MIAMI, Dec. 2, 2005—Art Basel Miami Beach, December 2
 
TAKING PULSE'S PULSE
 
"It's been so intense!" exclaims Virgil de Voldere, whose eponymous gallery is in New York's Chelsea neighborhood. "I sold almost $50,000 worth of work in the first two hours!"

De Voldere, who sold, among many other things, a slick new sculpture by Anthony Patti to collector Jean Pigozzi, did all this selling at the new Pulse fair, which seems to have gotten off to a roaring start.

Installed in a tent in the Wynwood district, Pulse was launched this year by Helen Allen, of AAF,the organization formerly known as Affordable Art Fair. When the fair'sdoors opened, collectors, including Susan and Michael Hort and Beth Rudin DeWoody, streamed in and snapped up works as they made their way down the aisles.

At Conner Contemporary, Julee Holcombe's digitized photographs were selling swiftly for $5,000 apiece. "We had to take them off the stand," says Leigh Conner. "People kept asking and they were all gone!"

Conner also sold work by Leo Villareal and Kehinde Wiley.Wiley's large painting, which dominated Conner's booth, went in the$30-35,000 range, proof that collectors were spending substantial sumson the fair's first day. The fair is right around the corner from the Rubell and Margulies collections, which Conner sees as a major advantage.

Susan Reynolds of Feigen Contemporary, who brought works by Matthew McCaslin, Jeremy Blakeand others, was upbeat. "It's perfect to open the day after Basel andNada. It's less overwhelming for people, and all of these fairs aredoing their own thing."

At DCKT gallery, Ken Tyburskisaid he was selling works by all of the artists he brought to the fair.He said he'd seen major collectors, as well as representatives ofmuseums and corporate collections.

Michael Schultz, a German gallery, had sold its booth by noon. Paintings by Cornelia Schleime and SEO were the first to go.

Yancey Richardson sold a Bernd and Hilla Becher typology for $64,000 and seven photographs by Julius Schulman for $7,000 to $8,500. Schulman prints have become rarer on the market and have gone up in price since the Getty bought his archive.

Ernst Hilger has sold 15 works total so far, including two photographs by Massimo Vitali at $19,000 apiece.

Another major sale: Fred gallery of London sold a collage by Simon English to the Louisiana Museum of Art in Denmark for about $34,000. And yet another: Heather Marx, a San Francisco gallery, sold a major piece by Libby Blackto what the gallery would only refer to as a "major New York collector"who is a new client of theirs. Black, who recently had a show at thegallery, recreates luxury goods entirely out of paper. The piece thismajor New Yorker bought is a Burberry picnic set. With an asking priceof $22,000, it is possibly more luxurious than the original.

Pulse will also be in New York to piggyback on the Armory Show. Its recipe-combining more established galleries with newer ones-has turned out to have tasty results. So stay tuned.
 
MIAMI HEAT: INSIDE THE FAIR
 
Maid in Miami
Throughout the week, there have been rumblings about a secret-ish performance by Vanessa Beecroft,who is known for asking large numbers of women to stand around forhours in various states of undress. The performance finally took placeFriday night in a field across from the Art Positions section of the fair. Entitled VB58,it consisted of 15 women in maids uniforms standing inside the "pushbutton house," an entire living room inside a shipping container,created by architect Adam Kalkin. As ArtInfoapproached, the maids had just disbanded and were walking wearilyacross the field-they'd just been on their feet for threehours-followed by Beecroft's dealer, Jeffrey Deitch.An assistant of Beecroft's explained that the women are Miami locals ofHaitian origin, and that Beecroft had come down to Miami well beforethe fair to enlist these women, some of whom are maids in real life, inlocal hotels. The outfits looked vintage, and in fact, Beecroft modeledthem on those in the Luis Buñuel film Diary of a Chambermaid.

Glad-(Bag)-Handing It
Enterprising and intrepid dealers from the scope fair were able to sneak into a private party being held on the roof of their fair's venue, the TownHouse Hotel. The event, a party for young collectors held by MoMA,required a thin, yellow, string-like wristband to gain entry-wristbandswhich looked remarkably like the ties used to close up the plastictrash bags used at the hotel. After digging about in the trash, somescope dealers were able to waltz by security, secure some free boozeand return to their booths.

