The fair has been running for seven years, and its success has paralleled the contemporary art boom. The fair allows foreign dealers from all over the world to show art in the U.S., still the global art-buying sweet spot, and gives collectors a shopping mall of options, avoiding, in theory, the need to attend countless museum shows and gallery openings; you can see it all in one place. The global economic crisis decimated last year’s Miami Basel. About 40 dealers dropped out, and little was sold. All art market eyes were focused on how this year’s Miami would do.

The good news: It wasn’t a wipeout at all. Pieces under $500,000 were selling remarkably well—how and why, I’m still not sure. Art Basel replaced the 40 dealers who dropped out with 60 more, in a last-minute open-door policy. (One reason could be that Art Basel now owns the management company behind the convention center. The rest of the place was vacant, so why not fill it up?) The organizers should have moved the long-suffering Design Miami fair into the space. Launched in local developer Craig Robbins’ Design District, Design Miami created great buzz. Perhaps not surprisingly, Miami Basel didn’t want it competing with the art dealers, so they kept it “off campus.” Instead, they stuffed the convention center with art, and the result was a gigantic fair in a soft market. The fair was so big and bloated that it forced visitors to navigate the labyrinth with a Borgesian map, one that was totally inscrutable. People were wandering around, lost in the endless onslaught of visual chaos without a way to find the bathroom or, better yet, the exit.

It was bigger than you can imagine, with absolutely no rhyme or reason. In addition to the main floor, Miami also boasted more than 15 satellite fairs for younger galleries and emerging artists, fairs tailored to those who “just can’t get enough.” I couldn’t even see the main fair properly, so I dropped the others. But for the diehards, more is more.

By ballooning in size, Art Basel decided to ignore the direction of the market. The auction houses have intelligently trimmed their catalogs and edited their sales. With low estimates and no more than one example of any artist at a time, sales at auction have been good. At the fair, it’s exactly the opposite. What Art Basel needed to do was edit, and then edit again; we don’t need to see a zillion galleries showing the same artists every year.

The art-fair circuit has become a grind. There’s Art Basel in Switzerland in June, then Frieze in London in October, Abu Dhabi in November and Miami in December. By the time the private planes start to land in Florida, it’s the end of a grueling marathon where dealers are burnt out and inventory is mostly stale.

Did I see anything great? I can’t entirely remember, but I don’t think so. The visual chaos of thousands of un-curated and random works left me so visually bloated that I’d have a hard time distinguishing between a smallish Richard Prince De Kooning painting at Gagosian and a “hard to get” Dana Schutz painting that now is readily available from Zach Feuer, so why bother?

Parties raged on, with the opening of the W hotel a central event; many of the usual celebs and hangers-on were there once again. But if you exclude the art tourists, real collectors were again the minority. The majority of these gawkers/scene stalkers wouldn’t know Damien Hirst from Arman; what are they doing here? I haven’t a clue. They walk around looking at things, understanding nothing and asking for prices, only to remark, “Can you believe it’s 20K?”

Best Gallery: The prize goes to the very classical gallery Gmurzynska for sprinkling a few Sylvester Stallone paintings among Picassos, Miros and their usual offerings. I saw Sly limping around the fair in a black suit, sporting tons of plastic surgery, with Jason Binn in tow. Warhol would have loved it. The paintings were actually good (or so bad it made them good). The same gallery had been stormed the day before by no less than 10 federal marshals, accompanied by dealer/investor Asher Edelman. In a shocking scene, they seized more than $7 million in art one morning because Edelman was awarded a $750,000 judgment against the gallery for damage done to a Ryman painting last year. Sadly, they settled the next day, and all the art was returned to the booth, but it was fun while it lasted. Add that to Stallone paintings, and I give Galerie Gmurzynska the prize for best gallery in the fair and definitely the most fun.

Worst Gallery: Helly Nahmad, for hanging several beautiful Calders but using a big blowup photo of an older, drunken Calder as the background of his booth. Sorry, cheap marketing in the art world gives me nausea; you’re not selling watches or cars, after all.

Private Collections: The private collections have long been the most interesting things to view in Miami. The Bramans were away, so, sadly, this great collection was missed. The Rubells got Audi sponsorship and did their best show in years. They sprinkled in a few pieces by Jeff Koons, Richard Prince, Maurizio Cattelan, Charles Ray, Cady Noland and Cindy Sherman, as well as a roster of trendy market or curator-pleasers like Kelley Walker, Wade Guyton, Walker/Guyton, Nate Lowman, Aaron Curry, Thomas Houseago, Steven Shearer and Adam McEwen. When I see trendy art exhibited and available by the same artists at the fair, I can’t help but wonder about the meaning of buying, showing and then promoting. It feels like successful front-running, but it worked for Saatchi a few years ago, and it’s working for the Rubells; they delivered their best show in years. Their competition, however, chose not to show up.

