​Another season of Art Basel raged through the streets of Miami and South Beach and the fashions, once again, were on another level.

The silhouettes were classic for both men and women, but splashes of color seemed to pop everywhere we looked. Black continued being the superior shade on the canvas of the artsy crowd, but the added color of red as an accent over black seemed to be uniform. New Yorkers were layered in fabrics of black leather, cotton and sheer, while Parisians wore bright colors of blues, pinks and yellows. The color blocking trend trickles over to fall, but the bold colors of spring are mixed up with pales and grays.

Overall, it seemed like the fashion gods assisted with the weather for Basel week, giving the crowd a chance to see a fantastic week of fashion in Miami.
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Photo by Martha Cooper

​That's it, folks! The tenth edition of Art Basel Miami Beach and all the events and sideshows that surround it are done. Now we are left to pick up the discarded canvases and paint cans left behind.

But Basel did leave something worthwhile behind  -- and we're not talking about the bitter after taste of a Miami Art Museum named after Jorge Perez. No, we're talking the clear cut winners and losers during this year's Art Basel. So let's get to stepping, because we've got a lot of ground to cover.
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Photo by Ciara LaVelle

Bik Ismo's mural at The Collective

​Goodbye, Nazi spaceships. Goodbye, freaky soundsuits. Goodbye, Andy Warhol, in all your many forms. It's the final day of Art Basel, and the peak of Miami's collective culture hangover. But you do know what cures a hangover, right? A little hair of the dog -- aka another dose of the substance that gave you that headache in the first place. So as Paris Hilton and the Zeta-Jones' clan clears out of town, reclaim the Magic City as your own at these events. More >>

​Those passing by the Greenview Hotel this weekend might be alerted to the art show inside by the fact that there's a bed cloaked in silver glitter sitting on the little outdoor patio. Then again, with all the deliciously nutty sights Art Basel brings to our sunny little town (including huge inflatable pastel Peeps and a 55-foot abstract lighthouse at South Pointe Park), pedestrians may be desensitized to the oddity of outdoor metallic linens. Better rely on this blog post instead.More >>

Swampdog

"Donkey I" by Rodolfo Vanmarcke at Lunch Box Gallery

​Can you feel it? It's in the very back of your mind, but it's there -- that half-disappointed, half-relieved feeling that always hits you on Basel Saturday. It's the realization that the annual Basel bacchanal will be over in just a couple days.

Maybe you're already Baseled out, ready for all these pretentious artsy types to get the hell out so you can go back to your normal Miami lifestyle: crossing the causeways to South Beach in under an hour, for example, or getting in and out of Panther Coffee without waiting in a 20-person line. But remember: it won't be long until you start wishing you had a place to go watch a naked chick in a pigpen, or start craving vodka cocktails in a setting filled with giant spray paint cans. So make the most of these last couple days -- starting with these events.
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Swampdog

She wants you, if you're an artist

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One of Nick Cave's beautiful Soundsuits.

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Ryan Cronin's inflatable rabbit

​Last year the Fountain Art Fair raised eyebrows when a crew of scruffy performance types rolled a car onto the lawn inside which a couple engaged in steamy sex acts before collaborators demolished the vehicle with sledgehammers and set it ablaze.

 The performance was presented by Brooklyn's Grace Exhibition Space and the spectacle was typical of the antics Fountain has become known for. Tonight you can expect similar pyrotechnics promise organizers culminating with a performance by hip hop and graffiti legend Fab 5 Freddy to crown  the evening on Fountain's courtyard stage.

But during the press walk-through yesterday, Fountain was considerably quieter inside. Earlier in the day artist Meghan E. Van Altsyne drew attention when she scampered across the lawn with a bunch of eggs inside her skirt dropping the eggs through a crack in her panties until the shattered shells and runny yolks spilled across the lawn reminding one of a santeria sacrifice.

 

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​A dozen rows of 220 upright empty toilet paper rolls are lined up neatly against one another on a wood table. The center of the cardboard cylinders are stuffed with crumpled up pieces of even more empty toilet paper rolls. Los Angeles gallery owner Mihai Nicodim, a silver fox with a heavy eastern European accent, notes the piece is by Romanian artist Miklos Onucsan, titled: It is Different because it is the same, it is the same because it is different.

With gusto, Nicodim declares it is the "best example of arte povera in Miami." After touring the three exhibitions rooms for this year's edition of NADA Miami Beach, we'd argue Onucsan has some pretty stiff competition from other exhibiting artists producing works from items you might come across a landfill or a roadside dump. Oh, there were also some pretty dope paintings, sculptures, and an authentic Andy Warhol Banana silkscreen painting. You know, the one on the Velvet Underground album cover.

Check out NADA art after the jump:

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City of Miami Beach

Tobias Rehberger, obstinate lighthouse

​In the spirit of transparency, we'll admit that behind-the-scenes at Cultist you'll find a painstakingly detailed schedule of operations. Every move we make is calculated to best serve y'all, the reader.

During Basel week, however, our daily itinerary is interrupted by greater Miami's traffic nightmare.

According to Google Maps' suggested route, it should've taken us 13 minutes to get from our offices at 4500 Biscayne to South Pointe Park for the 5 p.m. public unveiling of Tobias Rehberger's obstinate lighthouse, the latest addition to Miami Beach's public art collection. In reality, it took us 20 minutes to get past the Ivax building, and they're next door.

By the time we arrived at South Pointe, the hoopla had ended and it was just us an a 55-foot piece of abstract public art.

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