Quick background: Wynwood is a section of Miami that has recently been home to a burgeoning “art” scene, that in true Miami spirit quickly became a party scene. The “artists” and “art” patrons have their noses out of joint because no one wants to go see their “art” (random neon signs, cut out metallic spheres, cubes pasted onto canvas) without free booze and music.
From the Miami Herald article: “The Party has Overtaken the Art”
What made Pan American Art Projects Director Janda Wetherington decide to stop participating in Wynwood’s Second Saturday Art Walks was when someone spilled wine onto a $15,000 painting, then bailed before anyone noticed.
“By that point, we had already stopped offering wine or water to people who came into the gallery, and we even had someone guarding the door to make sure no one brought any food or drink inside,” Wetherington said. But even that tactic failed. “That’s when we started opening earlier in the afternoon on Second Saturdays and close by 8 p.m. at the latest.”
The monthly art walks, which are held the second Saturday of each month, draw thousands of young people and usually wind up as boisterous block parties.
Fredric Snitzer, one of the few Miami gallerists invited to exhibit at Art Basel Miami Beach, says he doesn’t even bother to open on Second Saturdays any more. He is also pessimistic about the future of Wynwood as a thriving art district, even though he was one of the area’s pioneers (his gallery opened in 2004). (Flavia here: his 2 “art” pieces are right below.)
“We don’t get the herds; we get to cultivate our audience to come to us,” she says. “But the tide has shifted dramatically. We used to serve wine, and we stopped that two years ago because kids would come in, pick up the glasses of wine and leave. One of the purposes of a gallery is to provide entertainment to people. Not everyone is a buyer. But you still want them to come to enjoy the art and learn and have their minds expanded. Just not to the point where it isn’t respected.’’
Flavia here:
So I ruined Art Walk. My friends ruined Art Walk. We only went for the wine and the parties. When you have a bunch of people showing up for a free glass of wine, the art is secondary.
But what do they expect? It is a bunch of entitled trust fund babies flailing about with paint and brushes, surprised that people only want the booze. They want “art” to be graffiti and an ironic use of toilets juxtaposed with religious imagery, then are surprised when all we’ll do is drink.
That art gets the respect it deserves.
People pay to go to the Louvre. Hell, people pay $100 for books of pictures of old Italian buildings. But people won’t go to your free show (with free parking!). It’s because your art is not art.
NOBODY actually, really, truly thinks whats going on in Wynwood is anything more than decadence. Nobody. I’d show up to a collection of “art” from kindergarten kids if they had an open bar, a DJ, and I could dress cute.
They want reverence and respect for taping a picture of a skinny model next to a Dunkin Donuts ad.
But what they really want is the affluent to show up with open wallets and drop obscene amounts of money on shit, so that the artist can hang out at LIV and afford bottle service. That’s the truth. The artist wants a Mercedes and Brickell condo but doesn’t want to work. So they throw this party to create buzz (advertising in lieu of quality) and hope that all the hip diversity (broke as a joke) will bring in the moneybags seeking “authenticity”
The Goldman banker, feeling one with the people, after a hard day of raping foreign nations, will show up with the funky people and buy his way into Hip-ness.
The whole thing is typical and about the best this culture can produce now.
They have no idea what it takes to create beauty. The sacrifice, learning, training, failure, exclusion, failure, and loneliness. The great European artists lived like monks. And these fucking degenerates think they’ll pain a toilet brown and ask 50,000$ for it.
Fuck that. Party on, Wynwood.
Are those art walks fun? I was going to go with my bf, but we wound up doing something else instead. I was expecting something different from the pictures you posted; I thought it was a classy event. But then again, tea parties are my idea of fun.
The art looks like crap though. I’m not a huge fan of art museums, I guess I’m just not THAT visual, but also, I guess most art today is crap so that’s probably it.
It was wise to choose
Something Else:
Petting often creates
Lasting Memories
They are very fun if you know people that can get you into the right parties etc…which are just mostly used to get drunk off their free booze and then go somewhere more worthwhile. Art walk is fun with family though, especially if you have younger siblings that don’t drink. It’s just something to do. The food trucks are also cool.
The Imago Of
Our Hostess’
Backside
Sneering at
art art art
Haughtily, Disdainfully
Has that certain
je ne sais quoi
LOL That’s an Asian. Can’t you tell? Think what you wish though….
dam, my bad
I shoulda seen
her slanted bunghole…
deerest poopy buns…
REvolt Against The ModernHubby
Unchain thyself from Uterine Slavery!
And Servitude for bringing slippers!
Heed my Call.
i always make it a point to vivit ther galleries on Royal in the quater.
my boy writes grafitti in Miami. i’ll be making stop down there when it warms up.
Solid post.
Thank you
Just read that your sister is going to a private school. Your family should get her the fuck out. There are no good private schools in SoFla, and I can guarantee you that most of the private school kids I knew wound up at state schools. I went to private school for a while and switched into magnet schools b/c I had the talent and brains to do something else, and wound up getting a great education at a school that was, for a while, ranked in the top 20 high schools in the nation before going to an Ivy. And while I participated in competitions in math, geography, and history, the private schools never made it past the first rounds. Seriously, she needs to get out.
I’ve tutored kids from private schools in SoFla, and they say things like,”Oh, my teacher’s covering college stuff,” and I look at it, and it’s maybe what was covered in the first two weeks of the same class at my public school. MAYBE. Usually it’s what I learned in middle school.
Seriously, the private schools in SoFla should be considered illegal. They’re a disgrace to education.
She’s not interested in Ivy, I think. Too late anyway : /
Aren’t the magnet schools too full of diversity? She’s too pretty for that sort of exposure.
“Diversity.” Everyone in my IB class was white or white Latino (like you) or white halfies (like me). There were also some Jews and Asians. Out of like 200 kids in my graduating class, a minority were black or Asian. We used to make jokes about how, if we came in contact with someone from “regular” classes (a small fraction of the school) we would start hyperventilating and have panic attacks. Pretty close to accurate. A lot of the school had the pre-conceived notions that we were arrogant and aloof, which was partially true, though I had friends in other programs, and actually some of my closest friends weren’t white in the same way Obama isn’t white. It actually opened my eyes about race and culture and gave me a broader perspective of the world and the people in it. I try not to associate unsavory behaviors with particular races because I found it has to do a lot with socioeconomic background and upbringing. And even then, I met people whose families were barely making it by, and yet they were the first to graduate hs, the first to graduate from college, and will be the first to go to law school. I was good friends with a kid whose parents were millionaires and had founded a very successful line of designer lingerie that is worn by celebrities in hollywood. When I looked at the really successful kids from my hs, out of the different programs, you find a lot of diversity. Socioeconomic diversity. Racial diversity. Gender. Etc. These are all different people who are making huge strides in the world and have already been nationally/internationally recognized for some of the things they’ve done. And a lot of them are doing very different things.
Anyway, your sister is really pretty, so I guess she could just marry a rich man and be fine. That’s really the benefit of her private school education– she could meet other rich families and you guys can set her up. College is stressful, anyway.