Fair Food
Manuel Gonzalez, curator and advisor to the Ellipse Foundationof the Netherlands, has been busy. He would only reveal what he boughtfor the foundation off the record, but he did say that he purchased a Robert Motherwell collage for a private client. "Art Basel has been a great success at every level, except the food," he said. "I asked Sam [Keller] why he didn't have Joe's Stone Crabcome in, and he told me it was the first thing he thought about, butthe convention center wouldn't allow it." He also remarked, "There hasbeen an incredible mix of people this year. I was talking to Mera Rubelllast night, and she said, 'After last year, I was afraid that themomentum would slow, but that hasn't happened: It's better than everthis year.'"

Playing Footsies
Since the Modern Painters football match held during the Frieze fairin October in London was such a success, the magazine (an ArtInfosister publication) decided to hold a soccer game (now that we're inthe States) for the ABMB crowd on the beach near Art Positions. Krug Champagnesponsored the event, with artists, gallerists, collectors andjournalists all part of the teams, playing like art-world champs.Onlookers trickled in, ranging from those dressed to the nines, toothers in beach wear. Sam Keller (who played at Frieze) made anappearance to show his support (and grab a T-shirt). And the gameplayed on with the sun setting on the water. Now that's how you do it.

scoping It Out
The galleries at scope were pleased with Friday's traffic. Cheryl Numark, owner of Numark Gallery in Washington, D.C., sold a David Ryan ($4,500) to the Zabars, owners of the NYC institution Zabar's. Numark said she's been surprised at the number of corporate curators who have come through. She was also happy to see Margo Crutchfield, senior curator of MoCA/Cleveland, come through and take some serious time considering the work in her room.

Tatyana Okshteyn, owner of Black & White Gallery in Brooklyn, said she's seen noted collectors Jerome Stern, Hubert Neumann and Beth Rudin DeWoodycome through today. "I've never seen these collectors here before, andthey're buying!" she remarked. "This is my third year, and I'd say it'sthe best of the three in terms of sales."

Jonathan LeVine, head honcho (as his business card attests) of Jonathan LeVine Galleryin New York, said he would definitely participate again. "Our work hasalways been so underground in New York, and we're thrilled to begetting it out into the world."

Seen at Cisneros
Friday morning, bright and early (at least for late night fair revelers), Ella Fontanals Cisneros inaugurated the new building to hold her Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) and an exhibition space to show the Venezuelan-born philanthropist's collection.

AsVIPs and members of the press filed into the inner courtyard with itslime green seats and bright orange tents set in front of the buildingfaçade's tiled bamboo forest mural, a member of Fontanals Cisneros'staff began to welcome guests, saying that the grande dame of theproject could not speak, and joked that "she lost her voice shouting toconstruction workers."

The shouting must have worked becausethe project was finished with remarkable speed, with the building goingup in four months. And during her speech, Fontanals Cisneros notedjokingly, "We all know that nothing can be done in four months in Miamiunless it illegal." But, as proof that everything was in order with thecity, the mayor himself was on hand to speak about the project, sayingthat it "represents the greatness our city will achieve in the field ofarts and culture."

Set in a former boxing studio, the 12,000-square-feet building opens with two exhibitions: Beyond Delirious, with photographs referencing architecture and the urban environment, and Indeterminate States, with selected videos from the collection.

The majority of Beyond Delirious, curated by Christopher Phillips of New York's International Center of Photography, has contemporary photos of the sharp-focus, large-scale Gursky-Struth-Ruff variety, as the opening work is a Thomas Struth image of Tokyo. Others include an Olafur Eliasson grid series of 68 bridges, an Andreas Gursky of a multi-tiered São Paolo metro station, parking lots by Ed Ruscha and a large C-print by Wang Qingsong.

Indeterminate Statescontains videos on floating monitors, television screens and walls, asprojections. To bring them all together, the galleries are arrangedwith dividing walls and soundproof padding, creating a sort of maze,where videos are nestled in their own corners.

Curator Michael Rush, director of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University,had quite a job as, between the hurricanes and technical problems, thewhole crew was under extreme time constraints. "We had five days toinstall, during which the electricity wasn't working and we had aflood," he says, adding, "But it gives you a great adrenaline as well."Now that everything is in place, Rush is "really happy with theoutcome."

Among the videos on display are a nine-channel work by Julian Rosefeldt; Marina Abramovic's Nude with Skeleton; Ana Mendieta's Corazón de Roca con Sangre; and a rare Francesca Woodman video work, which was acquired through New York dealer Marian Goodman.

There was also a Chantal Ackermanwork with about a dozen monitors showing moving crowd scenes. One womanwas overheard saying to another: "It's already making me dizzy, I havea hangover." Ah, the life of ABMB.




Images (top to bottom): Courtesy of Art Basel Miami Beach (2); © Artinfo.com