PDX Contempory Art: Oregonian
Miami Art Week: Pacific Northwest galleries showcase artists to the world
Janet Eastman - December 07, 2014
In one whirlwind Miami Art Week, Pacific Northwest galleries can show off their artists' works to thousands of potential buyers, from first-timers on a budget to the world's deep-pocket collectors as well as museum curators who can catapult an unknown artist to international stardom.
Being at Art Basel Miami Beach, the nation's most prestigious contemporary art fair showing off $3 billion in Andy Warhols, Alexander Calder and other brand-name works, or one of the many art fairs operating in its wake, is not easy and it's not inexpensive. It can cost up to $35,000 to ship, shelter and show both the art and its representatives at a modest booth at one of the smaller fairs during South Florida's high season.
Is it worth it?
Pulse Art Fair 2014 Pacific Northwest art galleries go to great lengths to show at Miami Art Week. Here is what was seen at Pulse Miami Beach, a contemporary art fair that runs in conjunction with Art Basel Miami Beach, in December 2014.
At Pulse Miami Beach, Daniel Peabody of Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Northwest Portland has an impressive booth with works by a dozen artists on exhibit through Sunday, Dec. 7.
"The importance of doing art fairs in Miami during Miami Art Week for a Portland gallery is to expose our artists to an international audience," he says. "We also meet new curators and new artists, but it's really about being ambassadors to the arts of the Northwest."
The gallery also set up in a hotel room-turned-gallery at Aqua Art Miami, a beach party scene with emerging artists' work as the backdrop. At Aqua Hotel, Elizabeth Leach Gallery reps are handing out fortune cookies with printed advice such as "Don't drink before noon" as part of the Advice Station.
Jane Beebe of PDX Contemporary Art in Northwest Portland's Pearl District is exhibiting at Miami Project in Midtown Miami's Wynwood District through Sunday.
"We get lots of attention and do a lot of sales here," says Beebe, amid her white-walled pop-up booth with art by Gus Van Sant, Kristen Miller and Nell Warren, a fifth generation Oregonian, as well as other artists.
At Pulse, Peabody and his crew are also courting serious collectors and curators.
While serving as an advocate to the arts of the Northwest, he says, he also can take the pulse on what's happening in the art world by visiting some of the 20 fairs.
He would have to travel all of the world, all year to see the same quality and quantity assembled in Miami during Art Week, he says.
This makes the idea of flying across the country to sunny South Florida to spend the first week of December even more inviting.
-- Janet Eastman
http://www.oregonlive.com/hg/index.ssf/2014/12/miami_art_week_pacific_no...