MA²Dweek 12/1 - 12/6 2009

Proving that Tuesday is the new Friday, a lot of institutions kicked off their Basel on Tuesday night. And remember the dictum: real art collections are gone by Thursday morning. On Tuesday, spotted at the Swarovski dinner at the Delano: the designer Aric Levy; the New York art collector here in Miami for his first Basel, we hear, (and brother of George Lindemann Jr.) Adam Lindemann; the collector Francine LeFrak; the man from FuseProject, Yves Behar; the man who heads Soho Beach House, and therefore the guy to cozy up to, Nick Jones; the designer Tom Dixon; the Elle Decoration editrix in chief, Michelle Ogundehin; Miami's own design duo Nasir and Nargis Kassamali. Many of the designers involved had previously done chandeliers for Swarovski. The dinner honored Ric Scofidio, Elizabeth Diller and Charles Renfro, of the architectural firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro in New York. At the Whitney Museum "Out of the Archives" party on Tuesday night: the reality TV interior decoration Thom Filicia; the gallerist Marianne Boesky; the writer (and daughter of Tom Wolfe) Alexandra Wolfe; the model Erin Wesson; and many many collectors and backers of the Whitney. At the Pucci Dinner, at Villa Vecchia (or about as "vecchia" as we get in Miami), 4821 Pinetree Drive, the Pucci team (Laudomia Pucci Castellano, Matthew Williamson & Delphine Arnault-Gancia) was Vito Schnabel, Countess Celia von Bismarck, and Miami's event planner extraordinaire Karla Dascal. At the Wall Street Journal Salute to Basel at the Raleigh: their chronicler of greed and author of "Richistan: a Journey Through the American Wealth Boom" Robert Frank; I don't know who she is but she's cute Ginger Thomas & the chronicler of Miami hipistan John Hood.At the Ralph Lauren/Interview magazine/40th Anniversary book party at the Ralph Lauren boutique (remember, we're still on Tuesday night): Ralph Lauren, the editor of "Interview" magazine Ingrid Sischy; the sports star Lance Armstrong; the  model Beverly Johnson; the would be playboy social figure Fabian Basabe; the South Beach figure Ingrid Casares; the "couple" Nick D'Annunzio & Tara Solomon; the New York socialite Nikki Haskell; Isabella Cisneros; the benefactor and Miami resident Anthony Kennedy Shriver. The Netjets party at the Victor Hotel in honor of Jim Dine: Jim Dine, Elizabeth & Facundo Bacardi of the Bacardi Bacardis; Tony Goldman, developer of Soho, South Beach and now Wynwood; Richard Santulli, head of NetJets, Steven & Kathy Taslitz of SeaFair, the ocean-going yacht. And at the NY Times launch of T online at the Raleigh (in case the snaps on The Times onw web site go by so fast you have no idea who they are): editor of T and arbiter of all things stylish Stefano Tonchi; the hotelier Andre Balazs; the writer Horacio Silva; the film maven Bob Shaye; the Estonian blogger (?) Martin Saar; the designer Matthew Williamson; director of the New Musem of Contemporary Art, and looking might pleased, Lisa Phillips; the book publisher Benedikt Taschen and his wife, Lauren Taschen; the writer Jay McInerney, and head of the Miami Art Museum, Terry RIley, Late at night, helping Lenny Kravitz celebrate opening the Florida Room (a tight space in the Delano that is supposed to hold 160 people) Craig Robins, in a crowd considerably larger than that.

The opening night of the Russian art show at the Collins Building in the Design District had women in high heels (and some men, also in high heels) fighting their way through the bushes to get in. Among those there on opening night were the model Beverly Johnson, the socialites Nikki Haskell and April Stewart, the actor Dennis Hopper, the architect Campion  Platt, the writer Diane Ackerman, the editor Evelina Kromtchenko, Prince Michael of Yugoslavia, Lisa DeKooning, the artist (whose greatest artwork may be himself) Andrey Bartenev, the New York architect Alison Spear, and the lady-who-lunches Sharon Hoge. At the Sotheby's dinner Wednesday night at the Mandarin Oriental to celebrate Asian art, Dennis Hopper, the fashion designers Vivienne Tam and Kenzo Takada, the artist Anh Duong, from Miami Darlene and George Perez and Chad & Ilona Oppenheim, the interior designer India Hicks, the architectural and interior designer Pierro Lissoni, Laudomia Pucci of the Pucci empire and the socialite Dayssi Olarte de Kavanos.