The daily start time is noon for the main art fair at Art Basel Miami Beach that was wrapping up on Sunday, but art was available - with food and drink - at all hours. On Saturday morning, for example, Cricket and Martin Taplin welcomed an estimated 2,000 guests for an annual art brunch at their hotel, the Sagamore, on Collins Avenue. An ebullient Ms. Taplin, who has been hosting the brunch since 2001, said the art was mostly from her personal collection. “It ‘s an extension of our home,†she said.
This year the Taplins have four loaned works by Emil Lukas on display. “She's a beautiful mix of insanity and super focus,†Mr. Lukas said of his host. Across from Mr. Lukas's creations, a circular blue-and-yellow light sculpture composed of crushed headlights by Jacopo Foggini, whi ch Ms. Taplin bought on a recent trip to Italy, hangs from the ceiling.
Ms. Taplin said she had to replace a work that adorned a hotel wall for eight years, a video installation by Megan McLarney. The monitors had broken, and when Ms. Taplin asked for a replacement, she said the artist told her that she was no longer making that sort of art (also, the monitors weren't being made anymore). In its place, Ms. Taplin displayed five Helen Levitt photographs from the 1930s. She also added a video, “Lux Matter,†by Beatriz Millar, a sensual depiction of bread making. The artist Michele Oka Doner was also on hand for brunch, standing near her large 2008 work “Sargassa,†made of seaweed that she carried back in plastic baggies from the ocean in back of the hotel.
In the evening Art Basel visitors could have an even more immersive art experience a few blocks away by visiting the bar set in an outdoor egg-shaped wooden pavilion, “Güiro,†constructed by the Cuba n art collective Los Carpinteros (Marco Castillo and Dagoberto RodrÃguez).
Sponsored by Absolut Vodka, Güiro - which means gourd in English - resembled a space ship from another galaxy when it was illuminated on the beachfront at night. Mr. Rodriguez said the pavilion was constructed in Germany and shipped to Miami Beach. The collective's work was generating a lot of attention at the main fair as well. Janine Cirincione, the director of the Sean Kelly gallery, said on Sunday that every piece of its work had been sold. “Kosmaj Toy,†a playful large red sculpture of Lego bricks, sold within 10 minutes of the fair's opening, she said.