The De La Cruz collection was exhibited in a brand-new and beautiful new building. They didn’t do a show—they didn’t have a sponsor—but Latin art and feminist perspectives prevailed and that made it different and special. The Eugenio Lopez–Jumex collection (Jumex is Mexico’s largest juice company) was referred to by insiders as the “juice show.” It was a new type of contemporary effort for the Bass Museum; the show is worth seeing, but in fact it’s not super-juicy. Either the curators or the budget went soft at the end; there were too many works and not enough good ones.

By far the best thing in Miami is the new Herzog & de Meuron concrete garage, a five-story exposed concrete parking tower. It’s massive, it’s butch and it’s big-budget cool. It was built by ex-Starwood developer Robert Wennet in classic Miami style, and he chose architects Herzog & de Meuron, who are also doing the all-new Miami Moca. He used the buzz to rent out the retail spaces on the first floor.

Now that’s different, and that we like. Can it be that a parking garage is the best new thing I saw in Miami? As long as the skirts are too short, the pants are too tight and the Champagne is free, I just can’t get enough.

The Observer had a chance to speak with Renaud Proch, director of The Project, the 57th street gallery. This year The Project (booth C21 in the Miami Beach Convention Center for those following from home) is showing the work of Glenn Kaino, Julie Mehretu, and Paul Pfeiffer. More accurately, the gallery is showing a work by each of three artists, having downscaled since last year's fair. Which brings us to our first question...

Observer: How is business in Miami?

Proch: Business has been good, actually. Slower than last year, which is what we expected and why we brought three works with us as opposed to the larger number we usually show at this fair. That turned out to be a good decision.

What are dealers saying?

Proch: I haven't had the chance to process, really, what everybody is saying. The general feeling is that the pace is slower than past years. That's something that everyone can agree on. ... Of the collectors who are here this year looking at work, they're generally serious collectors interested in high-quality work.

What are the parties like this year?

Proch: I'm not a huge fan of the party circuit in Miami. I don't know if you are going to quote me as being a party-pooper. This is a business. We can still have fun but let's focus on working in the booths.

In the past some dealers have complained that - you know - ‘Miami is too much'. Is there a sense of a necessary market corrective?

Proch: God, did they ever get served.

But, hey! There's a funny article in today's Chicago Tribune on... nude artist models!

Drawing from a nude model has, of late, become a Sunday artist kind of thing to do. This has not always been the case. Way back when, like, when the human figure was the basis for most Western art and being an artist meant spending the better part of your teens and early-twenties sitting on a wood plank all day in a studio garret, struggling with the knot-and-hollows density and structure of the man or woman (likely a woman, likely "disreputable") posed in front of you while your teacher threatens your sketch from behind with a gum eraser. Back then, nude models were the obstacle course, firing range, and graduation day parading ground of art boot camp.

That doesn't sound like much fun. At least, it sounds like a lot of work, which is probably why the number of artists who are schooled in figure drawing and possess--what do you call them, again?--formal skills seems to diminish annually.

That's probably not a fair generalization. In any case, Parson's MFA program is having its annual Open Studio event tonight at 2 West 13^th street and various locations.

Both faculty and students will show. Aside from general skill level, will there be any outward difference between faculty and student art? One with the self-confidence of the tenured, the other coolly eyeing an immediate future of daytime jobs and cold studios in Bushwick? We'll see.

There were so many parties riding on the back of Art Basel Miami Beach, according to the Times, that “anyone without a crib sheet, or the power publicist Nadine Johnson on speed-dial, was lost.” So legion were the corporate-scented art-design-fashion fêtes, in fact, that Manhattan socialite Lee Schifter’s speech pattern was reduced to something akin to gibberish. “Did you Pucci or Choo?” she asked at one point, referring to a pair of concurrent parties—one given by Jimmy Choo founder Tamara Mellon and the other by Emilio Pucci’s daughter, Laudomia.

