A Day in the Life: Andrea Feldman Falcione

MIAMI—To get at the real insider experience of being at Art Basel Miami Beach, ARTINFO asked several art world figures—a museum director, a dealer, a collector, an artist (actually two), a PR representative, and, in this case, a consultant—to tell us about the wheeling, dealing, wining, dining, schmoozing, courting, negotiation, resting, and—oh yeah—looking at art that they do in a day at the fair.

Anyone who makes the rounds at galleries in Los Angles has probably seen Andrea Feldman Falcione. A one-time curator for Eli Broad and long-time curator for Michael Ovitz, Feldman Falcione is known for getting out and about. And this spring she resigned from Ovitz's office to venture out on her own as an art adviser.

ARTINFO caught up with her on Thursday to see what a day in the life at Art Basel is like. She said it was an unusual day—“I didn’t spend much time physically with my clients and didn’t finalize any purchases”—but was gracious enough to share the basics with us anyway.

7:45 a.m. Woke up at Royal Palm hotel at 15th and Collins. Checked Blackberry. Got an email from a L.A. client saying she’s interested in a monoprint that she spotted yesterday at Art Basel.

8:00 a.m. Texted dealer to see if the monotype is still available.

8:05 a.m. Received reply from dealer that piece is still available and they will send images when they arrive at the fair.

9:00 a.m. Had breakfast (“a bowl of oatmeal and grapefruit juice”) at Loews hotel with London dealer Paula Feldman from Victoria Miro Gallery and New York dealer Susie Kravets from Kravets/Wehby. Talked about their programs, including Miro’s current exhibition of Wangechi Mutu, whose work she has bought for clients in the past.

10:30 a.m. Grabbed taxi with Paula and Susie to visit the Rubell Collection. The highlight? “The piece by Thomas Zipp—a giant organ, where electric components feed these handmade pipes. I was delighted to see it at the Rubell in such a public space, because so many people probably missed it at Harris Lieberman in New York last year.”

12:45 p.m. Began making the rounds at Nada. “I ran into one of my most seasoned L.A. clients and took him to see paintings by Shara Hughes at Rivington Arms—mostly brightly colored interior spaces, rather labyrinthine, with a loose style. There was nothing by Hughes at fair so we looked at work in the dealer’s notebook.”

2:00 p.m. Still no image of monotype from Basel dealer. Texted dealer with reminder to send.

2:15 p.m. Had lunch at Nada—lasagna and sparkling water—with a New York collector who is not (or not yet) a client. “I just got to know him at Basel yesterday.”

3:45 p.m. Grabbed cab back to main fair to meet up with husband-and-wife clients from L.A. “They said they were fading and were on their way out, so we made tentative plans to meet back at the fair at noon.”

4:30 p.m. “Went to Spruth Magers's booth at Basel, where another client has a second reserve on a photograph, to see if anything had happened on that." No news yet.

6:00 p.m. Sat down in the VIP lounge of Basel for a cup of decaf cappuccino. Next up: swinging by the booth of the dealer with the monoprint. After that: off to cocktail party at Table 8 on Ocean Drive for LAX Art, the Culver City nonprofit, “to show my support for founder Lauri Firstenberg and to see a few of her artists, like Kori Newkirk and Ruben Ochoa, whom my clients have been collecting.”

Jori Finkel is a contributing editor of Art+Auction.