\n<\/p>\n
And so on, forever.<\/p>\n
There is, of course, a lot of very good art on view in Miami next week. On Monday night the Bass Museum will open a sprawling survey of work by local hero Hernan Bas,<\/strong> followed by a f\u00eate for the artist by his gallery, Lehmann Maupin, at Casa Tua, the beloved Miami members club that\u2019s set to open in New York in 2024. Nina Johnson,<\/strong> who\u2019s held down a year-round gallery for over a decade, will open shows of work by Katie Stout<\/strong> and Yasue Maetake<\/strong> at her Little Haiti space, and then have friends over for barbecue at her Architectural Digest<\/em>\u2013approved<\/a>, Charlap Hyman & Herrero\u2013designed Craftsman in nearby Shorecrest.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take the start of the calendar a day at time.<\/p>\n Tuesday<\/strong><\/em>.<\/strong> A full day before the main fair opens and things are already hitting peak art insanity. Tuesday will see openings at the De la Cruz family\u2019s home on Key Biscayne and<\/em> the De la Cruz family\u2019s private museum in the Design District. NADA, the longtime satellite expo for more emerging galleries, opens two days earlier than usual, leapfrogging the main fair. There\u2019s all the museum openings at the ICA Miami, which still looks spiffy after launching its new building six years ago. And Larry Gagosian<\/strong> will team up with Jeffrey Deitch<\/strong> for another big-tent group show bound together by a big-picture theme\u2014this year it\u2019s \u201cForms,\u201d as in artists who do cool stuff with shapes. Think Tauba Auerbach, Carol Bove, John Chamberlain, Albert Oehlen.<\/strong> Scoff all you want, but the Larry x Jeffrey shows always rule.<\/p>\n And then, a neighborhood over in Allapattah, the Rubell Museum opens the shows of its most recent artists in residence, Basil Kincaid<\/strong> and Alejandro Pi\u00f1eiro Bello,<\/strong> plus a show of LA artists in the collection. And then, after that, there\u2019s\u2014checks calendar<\/em>\u2014approximately one thousand dinners to attend, many of them on the beach, most featuring stone crabs and\/or a surprise performer, all somehow absolutely essential to attend.<\/p>\n Wednesday<\/strong><\/em>.<\/strong> The mob scene at the convention center. Billionaires in sunglasses waiting in line next to their frantic art advisers. Where to first? Perhaps to David Zwirner<\/strong>\u2019s booth to see a pair of Robert Ryman works, as well as The Schoolboys,<\/em> a canon-level painting by Marlene Dumas<\/strong>\u2014it was in the collection of the Museum Gouda<\/a> in the Netherlands until it sold<\/a> at Christie\u2019s for about $1.6 million in 2011. Or to Hauser & Wirth, which has on offer new paintings by Uman,<\/strong> which the mega-gallery now represents<\/a> equally with Nicola Vassell, who started showing Uman in 2020. Van de Weghe will bring the expected m\u00e9lange of 20th-century masters, including Andy Warhol\u2019s Dollar Sign<\/em> (1981), which last sold at Christie\u2019s in 2017 for $7.2 million<\/a>. It is \u201cone of the best large-size dollar-sign paintings,\u201d the gallery said. David Kordansky Gallery will inaugurate its representation of Sam McKinniss,<\/strong> a remarkable painter of modern life, with a few works at the booth ahead of a solo booth at Frieze LA in February 2024 and a solo show at the flagship gallery in 2025. I\u2019m quite excited to see the presentation of work by Sedrick Chisom<\/strong> at Matthew Brown<\/strong>\u2019s booth, ahead of his New York solo debut in May 2024 at Clearing.<\/p>\n But there are hundreds of booths across the various sectors of the fair, making it impossible to size up the entire fair in one go. And bear in mind, this is just the VIP opening\u2014the fair doesn\u2019t open to the public until Thursday. Which is why most of the hangers-on and brand activators show up not for the opening of the fair, but for the weekend, when most of the collectors are already back in Palm Beach or on Park Avenue. When one major airline announced it would be chartering its first-ever invite-only private flight, they set it to arrive not in time for the VIP opening, but for general admission on Thursday.<\/p>\n Spending millions on art and design can work up an appetite. Thankfully, Miami has a way of sustaining an ever-churning hype machine that makes its hot restaurants impenetrably packed. A few years back, the Major Food Group guys had the bright idea to do a pop-up version of their New York hit Carbone at the Edition Hotel\u2026despite the fact that they already have a Carbone in Miami, on South Beach. Mario Carbone, Jeff Zalaznick,<\/strong> and Rich Torrisi<\/strong>\u2019s next big Magic City move is their first foray into Mexican food with Chateau ZZ\u2019s, which I\u2019m told will open its Brickell doors soon. If you must eat at an enormous clubstaurant to really get the full Miami Basel experience,<\/em> maybe go to David Grutman<\/strong>\u2019s new coastal Italian emporium, Casadonna, where Drake had his birthday party earlier this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a chance the art set sticks to what it knows\u2014and what it knows is, quelle surprise,<\/em> Estiatorio Milos, the seafood-heavy spot that flies in the fancy fish from exotic ports of call. Ordering from the cooler means we\u2019re talking sea creatures that cost around $160 a pound\u2014the stone crabs you ordered for the table could set you back two stacks, Chief. And it\u2019s the same food, at the same prices, as the Milos in Dubai and the Milos in Hudson Yards and the Milos in London. Collectors spend all week asking for the Batphone to get a reservation like it\u2019s the last place to break bread on earth.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s a new arrival on the scene, conveniently located in the Loews, where nearly every art dealer with their name on the door of a gallery books a room each year. (As I said<\/a> last year, the place is a reality show waiting to happen.) Owned and operated by collector and hotelier-about-town Alex Tisch,<\/strong> the posh Collins crash pad has a new in-house bo\u00eete: an edition of the hallowed Harlem red-sauce temple Rao\u2019s, the place that has appealed to power brokers of all stripes with its extremely clubby policy of only seating those who \u201cown\u201d a table.<\/p>\n This Collins Avenue Rao\u2019s facsimile\u2014it\u2019s referred to by regulars as \u201cThe Joint\u201d\u2014 first seems like a relatively easy res to snag. For one, it\u2019s way bigger. It\u2019s got 160 seats, whereas the original has just four tables and six booths. And the \u201cown a table\u201d thing in Manhattan doesn\u2019t apply here. The description on Resy notes that \u201cthe room is bigger than the Harlem original (and tables aren\u2019t just for regulars and friends of the family).\u201d So I plugged in my dates, desperate for anything, even just something at 10:30 p.m. in Siberia. But no tables appeared. I set a Notify<\/a>.<\/p>\n And then I reached Frank Pellegrino Jr.,<\/strong> co-owner of Rao\u2019s, and he told me that it\u2019s not just Basel week that The Joint is booked. The tables are spoken for until next summer.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cPresently, we are fully committed throughout Q1 and Q2, 2024,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n Might as well give Frank a call and book the table for next December.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n