ART BASEL 2007

This show is not for the faint of heart. It truly is a challenge to the mind. I wonder at the definition of the art I saw as Contemporary Art. I think Contemporary means current or of the time you’re living. If this is so, I live in a world without limits, without restrictions, without context. And I guess I do...but wow is it a shock when you face the raw intellectual truth all at once.

The Convention Center's main hall housed hundreds of art exhibits, each in a world of its own. The art is intended to blow your mind...and it works. From the moment you walk in the door you are rendered speechless. This comes from the incredible challenge your mind has in making sense of what your eyes perceive. A sense that I am still seeking. Having spent 20 years as a Giclee printer, I’ve reproduced over 83,000 separate images. Some haven’t inspired me, most I enjoyed, and of course a few I fell in love with. The point is, all the art that I’m used to seeing is art that is intended to be inspirational or comforting or in some way pleasing. The art exhibited at Basel did not strive for any of these familiar artistic effects. Instead it challenged the identity of art. I mean I’m only calling it art because they did; not because I recognized it as art.

The first booth encountered was a dark room that you looked into. At the end of the room was a blurry picture. You could hardly tell that it was a pond surrounded by trees. Slowly, very slowly, agonizingly slowly, the image came into focus. As I watched, second after second, and minute after minute, the image became clearer. As each minute passed, I expected some profound event. I expected to see some image that was worth waiting for. After nine minutes of constantly watching the same image slowly come into focus, I because desperate to believe that I hadn’t wasted nine minutes. At the end of ten minutes exactly, the quite ordinary picture of a pond in a forest was clearly visible. That’s all. That’s it. I presume the point had to do with the art causing me to have an emotion. I did have an emotion. It was a feeling of disappointment and foolishness. I walked away having been affected by the art.

What do you do with a picture in a dark room that takes ten minutes to come into focus? Ultimately it's a picture of a circular pond surrounded by trees.....and what??? I don't know. There is no picture to offer you as cameras are forbidden.

Or what do you make of hundreds of cigarettes glued to a white wall; filter first, in an abstract pattern? The pattern resembled trees, but I'm sure they weren't trees at all. I'm left bothered and bewildered.

Photography was discouraged, so I apologize for the few bad photos that I was able to secure. It seemed absurd to me that they were wasting my time, insulting me, and I wasn’t able to even take a photo.

Notice the shot of the crab-like mechanism which slowly scraped and crawled across a concrete floor. It doesn’t seem that this is a good example of hydraulics or metal work or programming. It’s just a group of plow shovels welded together, with six hydraulic legs that respond to a primitive computer program, making it ever so smoothly; grind its way back and forth. It anyone sees value in this, please e-mail me. It’ll make me feel better.

My favorite was a chandelier mobile made of ice cubes. These ice cubes melted and the drops fell to a think plastic stretched surface. When the droplets inevitably fell, they made a noise. The sound of dropping water on a drum. A microphone picked up and amplified the droplet sound. Presumably, the art event was over when all the ice melted. This art experience was offered in a limited edition of three.

It's all good, but you really have to be eclectic to want or even observe this art. It's a testimony as to the wealth and freedom the world possesses today that we, as a society, can afford the experimentation and unique expressions that a few can demonstrate thoughts which have value in themselves without any rhyme or reason. It's cool that these things can be done, but truly overwhelming when viewed en masse at Art Basel.