*NOTE: “A Fair” is a section of the [YROMEM] collection of artifacts from the laptop computer I have used from 2005-22. I intend to post a version of the online presentation, which in its original form will appear simultaneously in the AFH Facebook and Instagram feeds. What follows is a text composed for publication with the selected images, in conjunction with the total program. It is being posted here first so links can be posted at AFH FB/I-G, IRT, a test of the program sequencing and format.
A Fair > Art Basel | Miami Beach 2010
Photographs by Paul McLean
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PRODUCTION NOTES
The shoot that produced the over fifteen hundred photographs from which this “A Fair” is derived took place on December 5, 2010. As far as I can recollect, there were no prohibitions on photography at Art Basel | Miami Beach that year. My camera was a Canon Rebel. I took no notes on site, identifying art works or presenters, or any of the people who appear in the images. None of the scenes are staged by me. The compositions are impromptu, the installations produced by the exhibitors.
STATEMENT
“Happy to be skipping Documenta, Manifesta, ISEA, Basel, Venice and all other summer “art” events. A city is a best artwork ever, so I will be wondering around Bucharest and visiting coffee shops. A city is created by millions of people over hundreds of years; by thousands of contradicting plans, by building and erasing, by revolution, evolution and by entropy. A city can’t be contained by a few keywords or a wall label unlike contemporary “biennale art.” I love cities, their complexity, their lack of a single ideology, their resistance to simple labels..it’s the best “art” we have today.” - Lev Manovich, posted on Facebook from Hotel Cismigiu, Bucharest, Romania (June 18, 2022 at 10:14 PM)
A FAIR
Since 2001 I have been photographing art fairs. The list includes LA Art Show, Armory Show, Verge, Volta, Dependent and Independent (NYC). The project is connected to documentation of exhibitions in galleries, museums and alternative art spaces. It is also connected to documentation of performances, primarily dance. I find that the art fair series has some features that are distinct, related to the structure of the fair. The other subjects display similar characteristics, but the fair is extreme. Only performance challenges the fair, or an event like the open studio tour, which I also have photographed. The quality of the art fair is excessively temporary, but it strains to project an illusion of static materialism.
The art fair is structurally similar to other kinds of fairs, like the livestock fair. State and county fairs usually happen at fairgrounds, which are dedicated to the annual event, which can unfold over days or weeks, depending on the size. The structural comparison of the state and art fairs is an easily humorous one, given the perception that one is for the commoners and the other for cultural elites. The similarities do not extend much past the structures. Book fairs, technology fairs, industrial fairs, and so on — some of which I have also attended and photographed — all have their particularities. I will try to describe features that draw my attention at art fairs.
One should note the habitat, including the architecture in which the fair is staged. Larger fairs are presented in conference centers, hangers, warehouses, huge collapsible edifices, like futuristic circus tents. Smaller ones happen in hotels, mostly. These events are only a few days long, maybe a week. Logistically, they present big challenges. Here I would insert that I worked logistics, installation and transport for clients exhibiting and selling at a major contemporary art fair. I also have been an exhibiting artist in a gallery or media booth at major fairs. Those experiences inform my photographs. I am drawn to the technical details of staging and presentation. For a few days, most exhibitors in big fairs stage a gallery simulation, a white cube minus a top and one or two sides. The program is Wizard of Oz-like illusion craft, an exercise in cognitive dissonance, requiring the viewers’ suspension of disbelief. The construction can be jakey. The viewer is encouraged to not notice the wires, the frequently poor lighting, the single-use flooring or carpet, etc., and instead focus on the bright and shiny object. There is a carnival-like resonance to the art fairs. The street seller is a relative. Booth design is close to theatrical set design. Those skeptical of the art business, damning of its commerciality, aghast at its “fake-ness,” will find plenty to reinforce those positions. It is good to remember that most art fair booths are built for the purpose of selling the contents on display, according to the preconceptions of buyers. The salespeople, often owners or directors, are exposed differently than when they appear in their own venues. By the end of the week, especially on Sunday, most are exhausted by the pace, pressures and drama. The fair attendees are interesting on many levels. Crowds consist of collectors, artists, those who attend for fun and culture. The proportions of the crowd vary, depending on the day and time. One picks up on a variety of curious pantomimes and gestures or exaggerations. Fashion can be compelling. The lounge areas are sometimes worth exploring. The lectures, panels and press areas usually not. Overall, after a few fairs, patterns start to emerge and the fair begins to materialize as a phenomenon.
Accidental image compositions are abundantly available at any good fair. The contemporary fairs especially work this way, as more presenters and artists use appearance(s) to create experience, buzz, and build booths that generate social media clicks, traffic, attention, shares. Unfortunately, the pre-fab photo-ops seem to be displacing a less contrived, differently energized interaction between art and fair visitors. I think this has somewhat to do with sellers’ minimal staffing, and attendees having the chance to be themselves with the weird things on view, minus an over-the-shoulder narrative or pitch, or a gallerista’s scrutinizing gaze. Only the biggest operations can shell for full crews.
I have rarely frolicked in the party circuits that appear like constellations around the fairs. In my view, these are almost another subject altogether, because one must be granted access on a more exclusive basis, and these gigs belong primarily to players, like art forum or artnet. Plus, being an artist in those scenarios has its own complexity. An art fair photoset ought to be accompanied by an audio recording captured during the shoot. One overhears the most curious statements passing through random congregations and conversations. The white noise generated by an art fair is unique. Now that audio and video content in the retail/resale art markets are more common, the unusual sound of art media will wax and wane strangely as one moves through. The art fair organizers have guidelines, but sometimes there are exceptions. Dealers can be very sensitive and territorial. They have a lot riding on a booth’s success.
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This is one of those years when all summer major biennials coincide. I headed my statement with Professor Doctor Manovich’s quote, for multiple reasons. Mainly, it is just a good troll. I do not concur with his view on cities as art, nor with much in his other assertions on aesthetics, gruffly interwoven with his perspectives on politics, economics and technology. Manovich can be quite funny, however, and his post (used without permission) adds a good counterweight to the discourse — if you want to call it that — that accompanies the global, post-contemporary art world. The art fair remains one of its prime apparatuses. As a phenomenon over the past several decades, the proliferation of art fairs has been one of the most significant factors in reforming the art topology, or deforming it, depending on your view. The effects of the pandemic and geopolitical tension, involving the major and middling powers (USA, China, Russia, EU, Britain, Israel, India, et al.), reach nearly everywhere, including the imaginary space or hyperreality that happenings like Art Basel-Miami Beach occupy. Canonical reclamation and reparation projects dominate the current post-contemporary artmosphere.
Revisiting the collection of photographs of art fairs from the 2000s and early 2010s, they (the art fairs) strike me now as being historical on more than one level. I apologize for the clumsiness of that last sentence. After all, all history is dimensional and complicated, which is more than apparent at the 2010 iteration of Art Basel | Miami Beach. We will never see its likeness again, which doe not make the art fair itself art, to Manovich’s point. I couldn’t say if the disappearance of the historical memoment captured in “A Fair” is good or bad, as things go.
