Last week I travelled to Miami, away from the cold. Not because I wanted to get away from the first taste of winter and get some sun … but for art. Art fairs are abundant these days and for the last ten years I find myself on a plane heading South to see what “Art Basel” has to offer. It’s not all about art.  Yes, there are parties, previews and many other fairs. And, yes it seems that every year another art fair pops up, just like mushrooms!  There are collections to see and  this year, even a new museum. If it sounds confusing, it is. After all,  isn’t contemporary art supposed to make us wonder? Some of the art can be explained, some works I like and some I just don’t get, but overall Art Basel is a quick view of what’s happening in the artistic world today. I am not an expert, but I like to see how people relate to what they see. I ask myself: Is it the object that catches our eye? Is it the color that ignites the imagination? What makes us stop and think.

Here are some images I captured. It’s a journey for the mind.

Walking the main fair I came across beds, people were lying with headphones , covered with a blanket . It is a project by the artist Marina Abramovitz. At a talk with the artist, she explained her method, she tried to give us the opportunity to claim time for oneself during the art fair.  She created four projects, beds for rest-time, counting the rice tables, and a portal long chair. These projects were a collaborations with the architect Daniel Libeskind and designer Patricia Urquiola. She believes that Technology is good and bad. Technology takes all our time and doesn’t give us time to ourself.

I spend three days running around trying to see it all but off course that is not possible.

Marina had another project in Sean Kelly gallery. It was the last day so you would think I had had enough but NOOO, I had to see what else she created. The project is called “Generator”, there is a quote form Alexander Dorner (art historian 1893-1957) ” The new type of art will be more like a power station, a producer of new energy”. You are blindfolded and your ears are covered with earphones and then one is led into a room. The idea is to walk slowly around or just stand. It focuses on “Nothingness”. But is there really nothing? Once some of the senses are blocked, you are aware of the space in a different way. You are entering a meditative state but yet you are part of the community of others. You are part of the exhibition and therefore creating art on your own. It is radical.

I wanted to see another exhibit of the Japanese artist Takashi Murakami which is called In the land of Dead, stepping on the tail of a Rainbow. The sculptures of mythological creatures and painting of smily faces are painted on skulls. Murakami explored natural catastrophes, things that are caused by nature. He said that to make sense of it we invent stories.

I can never have enough of seeing art, of creating art and even without paint brush or clay we create and that’s what makes me happy.