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Samuel Keller, sniff, sniff, we love you
man |
So
what will Art Basel Miami Beach be like without Samuel
Keller at the helm?
Apparently that
won’t be revealed until Art Basel’s press conference at 10:30
a.m. Dec. 5 at the
Miami Beach
Convention Center.
“The policy is
that Samuel Keller has had too many requests for too many
interviews,” Miami Beach’s designated publicist, Bob
Goodman, explained. “Other colleagues [of Keller] aren’t
talking because they aren’t yet in the driver’s seat…. There are
so many art publications around the world asking for interviews
that if they do them, literally, they can’t do anything else.”
Well, actually,
Keller did already agree to at least one interview. “Sam was at
the Herald a few weeks ago,” Goodman said. The Miami
Herald is, well, special. “The Herald has been the
official newspaper from the beginning.”
Keller was Art
Basel Miami Beach’s director even before it began. He was
designated the director of the Swiss spinoff event when the
Swiss-based company Messe Schweiz first decided to bring
the fair to Miami Beach in 2000. Delayed by the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Art Basel officially held its first
Miami Beach show in December 2002. Billed as the second
largest art fair in the world (the largest being the show in
Basel, Switzerland), Art Basel Miami Beach put Greater Miami
smack-dab in the middle of the cultural map. And the fair
got larger every year, attracting more and more independent
satellite fairs, crowds and art-inspired parties. (New York
Times “cultural traveler” Mary Billard called Art Basel
Miami Beach the “Lollapalooza of international art fairs”
in an article this week.) While the Basel snowball grew bigger
and rolled faster, Keller rolled along with it, guiding its
path.
Now the director
is leaving his post. “I got an offer I couldn’t refuse — to
direct one of the finest art museums in the world, the
Beyeler Foundation, in Basel, Switzerland. But everyone
involved knows Art Basel is not me. It’s the artists,” Keller
told the SunPost in December 2006, when he had more
time to converse with the media. Ahhh, those were the good
old days. Good times, man. Good times.
Anyway, from what
Murmurs gathered from reading official Basel press releases, the
plan is that three individuals will take Keller’s place. The
triumvirate, as the Basel kids call them, are:
-
Cay Sophie Rabinowitz
— an American expatriate
living in Berlin who curated lots of galleries and museums in
Europe and edits for many arts publications, including the
U.S.-based Art Paper and the Swiss-based Parkett.
Rabinowitz also is on the faculty of the Parsons New School
for Design.
-
Annette Schönholzer
— one of those lucky
individuals with both U.S. and Swiss citizenship. More
importantly, Schönholzer was the project manager of the
BIOPOLIS show at the Swiss National Exhibition from
2000 to 2002 and has been the show manager of the Art Basel
Miami Beach since December 2002.
-
Marc Spiegler
— a dual citizen of France
and the United States who decided to live in Zurich. Spiegler
has worked as a freelance art journalist and columnist for
such publications as Art & Auction Magazine, Neue Zürcher
Zeitung and New York Magazine.
Murmurs was
intrigued by the concept of having three people with equal say
running a gigantic art fair. What if the directors disagree on a
course of action? “I think that one of them would have the
tie-breaking vote,” Goodman theorized.
The three
directors, though, will have different responsibilities, he
said. Besides, if the trio has disagreements, well, Murmurs
figures someone will rise to become the alpha amid Basel
pressure.
At any rate,
Keller did offer some advice back in June to his successor (or
in this case successors) in an interview with Bloomberg.
“Change continuously with the art world,” he said. “Listen to
the galleries who have what it takes to make an art fair.”
Very poetic.
Murmurs will miss you Sam Keller, you lovable art god you.
Farmworkers Walk!
As we edge closer
to Dec. 6, the official Art Basel kickoff, it will be difficult
to remember that other things are going on in
South Florida — like nine-mile walks for farmworkers. So we’d just like
to mention that the Farmworkers Alliance, Interfaith
Action and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers will be
having a “march through
Miami”
on Nov. 30 to make Burger King aware of the “sweatshop
conditions facing farmworkers in its supply chain.” The allies
are not talking about the acne-covered teens who give you the
wrong order when you go through a drive-through, but those who
“face sweatshop conditions every day in the field,” earn less
than $10,000 a year and are denied the right to organize
unions or earn overtime pay, according to the Farmworkers
Alliance.
The march starts
at 9:30 a.m. at 200 S. Biscayne Blvd. in Miami — the
headquarters of Goldman Sachs & Co., which owns a huge
share of Burger King stock — and ends at Burger King
Headquarters at 5505 Blue Lagoon Drive. Oh, there will be tomato
bucket-shaped signs, puppets and even marching bands. Those
interested in more details can call Julia Perkins at
239-986-0891. |