And those who didn’t Pucci or Choo were able to Swarovski, Audi and Cartier. Oh, and a few lucky people could also Klein, if they so desired, by dining with the 65-year-old designer, Calvin, at his new, art-free, Greece-or-something manse. No lazy affair, the planning for Mr. Klein’s party reportedly took several weeks and included “casting” and “importing” actor-waiters from New York. Art for promotion’s sake? It’s safe to say that Andy Warhol would be quite pleased. [NYT]

We asked Mr. Balazs about this year’s fair. “Every year it’s more and more of a circus and a phenomenon,” he told The Daily Transom while standing in Donna Karan’s Urban Zen boutique on Greenwich Street in the West Village. The store, filled with calming music and some sort of overpowering exotic incense, had been turned into a makeshift entrance, leading guests towards a larger dining space next door. “Everyone in the [art] business tells me they’ve never done better, and yet, at the same time, the whole thing is taking on an air that goes way beyond the art world or anything that has to do with art,” he said. After saying hello to a chic-looking, pink-cheeked couple walking by, Mr. Balazs, who received a joint masters degree in journalism and business from Columbia, added, “I’ve never seen such an influx of people interested in branding and using some marketing opportunity to push culture.”

Despite the recent buzz suggesting that the American-European art bubble can’t continue to inflate at its current rate without bursting, he remains somewhat confident. “I think it can sustain itself for a while,” he said.
Over the weekend, art-world kingpins Jeffrey Deitch and Simon de Pury spoke at the Raleigh, Mr. Balazs’ hotel on Collins Ave. in Miami. Addressing the art-world Henny Pennies, Mr. Deitch apparently brought up a point that struck the hotelier. “Art has now integrated itself into our economy in ways that was never true before,” said Mr. Balazs, who, after recently refinancing some of his hotels, found himself at the center of a media maelstrom that, he claims, added up to a much-ado-about-nothing mess. “It’s become like music, like fashion, and now it’s art. And on every level—starting with the top, down—it’s now more something you do,” he said, pausing for a moment. “In other words, someone’s more likely to buy a small print just as they’re likely to buy a nice handbag. And that, perhaps, is a new trend, a new direction.”

So, did Mr. Balazs buy anything while he was down there? “I hate buying in that atmosphere!” he said, throwing his head back with a laugh.

The subterranean lounge was packed with revelers, including gallerist Tony Shafrazi, Pucci designer Matthew Williamson and bleary-eyed bicyclist Lance Armstrong.

“It’s five to ten times as big as it’s ever been,” said Jason Binn, the magazine publisher who founded the Miami glossy Ocean Drive. “There are more private jets, or at least as many, as there are for the Super Bowl. Everyone has to be here and play here.”

On Wednesday, André Balazs’s Raleigh Hotel was the playground of choice, during a party thrown by gallerist and art world powerhouse Jeffrey Deitch.

A startling peformance by the band The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, involving frontwoman Kembra Pfahler getting her nether regions doused in red and yellow paint while doing a headstand, proved inspiration for a group of German gallerists who stripped, grabbed inner tubes and plunged into the Raleigh’s historical pool, its proprietor only feet away. Clad in a dark three-quarter-length jacket, Mr. Balazs was seen making a beeline toward the elevators at 2 a.m. with a willowy, tan blonde in a revealing silver dress.

“This is the closest thing to the 70’s in the 21st century because it’s got the mix of high and low, Europe and America, South America, straight, gay, black, white, green, yellow, art world, rich people, fashion world,” said Bob Colacello, former editor of Interview magazine, while signing copies of his photo book, Out, at the Raleigh’s ballroom on Thursday. “The party people are starting to outnumber the art people.”

Perhaps this isn’t so terrible. “If Art Basel is more commercial, that’s good,” said hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons during a rooftop dinner he hosted at the Delano hotel, honoring artists Shinique Smith and Rene Cox. “The more people that are exposed to art in America, the more we’ll have a creative community.

“Could you get any more beautiful,” Mr. Simmons said as he greeted former model Beverly Johnson before returning to his table where his current girlfriend, model Porschia Coleman, awaited him, along with a vegan meal.

Friday saw Vanity Fair and MoMA’s party at the Shore Club doing battle with the Visionaire soiree back at the Florida Room. Actors Owen Wilson and Woody Harrelson, just back from Cusco, Peru, were spotted dressed in what looked like wardrobe leftovers from Weekend at Bernie’s.

On Saturday, an unidentified creature fell out of a tree during The Worth of Art (2) book dinner, startling photographer Terry Richardson before running off. “That doesn’t happen everyday,” said Mr. Balazs with a laugh (he was later seen slipping into the elevator with a different lithe blonde).

“I think the party is getting bigger and bigger,” Mr. Colacello said. “Better and better? We’ll see.”

