The 10th iteration of Art Basel Miami Beach (ABMB for short throughout)—which has now become a fixture on the art world’s calendar and another source of civic pride for a city better known for basketball teams and beaches—showed the fair settling into its status as the premier commercial exposition for contemporary art in the United States. Since its first appearance in 2002, ABMB has inspired the development of satellite fairs—among the most prominent being the NADA (New Art Dealers Association) fair. It has also been aided by various entities and individuals in Miami “stepping up their game” with the opening or expansion of public spaces devoted to private collections or curated exhibitions—the de la Cruz Collection, World Class Boxing, the Cisneros Foundation, and the Rubell Family Collection, among others—as well as museums and alternative spaces such as Locust Projects or the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, putting on more ambitious shows. Perhaps it was just me but despite the seemingly healthy business being done, one couldn’t help but feel that things were somewhat more subdued, with the fairs moving into their “mature” phase and, celebrity spottings of P. Diddy, Val Kilmer, A-Rod, and Owen Wilson aside, the context of a still uncertain economy made the carnival a little less … carnivalesque.

A shortlist of my picks that clicked:
• Los Angeles-based artist Ruben Ochoa’s dynamic, site-specific project at Locust Projects featured excised sections of the gallery floor propped up on precariously pitched steel beams.

• Larry Johnson’s presentation at Marc Jancou Contemporary, New York, was one of numerous so-called “Art Kabinett” presentations at ABMB that featured in-depth mini-exhibitions of a gallery’s artist. I’ve admired his deadpan text-and-image-based photographic work since first seeing it in the 1989 exhibition The Photography of Invention and am glad to see him finally getting further exposure.

• Two Art Kabinetts for John Miller at Praz-Delavallade and Meyer Riegger (both at ABMB) were welcome presentations of another artist who’s quietly established a strong career for iconoclastic works that touch on the quirkiness, disposability, and abjection of American culture.

• Alan Reid and Michael Bauer both were represented with strong paintings at Lisa Cooley Gallery (NADA)

• The third floor at the de la Cruz Collection featuring phenomenal works by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Jim Hodges, and Gabriel Orozco. A welcome reminder of the Collection’s earlier days and a good counterpoint to the visual “maximalism” of the first two floors.

• Works by Jack Whitten and Hassan Sharif and an Art Kabinett for Joan Semmel at Alexander Gray Gallery, (at ABMB), a space that specializes in celebrating figures working somewhat outside of the art historical spotlight.

• I found the suspended sculpture by Alan Shields at Greenberg van Doren’s booth in ABMB very hard to resist.

• Maybe I’ve been spending too much time in a mesh-clad building but I was very drawn to Valerie Snobeck’s works incorporating plastic-scaffolding mesh at Essex Gallery (NADA).

• Mary Reid Kelley’s black-and-white video at Pilar Corrias (ABMB) made an indelible impression with its meditation on the plight of prostitutes during the First World War. The use of poetically dense dialogue and elaborate costuming and make-up—most unsettlingly Kermit-the-Frog-style eye coverings—makes the work that much more strangely affecting.

• Philip Hanson’s paintings at Corbett vs Dempsey were tucked away on a side wall but that positioning did little to diminish their compelling combination of stylized text and inspired handling of color and composition.

• Brendan Fowler’s maze of paintings and broken photographic wall structures at Untitled (ABMB) demonstrate a great sense of progression and ambition in this L.A. artist’s practice.

• Finally, something about Carissa Rodriguez’s ultra-subtle object-based sculptures at Karma International (ABMB) struck a chord with me …

Dominic Molon:

We’ve gone days on end without rain in St. Louis this summer…so naturally a downpour would kick off our Bus Tour of various artist studios, galleries, and printing presses along Cherokee Street as part of our 6th Annual City-Wide Open Studios weekend. A little bit of rain didn’t keep us from our mission of exploring the fascinatingly diverse range of artists’ work, exhibitions, and generally creative-goings on in this hotbed of artistic activity in the city. Among the highlights were a demonstration of printing techniques at Firecracker Press; an exploration of the forest that has overrun the former site of the Pruitt-Igoe Housing Projects courtesy of Juan William Chavez’ multimedia installation at Los Caminos; an intriguing chat with artist Stan Chisholm at the multi-arts complex 2720 Cherokee (where some tour members elected to join in with the practicing hula-hoopers on the first floor); and a more “traditional” studio visit with artist Kurt Christian. We concluded the day at former police station-turned-art venue, Mad Art, who graciously hosted a presentation of artists’ works for whom an “open-studio” is not necessarily an option. While overcast skies (and an occasional shower) provided the backdrop, the day was nonetheless lightened by an engaging visit with a fascinating cross-section of St. Louis’ contemporary art community.

Paul Ha:

For our 6th Annual City Wide Open Studios, we decided to focus our attention on the fact that St. Louis – due to relatively inexpensive rent in some areas – has really grown into a city with many alternative art spaces. Alternative to what you ask? Well, the usual clean four white wall spaces you see in museums and commercial galleries. One great addition to the art going experience is everything happening on Cherokee Street. This pedestrian friendly strip from S. Jefferson to S. Compton is bustling with newly opened and inexpensive Mexican restaurants (try El Torito), other places to eat (try Black Bear Bakery), and a fantastic indie record store (A Pop Records). In addition to great places to eat, do some shopping (Mexican grocery stores), and purchase some new cowboy boots (!!), there are also great selections of alternative art spaces, print presses, and artist studios on these blocks (as mentioned in Dominic’s posting). The next time you want something a little different, go to Cherokee Street, park your car, and get out to see some independent art and buy some independent music.

