sculptures all over the public areas of the fair. Sofia Maldanodo is preparing a large panel for one of the thoroughfares and another one for the fa莽ade of Art Miami, next to the entrance. If the weather allows, she will continue to work on it during the opening hours of the fair. Kaarina Kaikkonen is planning an installation of shirts on four of the palm trees on Midtown Boulevard, left and right from the entrance of the Art Miami Pavilion. The video show will have its own area in the fair. We have six booths, each 10x20, that allow for good-sized, one-channel projections.

MA: What's it like having Ai Weiwei participate in this year's Art Miami? What's his video about?
JD: Having a video by Ai Weiwei at Art Miami this year, of course, is causing a strange kind of excitement. He has become the icon of an upright artist, one who speaks up for his beliefs and risks his life for his artistic vision. Ai Weiwei is not allowed to leave his country, and what we heard about his arrest and detention sounds scary and makes everybody worry about his future. It is hard to talk about this, not really knowing what鈥檚 actually going on. That said, his amazing video Chang鈥檃n Boulevard is dealing precisely with this issue: the impossibility to represent reality. It is truly a monumental work. It consists of 10 hours and 13 minutes of video shots taken every 50 meters traveling along Chang鈥檃n Boulevard across Beijing, and in a way it鈥檚 an essential work regarding the pretension of 鈥減resenting reality鈥�: No one is able to watch a video for 10 hours. And even if you could 鈥� and you would surely be overwhelmed by the amazing variety of impressions and images throughout the film 鈥� you would still not have seen Chang鈥檃n Boulevard [in its entirety], but only some brief excerpts; a spot every 50 meters, chosen by the artist, defined by his casual view of something that captured his attention. And then you realize how fast the urban landscape in China changes: Go back to where you started from, and after ten hours, a lot of things have changed.

MA: This is your third year curating the art video lounge. Can you expand on the theme? How is this year different?
JD: I fully enjoy the sensibility and commitment of the fair direction for video art and the freedom they leave me to develop some kind of experimental research. There are a number of fairs that are presenting video screenings, but Art Miami is presenting for the fourth time a real show in every sense of the word, giving space and the appropriate technology for every single piece, precisely following the specifications requested by each artist. The title [ZOOOM! Decoding Common Practice] came out of my longing for simple things (after I dealt with the heavy-duty ideological stuff in last year鈥檚 show In What We Trust). With ZOOOM! Decoding Common Practice, I鈥檓 presenting six video works that show the capacity of video to make the viewer 鈥渞ead between the lines.鈥� Video was for some time mainly used as 鈥渄ocumentation鈥� of time-lapse based art (performances or events) and really large-scale art pieces that transcended the capacity of human perception (for example, certain land art pieces). After a period of experimentation with the new technology, the last decade has seen a return to a lot of documentary work. I鈥檓 always surprised when the short connection between video art and journalism is used as a critique against certain video pieces: media theory of the last few decades should have taught people that there is really no such thing as 鈥渙bjective news鈥� or mere 鈥渄ocumentation鈥�; moving images are always creating their own narrative. ZOOOM! Decoding Common Practice shows different ways to display this: apparent documentation; assemblages and post-production of found footage; performances that are recorded in a specific manner; and performances staged explicitly for the eye of the camera. I was really intrigued by Lucia Nimcova鈥檚 found footage video Double Coding (pictured above) which is composed of a series of images cut out from Czech movies, that had been censored by the Communist regime of the former Czechoslovakia. At first glance, all these censored scenes that were cut for being 鈥渄angerous鈥� to the Czechoslovakian audience [were shocking because they] seemed so innocent to me. I did understand that there was an underlying code that I had difficulty to decipher, and all of the sudden, every detail became curious to me. So I chose a series of serious works that are telling simple stories. But each video tells more than just one tale...if you look closely, each piece opens a variety of interpretations.

MA: Overall, what are the challenges in curating exhibitions at an art fair (as opposed to an event in a different setting)?
JD: The environment is unlike the meditative ambiance created by a museum, so that鈥檚 challenging at times. An art fair is a meeting point, a social event; it is loud and, hopefully, joyful. Shows in a fair like Art Miami have a high number of visitors who want to look at the art, but they also want to 鈥渟ee and be seen鈥� by the other visitors at the fair. Therefore, the attention-span of visitors to the art fair is much shorter than that of the average audience to a museum or gallery show. So it鈥檚 of crucial importance that an art fair has plenty to keep visitors visually entertained at all times...Luckily, Art Miami has all of those things....so we hope to see you there!

Miami鈥檚 longest-running contemporary art fair, Art Miami, runs from November 30th - December 4, 2011 in Midtown Miami, Florida. Don鈥檛 miss it!

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