VOA慢速:Art Basel in Miami Beach Was the Place to Be
VOICE ONE:
I'm Bob Doughty.
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| Choe U-Ram's mechanical flower |
And I'm Pat Bodnar with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today, we travel to the warm and sunny city of Miami, Florida to visit the largest modern art show in the United States. For the past six years, art galleries, dealers, and artists from all over the world have gathered for Art Basel Miami Beach. Many other smaller art fairs also take place around the city. For five days in December, these fairs in Miami become an important center of the art industry and market.
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Art Basel Miami Beach is linked to Art Basel, a famous art show that has been taking place for over thirty-eight years in Switzerland.
The Miami version of the show was held this year in the Miami Convention Center from December fifth to the ninth. Forty-three thousand people visited the fair, which included art from two hundred galleries in thirty countries. Walking through the fair is an exciting experience in which you are completely surrounded by art. You might feel like you are in a museum, but the artwork around you is all for sale. On the walls of the many gallery exhibition spaces, you could find works by some of the most famous artists in the world such as Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol. There were also works by many important living artists such as Barbara Kruger, Anish Kapoor, and Damien Hirst.
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Modern art can take surprising forms. You are as likely to find videos, machines, or light bulbs as you are to find paintings and photographs. One unusual sculpture combined ice and sound.
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This sculpture is by American artist Kelly Nipper. Pieces of ice hanging from a metal form fell onto a surface similar to a drum instrument. The falling drops made a sound, which was then repeated much more loudly by a speaker device.
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| Xu Zhen's supermarket work of art |
You might even find a few pieces that do not at first seem like a work of art. For example, the artist Xu Zhen made an installation piece that looks like a modern food shop in China. The artist recreated boxes and bottles of common foods and drinks. He included lights and shelves for storage. There was even a woman operating the cash register where visitors could try to pay for goods. But all of the containers were empty. So the store became pointless. Xu Zhen makes an interesting statement about modern society and the culture of buying and using, or consuming, goods.
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Art that comments on the culture of consumption serves as a reminder that Art Basel is, after all, about business. Millions of dollars of art are bought and sold at this event. Many companies pay large amounts of money to help support the show and its many events and parties. For some collectors, buying art is more about making an investment than about having something nice to hang on the wall.
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