On Art Basel Miami Beach’ website, one can read this: “From December 6 through 9, Miami Beach, Florida, will host the 11th edition of Art Basel, the most prestigious art show in the Americas. More than 260 leading galleries from North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa will take part, showcasing works by more than 2,000 artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.”It seems pretty informative. You get the idea what’s it all about. Trouble with “seeming” is that most of the time we haven’t got a clue about the thing on our plate. We do eat all that, don’t we? Art… Everything around us, is, in a way, food. Food for the mind, food for the heart. But, just like we sometimes don’t know what we’re actually eating (it bugs me more than few times a week), here, we have no idea about the things we’re being served. First of all, that word, “art”. It’s a mystery. We can probably all explain what makes a painting a painting, sculpture a sculpture etc, but we are having a hard time answering to that silly question: what is art?

Well, what is it? That word is not here to signify all the “artistic production”. It can do that. “She’s an artist.” “You know, he’s an artist”. You hear that often. It means that someone makes “works of art”. A poem, a novel, a choreography, a sonata, a painting, a vase, a building… these are not necessarily artworks. We drag that word around, “art” (like many others), so much that it lost its magic. “Artist”. “2000 artists”. “20th and 21th century”. What do centuries have with art? Doesn’t art have something to do with eternity? Isn’t it degrading to attach these calendar-based nonsense to art? Isn’t it degrading to us, to reduce ourselves to life in “21th century”?!

These are all questions that can spoil your fun at the fair. For instance, imagine entering the VIP tornado the first day and stopping after few feet and questioning about the “2000 artists” enigma. What is that? 2000 artists? How is that possible? It’s like 2000 lives. Or 2000 suns. Or 2000 daylights. Sounds like something you simply can not take seriously. One life deserves one artist. One love deserves one artist. One light deserves one artist. One! This throws a huge cloud of doubt on all those 2000 guys and dolls making “art”. It’s surely quite possible that none of them is an artist. A true artist.

And what does that mean? What are they if not (true) artists? Painters and sculptors, print-makers and film-makers? I guess so. And what if, what if, that same life, light and sun need all those 2000 artists to mirror them? And what if, what if, the thing that needs 2000 artists has nothing to do with life, light and sun, but with something completely opposite? We have millions of “artists” just because no one knows what art is. Wow! Imagine saying that line at the fair. People would think you had too many cocktails. I’d say you need few more. After which you might even wonder about the relation of art and life. Your life. Why do you need it? Does art need you? Why? What’s the relationship between you, art and life? And what about the countries and continents? They are proud when announcing “North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa”… It’s a joke. Who cares where art is coming from? Who cares about continents and countries? Maybe only those weak, nation spoiled loonies who only trust art which is made out of their own “soil”. But wait! Aren’t we all standing on one soil? On one earth? On one country? These are the questions that should annoy you while landing at the Miami airport.

Try to remember some of these questions. Also, play a game this year. You can always go back to free-fall-shopping spree next year. This time, buy only those works you fully understand. But what does that mean? To understand art. To hear what the dealer says about the work? These people don’t have a clue. To read something about it in someone’s review? Who can you trust nowadays!? You understand Warhol when you are Warhol. Which means that you need to be dead to understand Warhol. You need to be a machine. You need to BE everything he was. Which may be difficult when you lack imagination, passion and, well, courage. Because you surely need courage to turn yourself into Warhol. Or whoever else. Remember this: paintings are not here for you to look at them with a spark in your eye (or in the eyes of your party guests). Paintings are here so you can recognize your own life in them. And how does it stand with your life? You don’t know? Well, maybe you need to start buying pictures you don’t understand. This may help you on your marry way.

Be tough with dealers. Ask them that annoying question: “But why is this art?”. Ignore their childish stories about the world famous exhibitions the artist was in, about the auction records, about the influences etc… Ask them: “How will my life be affected (not my wallet, my life!) when I hang that on my wall?”. Do not let them get away with anything else. Do not let them lose their focus. Do not let yourself be spoiled and charmed by their champagne and smile. Be tough.

Maybe it is not for a humble mortal such as I to speculate on the complexities like these, but you could actually have a very nice time at the fair. Few years ago in Basel, Switzerland, I ran into Eli and Edyth Broad. Second thing I said was: „Eli, listen. That Koons Train thing is taking too long. Pour more money into that and let it happen. Fast. I can’t wait any more!“. Where else can you have such a good time!? Fortunately, I wasn’t thrown out. Or, play another game. Look around and find yourself orange colored works. From Donald Judd and Louise Bourgeois to Joe Bradley. At the end of your hunt, find out how do they differ content-wise. Or, another one: put a blind-fold over your eyes and start walking. The first artwork you run into will be the work you’ll have to live with, for the rest of your life. Imagine that. Ask yourself if that is the work you wanna live with? This will test both you, your family and that piece. I wonder how many works (from the entire fair) might do the trick? Five? One? Twelve? Never forget that this is about your life, not about your wallet. Art I mean.

In the end, you gotta admit one thing to yourself. You’re going to Miami Beach because you need something. Question is, what is it that you need? Are you bored? Do you lack excitements? Are you in search of quick profit? Social recognition. Whatever it is, we’ll call it “heartbeat”. It’s a stretch, but, allow me to demand of art to be that “treatment”, to be that “injection”, to be that “shock” which might and which must bring us back to life. Can art do that? Or are we looking at the wrong place? Obviously, there are lives and then there are lives. In the preface for his Ecce Home, Nietzsche wrote: „On this perfect day, when everything is ripening and not only the grape turns brown, the eye of the sun just fell upon my life: I looked back, I looked forward, and never saw so many and such good things at once. It was not for nothing that I buried my forty-fourth year today; I had the right to bury it; whatever was life in it has been saved, is immortal. The first book of the Revaluation of All Values, the Songs of Zarathustra, the Twilight of the Idols, my attempt to philosophize with a hammer—all presents of this year, indeed of its last quarter! How could I fail to be grateful to my whole life?—and so I tell my life to myself.“ Here, we can read that not everything in his “life” was life. Only those bits where he answered to it with all his might and glory, when he WAS in a philosophizing way, those little precious moments were LIFE. When you’re in Miami, remember this and try to experience similar fire. Be at war with yourself and art, be at war with your life and come out as a winner. Use a hammer if you will. I can’t wait to hear the noise!