What is your definition of a dirty mind? – but a recurring theme in GURU’s healthily outrageous (at least so far) marketing theme.

I know this is mine:

The creative madness of Lex & Stian

Unbelievable as it is, I missed Alexis Mincolla’s show at the Adler Bertin-Toublanc Galerie while I was down in Miami for Art Basel, which featured a piece from the series above.

AND the Black Sunday Bloodless Rave at Bella Rose.

Lex is the guy who’s bringing us this highly intoxicating (not to repeat: high) ad for the back cover of the upcoming issue (I believe) of High Life Magazine. I believe it’s just a metter of time before we get the low down on Stian.

Beach Peeping, Art Basel Miami 2008

Can you judge an artist by its cover? These days, disregard the paint under their nails, it’s harder and harder to spot the artists. True, if you are John Currin and Rachel Feinstein, you enjoyed Art Basel Miami like royalty, sashaying through at A-list soirées, imbibing in lobster parfaits and hoo-hooing and ha-hahing with your best buddies in front of Patrick McMullan. At Art Basel Miami Vernissage, top-tier artists were forced to wave and smile on a pedestal through the convention center as though the g-string and garter model of an elitist champagne-filled peepshow.

Just a scene, Art Basel Miami 2008 vernissage

Lesser-known artists, like graffiti artist Mr. Brainwash at Scope, took public adulation with bravado, posing for pictures with fans and autographing posters.

But while they are all treated like celebrities, most of today’s artists didn’t seem to be as swayed by fashion as a means of expression, unlike the sequin and cocaine 1980s. It’s rare to see Currin in anything but a crisp suit, while Ryan McGinley and Aaron Young, members of the NY school of LES elite artists, opted for cool, quiet button-downs this year, rather than skinny-jeaned hipster or punkish biker waif like their work may suggest.

Mr Brainwash.

To further our social experiment, we started shooting and collecting pictures of various stereotypes of ‘artist’ and then asking what the subjects were, in order to see how far the genre could transcend. We noticed Northeast boho mixed with Sobe hobo in many cases. People we thought were artists were slick-suited investors, and vice versa. Fashionists put on their best I-haven’t-showered-in-three-days-so-you-better-think-I-am-an-artist looks (did y’all see Mary Kate Olsen’s hat?)

Other times, it seemed the curators, organizers and spectators were more punk, funk and spicy than the celebrated curators. It was delightfully ambiguous who is posing as whom. Thus, while a popular theme in Miami Art Basel 2008 was post-modernist art that challenged stereotypes and identities (i.e. Kara Walker, Cindy Sherman, Glenn Ligon), the artists and attendees themselves proved to be the biggest social experiment of all.

1) Cut hair, retro vintage clothes, a Rachel Feinstein protégée?

Answer: Nah, just young firestarter and Design Miami co-founder Ambra Medda

2) Character at Art Basel Vernissage- horse and cowboy tie, army jacket; an investor, artist or mad-man?

Answer: artist, and perhaps mad man.

3) Man with severe 5-o’clock shadow, spotted by the Ultra Exhibit by Art Positions @ The Containers. Famous DJ?

Answer: Esteemed designer of Ultra Soundscape environment, Federico Diaz.

4) White-collar Investor?

Answer: Nope, photographer who was shooting the fair for Art & Absinthe, with personal art projects as well.

5) Too suave for investor?  high-end artist?

Answer: Investor/collector who just arrived in town the day after Vernissage and was relishing the sun.

6) Coveted Berlin Artists?

Answer: Nah…  Euro tourists.

7) Which Way To The Beach? Body builder?

Answer: Street Painter, see the paint splatters?

Tattoos, blind ambition? The next Fresh kid?

Answer: Nope, SoBe kid, drunk by 3…

Stay posted for more… Words and photos by Faith Ann Young

When I told our friend Guruphiliac that I was going to cover Art Basel Miami Beach 2008 for the blog and asked him to share some thoughts about the gurus of the Art World, he took a crack at it, picturing Warhol as the GURU of the current scene:

“The contemporary artists with the biggest buzz and the biggest prices— Hirst, Prince, Jeff Koons, and Takashi Murakami—are all sons of Warhol, chameleonic pop ironists who could have master’s degrees in marketing.” In times of recession, pop art captures the spectator’s mind and symbolism reaches climax.

Deric Carner, collector and manipulator of signs and messages, was one of the 26 artists chosen by Takashi Murakami’s artist-led art entreprise Kaikai Kiki to showcase their work at Gesai Miami 2008. He was photographed by Faith Ann Young early evening on Saturday, December 6 when we sneaked into Pulse after opening hours (thanks to my unshakable power of persuasion.)

Log onto his site to browse his artist portfolio.

Photos by the New Yorker, Faith Ann Young, words by Ladyshark

We mentioned earlier throwing sand castles on hipsters soaked in champagne at the Art Basel Visionaire party: the most daring artists and the true visionaires were invited by the Accompanied Literary Society, Create The Group, to the Raleigh Hotel on Saturday to play paintball in the sand to honor a selection of new paintings by Andrew Cramer. Invitees included Glenn O’Brien, artists Aaron Young and Ryan McGinley, we-don’t-know-what-she-has-to-do-with-anything web-deb Cory Kennedy, and always dashing Andre Balazs (who seemed to be at every party at Basel).

A beautiful metaphor and an impeccably executed event, it reminded me that drinking rum is sexier than drinking champagne… and that any sort of human game is what truly makes art.

Photos by Faith-Ann Young, words by Ladyshark

A trend we continually noticed pulsing through Art Basel and its tentacles this year? Ever since Shepard Fairey has become a household name with his Obama art, and Banksy has become a cultural icon across the pond in London, there has been abundant acceptance of urban art in major art fairs, showcased by cutting-edge museums and collectors. Artists on skates covering whole buildings with their signage (Basel’s neckface) ; low budget spray-painted low-art pieces and performances that have achieved status as the new high-art.

Along with this guerrilla-art motif, we began to notice a lot of tattoos on the roads of Basel. The cooler the art, the cooler the tattoos. There was even an exhibit of a tattoo-covered sculpture at Scope this year.

Gorgeous, decadent means of self-expression, they swirled around the arms and shoulders, full of color and meaning, combining cultural icons, religious symbols, and written word. We should have predicted this as last year Design Miami showcased a full-blown tattoo parlor, but it is clear as day to us now: tattoos have lost a lot of their sigma (as stretchable, low-class, dirty, disease-transmitters, last-nights-party-gone-awry scarlet letters or inane little butterfly-on-hip trifles).

They are just one more way that artists are leaving their own wild, crazed, frenetic and permanent marks on the world as they know it.

Words and photos by Faith Ann Young

We got to Scope on Saturday afternoon…

Caught this beautiful second of All American joy…

Encountered with the Artist…

Loved this piece bought by DIDDY…

and flashed some GURU Juicy Superfruit.

More to come from Scope, Art Asia and Pulse.

Photos by Faith-Ann Young, Product Placement by Ladyshark