The rain / in Spain / falls mainly / on the plain! Master that and you're good to go for things like horseraces circa 1910. But nowadays it takes a lot more to impress people at fashiony parties. And now that everyone is so covered up for winter, the holiday fashion party is the toughest nut to crack. One's mouth has to sound good, not just look pretty and plump! Luckily, T Magazine’s Web site stays abreast with the trendiest lingo so we don’t have to. We’ve included here T's three words, which are sure to tickle the tip of your tongue for months to come. But trying to get by with only three words would be a nightmare! So you’ll also find an important neologism from your friends at The Daily Transom at the end.

T Magazine’s:

• schadenbasel: /n./ A new coinage expressing the satisfaction or pleasure felt at the inevitable collapse of the inflated art world, as in: “Call it schadenbasel, but the market has become so vulgar, I can’t wait for the bubble to burst. In the meantime, let’s have another Absolut Currin.”

• staycation: /n./ A neologism used by modern-day Mrs. Mortimers and real-life Homer Simpsons who choose not to travel and prefer to unravel the mysteries of the world from the comfort of their living room couches, e.g., “I can’t deal with all the hassles of airports—this Christmas, I’m taking a week off and going on staycation.”

• pop: /n./ A short, explosive sound; part of a compound modifier for a temporary location, as in, “Have you heard about the new pop-up restaurant near the Comme de Garçons guerilla store?”; [slang] each; a piece: “Elizabeth Peyton fanny packs are a steal at only $30,000 a pop”; of or pertaining to Pop Art—a descriptor that’s never been more relevant as the spirit of Warhol hands over the culture like ectoplasm, e.g., “There was more Pop in that show than in a 7-Eleven Big Gulp.”

Here's one of our own!

• portmandon't: /n./ The practice of integrating copy from style magazines into your ordinary vernacular, later prompting other hard-up journalists to feats of pseudolinguistics (using nexis) that turn up old pieces and make them legendary. (See: metrosexual.) Ex.: "You didn't just say schadenbasel! That's a big, big portmandon't." /interj./ An exclamation aimed at stopping the use of style-section verbiage in everyday conversation.

Whether the artworks are as significant a contribution to world culture as “I Wanna Be Your Dog” remains to be seen. The Stooges’ well-versed nihilism was a momentary corrective to Art Basel’s defining obsessions: prestige, class and money. As for art—it’s the spur, not the core, of this mind-boggling international phenomenon.

A headline in City Link, a South Florida alternative newspaper, promised to counsel its readers on the best ways of “Surviving Art Basel.” With all the guerrilla-style art fairs that have sprung up around the main event, it’s a wonder that anyone leaves Florida with their love of art intact. It’s the commercial overkill that’s fatiguing—so much art, so little time and not enough money. (The relentless influx of artsy types into the Wynwood Art District was undoubtedly the subject of much discussion among the year-round residents of this barren, poverty-stricken neighborhood, where nearby construction sites promise “super lofts.”)

For those of us who balked at paying five bucks for a lukewarm can of Coke at the concession stand, it was a wonder how art flew from the walls of blue-chip galleries at the Miami Convention Center. At dealer Reena Spauling’s booth, Merlin Carpenter’s scrawled paintings advised clientele, “Die Collector Scum.” You just know some collector scum snapped it up, love at first sight.

Visitors wearied by the Art Basel spectacle contented themselves with people-watching and amateur sociology. Shameless dealers toadied up to Dennis Hopper, and, in a moving scene of art-macher introspection, dealer Matthew Marks chewed the lid of his coffee cup while poring over art magazines.

THOUSANDS OF YOUNG artists hoped to hit the big time at smaller venues like Aqua, NADA, Bridge, Red Dot and Scope. In an effort to forestall art-overdose and keep the masses primed, dealers distributed freebies with a fervor bordering on aggression. At Bridge, for example, a cadre of long-legged waitresses decked out in plush red outfits practically wrestled visitors to the ground if they refused the Amstel beer on offer.

There were Picassos at Art Basel, and Warhols, and works by the ubiquitous Takashi Murakami, and 13 exquisite, museum-worthy Mirós. The Nolan/Scheibler booth displayed a winning suite of Mel Kendrick’s playful riffs on Constructivist sculpture. And the hot-and-cold painter John Walker was in top form at Knoedler & Company. The work of unsung French modernist Auguste Herbin was there in abundance—now that he’s commercially viable, can a retrospective be far behind?

At Aqua, Brooklyn-based William Powhida, whose work was at Seattle’s Platform Gallery, garnered attention through sarcasm. His pieces are painted lists of art world potshots. Here’s his take on the rise of dealer Zach Feuer: “Open Gallery Sell Shitty Paintings.” In reference to a Miami Basel panel discussion, he takes even the noble cause of art criticism to task: “This should be a bunch of bullshit. Make sure I’m up for this one.”

