Brendan Fowler, Cancelled, Fall 2008 West Coast Tour Poster, 2009, courtesy of Rental.
The New Art Dealer’s Alliance (NADA) moves this year from the Ice Palace to the Deauville Beach Resort in Miami Beach. It’s a big move for the organization that will have it’s seventh fair in Miami this week (opening to the public on Thursday, December 3) but it seems to have come at just the right time. We spoke to Heather Hubbs, the director, about what prompted the move and what it means for NADA’s members.
WHITEWALL: How did your move this year from the Ice Palace in the Design District to the Deauville Beach Resort on Miami Beach come about?
HEATHER HUBBS: After what had happened with the market, we needed to do something to help for the coming year. A friend of mine told me about it. I was reluctant, it was a hotel, and I wasn’t sure. I went to have a look, though, and it was pretty cool. But I had such a history with the Ice Palace so I met with them and said that we had to lower the booth prices, there was no way I was going to get that many galleries to come back at that booth cost, at least not at the quality that I want. And they said no. I met with my board, some galleries, and everybody seemed into the idea so we decided to go for it. The move spun out of an urge and a need and a goal to respond to what was happening to the galleries because of the market. But then it’s become so many other things.
WW: Like what?
HH: The art fairs are so horrible for the exhibitors to participate in. This is hopefully going to be, to make their lives so much more enjoyable this year. The Deauville Beach Resort is offering a special rate for exhibitors. The location is a nice, safe neighborhood, right next to the beach with tons of shops and restaurants around. Plus, in the hotel there is this great jazz club and there is food there so it’s not totally isolated. Whereas at the Ice Palace I had to bring everything in. I rented a shell and everything else had to be brought in.
WW: So what are the ballrooms like that will now be housing the gallery booths?
HH: The Napoleon is this large rectangular room with three huge chandeliers and a small stage. Other than that it’s wide open. The other room is smaller, its 12,000 square feet and it has curved windows that face the ocean and has exposure to the pool area.
WW: That’s the ballroom that will have just solo booths. What made you decide to have a whole room full of solo shows? It seems more unique, but certainly less economically assuring.
HH: At the Ice Palace the booths were relatively all the same size and went for the same price and were in a similar position. But in the hotel, because there are two rooms, we felt like it was important to make a distinction between the two and that there needed to be a reason as to why you were in one room and not the other. Because that ballroom is smaller the booths had to be smaller and we thought that solo projects would be better in a small space.
WW: And I heard that one of your sponsors, Seven for All Mankind, is giving a “Best Booth” prize.
HH: We’ve been working with them for a long time. We convinced them to do this prize, which is a $7,000 prize – Seven for All Mankind, NADA’s seventh year, $7,000. They’ll give a prize to the best booth and we have a panel of curators that will pick it during the preview. So at 5pm on Thursday we’ll announce the winner. $7,000 is also the cost of a solo booth so for some galleries they can knock that out by winning the prize. And I’m hoping that will make people ramp it up this year.
WW: This year I’m looking forward to the Olaf Breuning designed bottle for Grolsch beer. When will those bottles be distributed
HH: Grolsch has had artists design bottles for the past two years. This year we put together a panel of people like Shamim Momin, Matthew Higgs, and a few others and put out an open call for submissions. Olaf Breuning was chosen and they will give him award and he’s passing out the bottles at 2pm on the opening day. It’s a funny drawing based on the evolution of man, the ape that turns into man. It’s based on that idea but it is a cave man picking up a bone, then a stick, then a bottle of beer. They print 1650 of them. You’re not supposed to drink them, you’re supposed to save them. But there will be other bottles you can drink…plenty of other bottles.
Vincent Olinet, Lipsticks, 2009, Courtesy Galerie Laurent Godin, Paris.
