What is Art Basel but a massive overload of art, fashion, celebrities, parties, location location location, and documentation. I enjoyed my experience at Basel immensely in terms of the conversations I had, people I interacted with, the art I did get to see and the way people reacted to it has opened my eyes to a fresh plate of information. However I do have to admit that being in the Basel atmosphere does make one feel that they are consistently lacking in terms of who they know, what events they are able to get in to, and what type of business they have. Trust me when I say I'm my harshest critique but it becomes difficult to appreciate where I've come in terms of my art and career when all you seem to be surrounded by at Basel are people the same age doing everything you've only dreamed of experiencing one day. It makes "discouraging" seem like a hopeful word.
I had to write a final paper for my Contemporary Art class on what I experienced at Basel and as I was writing the paper I realized that the people that were actually appreciating the art they were seeing were not the one's going out to all of the "best" parties or hottest clubs or tweeting about how they just saw Beyonce/P Diddy/Kanye but the ones that were very quiet, not in the lime light. This just goes to reaffirm what Ralph Rucci told SCAD students this summer about the #1 rule to always remember before getting into the industry:
It's not the people that are on the red carpet that are the movers and shakers but the ones that are behind the scenes, that you've probably never heard of or see out and about. Those are the oracles, those are the one's to really listen to.
I won't lie, of course it was nice to be able to go to these events that have such well-known people attending but at the end of the day you look back and realize nothing really happened, it was all just a projection. I'm sad that I wasn't able to get more of a chance to actually attend the art fairs but shit happens and we take what we can get. This year Basel gave me a great deal to think about and look back on and I only hope that next year I can get even more. These are my final photos from this past week, I hope you all enjoyed experiencing Basel through my eyes.