Viewers unfamiliar with art world minutiae were likely puzzled by Mr. Powhida’s insider musings. That probably wasn’t the case with Patrick Berran’s curious architectural abstractions at Heidi Cho’s showcase, particularly his meticulously rendered, heart-stopping drawings. Gregory Klassen, a student of Gerhard Richter and represented by Essen’s Galerie Jurgen Kalthoff, locates a moody twist on stain painting. Doug Parry’s paintings, seen at Brooklyn’s Art 101, are enigmatic narratives featuring clowns, lovers and what he calls “DFS”—drinking, fucking and smoking.

Artists exhibited at Art Basel’s satellite shows often proved more interesting than those at Art Basel itself, if only because they haven’t suffered from overexposure. The Irish sculptor Graham Hudson, for example, whose work was shown at Monitor Video & Contemporary Art, contrives whimsical, almost Calderesque assemblages from saws, crowbars, tape measures, hammers and other hardware store merchandise.

Over at Layr Wuestenhagen Contemporary, a gallery exhibiting at the NADA Art Fair, sculptor Fabian Seiz does something similar with materials gleaned from the lumberyard, creating absurdist contraptions that are part Rube Goldberg, part Vladimir Tatlin. And Kirk Hayes’ trompe l’oeil paintings at Dallas’ Conduit Gallery were baffling: Even after realizing that his plywood and cardboard “collages” are the purest illusion, we still don’t believe it. Out-of-the-way finds like Mr. Hayes are, in the end, what make Art Basel’s machinations palatable.

Byron Dobell

Many dabble in painting, including those renowned for different artistic endeavors—John Mellencamp, say, or Anh Duong. It’s tempting to dismiss them as amateur enthusiasts—just don’t peg Byron Dobell, whose drawings, watercolors and paintings are at First Street Gallery, as one of them.

Mr. Dobell earned a significant reputation as an editor, holding important posts at Esquire, Life, New York, The Washington Post and American Heritage. Norman Mailer, Jacques Barzun, Tom Wolfe and Rebecca West all encountered his red pen. How did someone whose schedule didn’t encourage art-making do it all the same?

The answer: persistence and weekends. Instead of escaping to a country home, Mr. Dobell headed to the studio. A student of the caricaturist David Levine, he’s established himself as a professional portraitist. It can be a thankless job: Betty Friedan insisted that Mr. Dobell destroy his portrait of her; his refusal eventually landed it in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.

Mr. Dobell’s skills are in evidence at First Street: A deft hand for anatomy; a keen attention to proportion; and, in Scottish Landscape (2006), an appreciative eye for the vagaries of light and atmosphere.

Mr. Dobell is unapologetic in his traditionalism: A friend of his remarks that “Dobell believes all important art ends with Degas.” Indeed, Mr. Dobell would rather pay homage than engage in commentary. Bronze Roman Youth (2006) makes deference to the classical world. Elsewhere, he applies oils, watercolor and various drawing media with an ease only someone experienced in the rigors of craft could achieve.

Byron Dobell: Recent Works is at First Street Gallery, 526 West 26th Street, until Dec. 22.

Nothing comes between Calvin Klein and his white walls. The 65-year-old fashion designer, whose clothes epitomize a clean, sleek aesthetic, has a new home in North Miami—and roughhousing is probably not allowed inside. “It’s all white, of course,” Mr. Klein told WWD on Saturday night at P.R. kingpin Paul Wilmot’s dinner party during Art Basel. “And there is no art on the walls, but a few people on Friday night said they were relieved that they didn’t have to look at any more art!” (Yes, what a relief that must have been!) The minted digs, a 1920s-style Spanish Villa that took a year to renovate, apparently have a prime spot from which to peep the bay.

Though Mr. Klein spent much of the weekend visiting various high-minded fairs and fêtes, he likes to collect things that “you wouldn’t hang on the wall.” Instead, he wants to give his home a Mediterranean feel, as if it were “in Greece or something.” But when Greece or something seems too far from the action on South Beach, he can simply crash at his nearby apartment on Collins Ave.

For anyone but Calvin Klein, having two homes in the same Floridian city might indicate a lifelong love for the Sunshine State. Not so, apparently. “I used to have a house in Palm Beach, but I had decided I never wanted to be in Florida again. After five or six New York winters, I changed my mind." The designer added that he would be spending the holidays at his home in Rio de Janeiro.