Here's a better image of one of Kaarina's shoes:


Yesterday morning, skipped the Rubell breakfast so I could see it later without the throngs. Went to Chelsea, hung out in the gallery, and talked to some people who came through. Doing this feels exactly like my 2 week "shit job" stint at The Limited: (smiling) “Hi! How are you? Long sleeve tees are 2 for $40 this week! … this piece is about human frailty”.

Walked around Winwood and saw some of the galleries I wanted to see: Dorsch, Chris Ingalls. Here are some of the Ivan Toth Depena’s impossible to photograph pieces in the back at Chris Ingalls:

Thet are thick, object-like, and much more subtle in person.

They remind me of one of my favorite old art movies, “I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing”: whenever they showed The World’s Greatest Work of Art, it was represented by a glowing canvas, in effect, a light box. One of Depena's pieces is at NADA (if the booth did not "flip" yet), but if you go to the actual gallery, you can experience them in a low light atmosphere, which is worth the trip.

I was so hot gallery hopping that I stopped at Target and bought a t-shirt so I could be more comfortable. I drove by the Peruvian Place, the Del Mar, for lunch, only to find that it was closed… a great disappointment. Gentrification strikes again. Let’s hope it was only closed for renovations, not sold to build another condo. “You can see the sky less and less…”, my friend Pip said. “You can now drive all the way up Biscayne Blvd and not even know that you are on the bay….” Barb commented as we drove down to the FIU opening in the evening.

I managed to sneak in a trip to the theater to see “Fur”, the “imaginary Diane Arbus biography”. The tone was only sometimes what the director intended, I think, and it pisses me off to see the direct Jean Pierre Jeunet rip-off in filming the “traveling through the ducts in the apartment” sequences, but the transformation from repressed housewife to bold photographer was an interesting one. For me, it qualifies as a film that I will purchase, because I will want to revisit some of the issues and conflicts of "the art life" vs. a conventional life.

Went to the FIU MFA show in an old Macy’s building, it was a nice space, and there was some interesting work, but my heart went out to the students who obviously spent so much time and energy on showing in a place where they were going to get little Basel traffic. Apparently, they have lots of downtown worker traffic during the day, but most of them will not bring any purchases or critical attention. I hope for their sake, the “emerging artist” bloodhounds will find their postcard among the piles of others and come visit. Being an good artist living and working in Miami and being ignored while the entire art world is at your doorstep dropping millions of dollars for (sometimes awful) work is indescribably maddening.