Just as legendary art-rock band Talking Heads’ third album was titled “Fear of Music,” the 54th iteration of the Venice Biennale could have been titled “Fear of Painting” – or at least “Fear of Painting in the more traditional sense.” While there were various flourishes of the “painterly” articulated in sculpture, film, video, or photography, there was barely a pigment stained or encrusted canvas to be found in either the national pavilions of this venerable moment-defining contemporary art event, or in the major group exhibition “Illuminazioni” (”Illuminations”), curated by Swiss curator and art publication editor Bice Curiger. It was telling that the most prominently placed paintings in Curiger’s show were works by the 16th Century Venetian master, Tintoretto, and that they seemed to be there less for their own sake than as visual, conceptual, and, perhaps even political strategy (an anachronistic shout out for a local hero?) It prompts one to wonder whether painting is thought to lack the spectacular punch of a large scale sculptural presentation or video installation or the ability to possess the documentary currency of photography. It can’t be a temporal issue as a presentation of paintings would make fewer demands on one’s time than the time-based media of film or video or many of the more involved sculptural installations that commanded over two-hour long waiting lines. The absence of painting (or drawing for that matter) serves variously as a commentary on expectations of the Biennale (and Biennial-type exhibitions in general), on the current status of curatorial tastes and practice, or as an indication of what the collective logic of the Biennale curator and national pavilion commissioners and curators just happened to be this year.

Some of the highlights in the humble opinion of your reporter:

National Pavilions (Giardini): Mike Nelson’s tour-de-force installation in the British Pavilion took upwards of two hours of waiting at some points but was ultimately very much worth the wait. Once inside, one was transported via Nelson’s astonishing and singular ability to transform a space and engage a fascinating narrative in the process. Front Room alumnus Hany Armanious‘ exhibition in the Australian Pavilion was expertly-curated by the Hammer Museum’s Anne Ellegood and focused on objects cast in polyurethane resin to suggest curiously assembled artifacts of the present-day that one might find in the future. Yael Bartana’s project for the Polish Pavilion comprised three films: Mary Koszmary (2007), Mur I wieża (2009) and Zamach (2011) all revolving around the activities of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland, a political group that calls for the return of 3,300,000 Jews to the land of their forefathers. The politically-charged nature of the films was enhanced by their striking cinematography and Bartana’s clever development of their narratives by placing his protagonists in unexpected theatrical situations. And presentation of Andrei Monastryski and Collective Actions titled “Empty Zones” was curated for the Russian Pavilion by critic and theoretician Boris Groys both celebrated these artists’ engagement of the audience in the production of meaning while occupying the space in a visually and materially dynamic and affecting manner.

Two hour wait for Mike Nelson’s tour-de-force installation in the British Pavilion

Hany Armanious’ exhibition inthe Australian Pavilion

Illuminations (Italian Pavilion): It was refreshing to see Llyn Foulkes’ wonderfully strange paintings which provided a much needed sense of inspired irreverence to the proceedings. Amalia Pica’s performance and performative installation and Gabriel Kuri’s always fascinating and unexpected reworkings of everyday objects were welcome additions to and in interventions within the flow of the exhibition as well.

View from the Italian Pavilion

Illuminations (Arsenale): Emily Wardill’s film Sick Serena and Dregs and Wreck and Wreck (2007) which translates stained glass window panels from Gothic churches into theatrical scenarios will be presented at CAM this Fall. Carol Bove, Rebecca Warren, and Andro Wekua offered similar yet individually flawless and manicured sculptural presentations that possessed exacting consideration and grace in their exploration of structure, material, and objecthood. A three-channel video projection by Nick Relph that focused on the art of Ellsworth Kelly ingeniously split the viewer’s perception into an appreciation of green, red, and blue – colors that become distinctive and iconic in Kelly’s reductivist paintings. Shannon Ebner’s use of photography and sculpture to explore the intricacies and dynamic fluidity of language was brilliantly articulated in the 28-part work The electric comma ( A language of exposures) (2011). Recent CAM exhibiting artist Elad Lassry presented a series of his signature composed photographic images as well as a gorgeous film featuring dancers performing in richly colored outfits and joined periodically in their dance by a ghostly figure. One of the last works one encountered as part of the Arsenale presentation was an incredible animated video by Frances Stark features Nintendo Wii/Mii-like male and female figures enacting a computer-voiced soundtrack based on chatroom dialogue. An utterly elegant use of fairly current technology to create a work that is engrossing, hilarious, and unsettling all at once.

Off-Site Pavilions: Anton Ginzburg’s multidimensional installation at the Palazzo Bollani (organized by Houston’s Blaffer Gallery and ArtPace in San Antonio) was a breath of fresh air with its curious, Noguchi-inspired forms, subtle alterations of the existing architecture of the space, and a beautifully shot video projection that shifts from a natural history archive to a surveyor who walks through a snowy tundra and is consumed by red smoke. The project is the result of the New York-based Russian-born artist’s three-part journey, commencing in the American North West (Astoria, Oregon), continuing to St. Petersburg, and finishing in the White Sea, the site of the Soviet Gulag prison camps. Cyprus’ national pavilion featured a project titled “Temporal Taxonomy” and featured work by artists Marianna Cristofides and Elizabeth Hoak-Doering in photography and kinetic sculpture that suggested aspects of Cypriot history and culture. Representing Scotland, Karla Black created an extraordinary and often playful series of rooms through a dynamic and ridiculously inventive use of plaster, dirt, mud, paint, Vaseline, eye shadow, lipstick, cellophane, polyethylene, creams, oils, and gels, to name a few expected and unexpected materials. From a entrance room that possessed an almost Willy Wonka-esque confectionary quality to a series of spaces connected by a path cleared from a layer of dirt that lined the floors and supported richly colored and fragrant sculptures, Black memorably used her presentation to activate her galleries by effectively painting in and with space.