The 2016 edition of Art Basel Miami Beach, often a testing ground for the next art and design trends in popular culture, braces for the new normal The other week, on a small but well-appointed speedboat in the middle of Biscayne Bay, a detachment of Miami real-estate types and a lone journalist were escorted after dark to see an installation by the artist Yvette Mattern.
Best viewed from the water, Mattern?s piece appeared first as a single intense beam of light emanating from the landward side; as the craft chugged on, the shaft seemed to separate into discrete bands, an array of seven familiar shades that raked across the night sky from horizon to horizon.
?Roy G. Biv,? said one onlooker, recalling the old science-class acronym.
Bobbing in place for several minutes, the group snapped the obligatory photos and marveled at the colorful spectacle overhead. Conversation had heretofore been kept to a minimum, save for the stray remark about how much money this or that waterfront estate had sold for. (Both artwork and excursion were sponsored by Lionheart Capital as a promotion for its upcoming Ritz Carlton residences, designed by Piero Lissoni.) Now, however, the shipmates were feeling their champagne and getting chummy. One of them, hearing that the journalist was from New York, reached out with a thick filet of a hand. ?I?m going to be in Manhattan next week,? he said. ?Is it worth it to go to Gene and George?s"?
The writer was flummoxed. He imagined some kind ...