Miami Sound Machine

In the Washington Post, Jessica Dawson all but savaged Jayme McLellan in the lede to her piece on why dealers from the District were participating in Art Basel Miami. It seems like Dawson chose to pick on the n00b—this year was McLellan/Civilian Art Projects's first trip to the fairs—but in fact, nothing about the hierarchy that close observers might identify among galleries in the District extends to the fairs. This year, success had to do with placement, not pecking order. Every dealer I spoke to at Aqua Wynwood was strained by the lack of traffic and sales. Dealers at the Aqua hotel fair, on the other hand, seemed to do much better business. None of this has anything to do with these galleries' relative stature. So I don't see how helpful it is to compare the interests of established galleries and those of younger galleries; once they arrive in Miami, they're almost all in the same boat.

I do believe dealers mean it when they say that they go to the fairs in hopes of gaining a wider exposure for their programs and their artists. Fairs do this. Which fairs end up doing this, though, is difficult to say; with 33 fairs over the course of 4 days, some of them just won't get any traffic.