| Wednesday Night, Dec 2, the Party Scene |
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| Lorenzo Martone (Marc Jacobs's fiance) and the fashion designer Peter Som |
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A book titled "15X15" about fashion and cosmetics could lead to the assumption that it's 15 people who were famous for 15 minutes. But no, this book, by the cosmetics genius Francois Nars, celebrates his 15 years of work, with photographs of 15 people he has worked with, including Naomi Campbell, Daphne Guinness, and Marc Jacobs. And practically everyone there at the Standard hotel in Miami Beach had some connection to one or the other. Naomi Campbell herself was there, looking supremely tall and sassy. Marc Jacobs's boyfriend was there, Lorenzo Martone. The fashion designer Peter Som was there. So was the socialite Eleanor Lindsay-Fynn, a London photographer who was wearing black feathers on her head. "Her work is really interesting," said Anthony Haden-Guest, who knows everyone and everything. And so they are. She digitally manipulates photographs into a combination of realism and cartoon. Lindsay-Fynn, known as Lady E, was there with her boyfriend who, it turned out, had made the little bit of whimsy on top of Daphne Guinness's head in the photo at the entrance to the bar. Booze flowed freely, there was a crowd, and it was hot. Haden-Guest, who will appear at the Standard next week doing a reading, had spent the day actually looking at art. (He writes a weekly column on art for the Financial Times.) His opinion of Art Miami and Scope. "A lot of kitsch, and a lot of language art" he said, and then talked about waking up on a sofa at a friend's apartment (something we are led to believe is standard practice for Hayden-Guest) and encountering an early Bruce Nauman's work that dictated, "You can't hurt me. You can't reach me. I can suck you dry." And that, he said, was transformative.
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| "PS I'm Single" a photo-artwork by Eleanor Lindsay-Fynn |
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Remember when the Swarovsky party at Art Basel meant a sit down dinner? Here's the new normal: no dinner, no sit down, no chairs, in fact. A cocktail party without so much as a canape. Still it was at the swanky W South Beach. On the other hand, it was outdoors, and the wind off the ocean nearly blew Miami's young fashionistas off their high heels. Hair swirled, lipstick was smeared.
Things were more civilized at the Russell Simmons party for Shepard Fairey at the Mondrian hotel, with it's goofier than Philip Starck decor by Marcel Wanders. The party was upstairs, and there was a choice of indoor tables and tables overlooking the pool and Biscayne Bay. (And across the bay, the lighted rectangles on the new landmark, the Marquis, at 1100 Biscayne Boulevard.) Shepard Fairey is everywhere at Basel this year, at the Deitch booth with his Obama-esque portrait of the Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi, and with his outdoor art in Wynwood. At the sit down dinner was Dror Benshetrit, the designer whose new lamp was in the Moss booth at Design Miami, and whose Peacock Chair was being celebrated in the Cappellini store in the Design District. Fred J. Kleisner, the CEO of the Morgan Hotel Group, was at the dinner, and pleased to see Simmons and Fairey. They stayed, even though they were missing Ebony Bones on the beach, along with the opening of the Art Basel Oceanfront by Pae White. It was even windier there on the beach, but the throngs were at least fed burgers. As for Ebony Bones? A stragler arriving at the Mondrian dinner looking suitably windblown (even her decolletage was askew) pronounced that the opening act, Amanda Blank, so bad she didn't stick around for the headliner. That seems to have been a mistake, at least according to Arielle Castillo of Miami New Times, who said Ebony Bones gave a "riveting, out-there live show that is, without a doubt, unlike that of any other performer I've seen this year." But imagine my shame when I realized I'd been spelled Ebony Bones wrong. I was leaving out the final exclamation point! And after that, pretty much every art being in Miami went to the Raleigh for Jeffrey Deitch's annual opening night party.
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| Russell Simmons |
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| Shepard Fairey portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi at Deitch |
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