Ice on the Decks, Non-Vanilla

Ice has a bit of a bad musical rap ever sense its unfortunate connection with a certain early 90’s caucasian rapper, but it’s grown musically sense then. While listening to the Merzbox 20 times in a row, it realized there’s more to creating sound than ripping of a Queen riff, so it teamed up…

Basel Radio Activity

Art Radio WPS1.org does their award winning Art Basel radio show from Art Positions every year. If you’re super into art and super into NPR type radio programming and wish somehow those worlds could collide permanently, it’s not to be missed. They’ll have collectors, artists, curators and the like dropping…

Will Art Basel Tank?

The story of this year’s Basel is the recession, as we noted in this week’s cover story and in a follow up piece by Carlos Suarez De Jesus that hits stands tomorrow. Long story short, Basel organizers seem to think (or hope) that people who had a lot of money…

Q&A with photo MIAMI Director Tim Fleming

Maleonn Portrait of Mephisto No 5, 2006 / Courtesy Craig Scott GalleryIn three short years, photo MIAMI, a contemporary art fair for photo-based art, video and new media, has become one of the city’s major satellite fairs thanks to its director Tim Fleming. Originally, based in Los Angeles Fleming jumped…

Making Art Out of Lightposts During Art Basel

MiMo artist Louis Dalmau is known for making art in some unusual environments. His first big — ahem, splash — in Miami came in the late ’80s when he created an underwater art installation that doubled as a reef. For this year’s Art Basel, Dalmau choose a distinctly less sexy…

Sad Germans: Art Basel Will Be “The Embodiment of Failure”

Germans are not exactly the most cheerful people, so it’s no surprise that Deutschland’s biggest magazine, Der Spiegel, has one of the most depressing previews of Art Basel we’ve seen so far. “On the fourth of December, the fair will open for a seventh time, and, as always, several German…

StreetWorks: Pedestriart Urban Art Project

The “Pedestriart” urban art project has taken over the Midtown Art Park. Apparently it’s important for everyone to know that grasshopper 69’s are strictly prohibited. Local artist Leonel Matheu uses his own iconography to make artistic statements for the consumption of passing foot traffic. Several big art fairs including, SCOPE and PhotoMiami are setting up tents just a couple blocks south of the park, so it should get plenty of foot traffic. Here are some shots of the work.

Don’t Call It Roadkill. It’s Art.

Nestor Arenas doesn’t aim to please. The baby-faced, bespectacled 43-year-old Miami photographer likes to show us what we’d rather not see. Like, say, a once-adorable black cat smashed on the side of the road. Or a raccoon’s guts spilling onto the asphalt. In his latest work, which is on display…

Primary Fight Brings Street Art Ethos to Basel

Famed Culture Jammer and artist Ron English is sure to fancy up some lucky Wynwood wall At the heart of Art Basel lies an unabashed celebration of commerce and luxury, but not every art piece is meant to double as an investment and status symbol that looks good hanging over…

NADA Will Be Totes Awesome

Gap’s refined older brother Banana Republic will be sponsoring the NADA Art Fair’s 2008 preview (a benefit for the New Museum) and as part of the deal will be donating limited edition tote bags featuring the work of 6 artists. It’s the perfect gift idea for your artistically incline mom…

ADULT.’s Ulterior Art Motive

“Wrench”, Nicola Kupersu, Color Print, 2007 Over at Crossfade we told you electro act ADULT. will be playing White Room during Art Basel week. Here at Riptide we’re charged with covering the visual arts beat, and hence are providing you with the ulterior motive for ADULT.’s visit. One half of…

Swingin’ Swing-tops

Haitian-born, Miami-based artist Edouard Duval-Carrié is teaming up with Dutch beer brand Grolsch for a limited edition bottle only available at select Art Basel events. We’ll stay out of the debate over the whole idea of limited edition beer bottle as art piece for the moment, and just be happy…

Design Miami Announces Satellite Exhibits

A shot from a recent Takashi Murakami retrospective, via Wallpaper In addition to it’s 45,000-square foot tent, Design Miami will also feature seven satellite instillations spread through out the area. Kaikai Kiki, the studio founded by famed pop-artists Takashi Murakami, will be featured for the first time at the fair…

FriendsWithYou Bringing Child’s Play to Scope Miami

Sam Borkson and Arturo Sandoval Jr. make up Miami art collective FriendsWithYou, which have been injecting the world with childish fun and color. So is it any surprise that Scope has commissioned the duo to create an interactive experience for fairgoers? “Fun House” will take over the lounge area at…

Plans Announced for Fountain Miami 2008

Greg Haberny, Honky Town, Enamel on Birch, 48″ x 72″, 2008 Fountain Miami, a mini-fair that debuted in 2006, will be back again.The fair will feature instillation from five American galleries including Glowlab, The Leo Kesting gallery, Open Ground, Yum Yum Factory (all based in New York) and Miami’s own…

Naomi Campbell Coming To Basel

A still from “Untitled” a short film by Nick Knight, via Show Studio Fresh of her starring role in one of the most talked about fashion mag issues of the year, Naomi Campbell will be celebrated with her own retrospective during Art Basel. The exhibition will be in conjunction with…

Basel Bellwether: No Buying Sprees, but Not Bleak

In what may be a bellwether for Art Basel Miami Beach, another of the world’s largest art fairs, London’s Frieze Art Fair, closed this Sunday and reported sales that were slow, but higher than expected, according to The Telegraph. [Though] many well-known collectors were absent from the throng of buyers…

Design Miami Crowns Campana Brothers Designers of the Year

Yanko DesignA piece from the Campana’s Transplastic furniture collection. Design Miami already announced that they’ve commissioned Aranda/Lasch to plan the fair’s structure, but now they’ve announced that Fernando and Humberto Campana will be named Designers of the Year at the fair in Decemeber. Part of the Prize? They get to…

In Other Basel News: Art Miami Moves, SCOPE Expands

Can you smell it? Art Basel is less than three months away, and Riptide definitely plans to Basel it up when the art fairs come to town. But in the meantime, here is some Basel-related news: After a successful move last year from reject January art fair to Basel satellite…

Aranda/Lasch Chosen For Design Miami/ Structure

via Archurbanist Grotto Design Miami/ has chosen New York-based design and architecture firm Aranda/Lasch to create the temporary structure that will house this year’s fair. So many “/”s. The firm’s architects are known for their “sophisticated investigation into structure in their work, which explores the infinite variations of form possible…

New York Loves/Hates Miami

Mid-beach and South Beach ranked five and six, respectively in a recent New York Times travel piece touting 53 places to visit in 2008. The writer lavished: “Move over South Beach. The iconic Eden Roc Resort and Fontainebleau Miami Beach — faded glitterati hangouts designed by Morris Lapidus — will…

Splendid Art at EdgeZones, Not So Splendid

Elvis Ramirez Art goers take in an installation at EdgeZones during Art Basel 2007. With the plethora of Art Basel events going on this past weekend, there was no way to catch all of it. In fact, I’m willing to bet that a lot of the smaller events were overlooked…