The Bakehouse Art Complex will join the many art fairs surrounding Art Basel with Bāc: 23, which celebrates the Bakehouse’s 23 years in Wynwood. With 70 artist studios located within a 33,000-square-foot space, the center already resembles a fair, but now they’ll also be hosting two exhibitions and serving up coffee and baked goods each morning for four days starting on Dec. 3.
Sensory Overload, one of those exhibitions, resulted from associate director of exhibitions Lauren Wagner’s Basel panic. A show the gallery had planned to run during Basel backed out, prompting her to panic, and then create a Bakehouse show in which Basel-stressed artists could “exploit this overwhelming feeling that is Art Basel.” “The way I see it the city changes completely when Art Basel comes to town,” Wagner says. “The lights of the city change, the smells of the city, the taste of the city, the look, everything – it’s like a completely unknown world.”
Sensory Overload, the show that explores that feeling, will be on display at Bāc: 23, the Bakehouse’s four-day art fair. For the show, Tony Chirinos created a photographic series titled The Beauty of the Uncommon Tool, that offers a twist on Walker Evans’ Beauties of the Common Tool, a series of photos of basic tools such as pliers and a wrench. Chirinos photographed mortician’s tools.
“So there’s a thing that cuts through the skull and pieces of metal that are used for these really horrific things” Wagner describes. “He took those and put them against really colorful backdrops so each tool is a separate piece and would be in front of a red, or yellow or orange and the colors are almost like candy .. .so appealing it almost makes you salivate, but they’re these horrible little instruments.”
In a similar vein, she says, multimedia artist Patricia Gutierrez’s installation includes a “medical-looking silver shelf” that holds Petri dishes containing rock candy. “She’s putting rock candy in there,” Wagner says, “so it’s one of those things where you look at it and go, ‘Well, it looks tasty but why is it in a Petri dish?’”
“The idea of the show is to attack the senses but confuse the viewer,” Wagner says. In its Swenson Gallery, Bakehouse will also present 5 x 7, a show of small, $100 works. When someone purchases one, a photo taken of the buyer and the art will replace the work and become part of the exhibition.
Wagner says they’ve been planning these events to capture some of the attention lavished upon Miami each December. “We’ve been here for 23 years at Bakehouse,” she says, “and when Art Basel comes into town, we’re often overlooked and it’s kind of upsetting.”
The Bakehouse is even serving a daily breakfast of coffee and baked goods from artists during Basel. Ross Ford, who’s made a name for himself painting the faces he’s been obsessively drawing since high school, is baking a nutmeg raisin “war cake.” “It’s my great aunt Katie’s recipe,” he says. “It’s called that because sugar was rationed during the war and it uses raisins for the sweetness. I think I am going to make buttermilk biscuits. too.”
“We don’t expect to be bombarded all day every day but we thought if we offer a place for people to come and have some coffee,” Wagner says, “see some local art and talk directly with the artists, it might be a good jump start for their day.”
Bāc: 23 opens with a reception from 7-11 p.m. tonight and will continue 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Dec. 3-6 at Bakehouse Art Complex, 561 N.W. 32nd St., in Miami. Call 305-576-2828 or visit Bacfl.org.
For more details on upcoming Basel-related events, pick up City Link Metromix on Wednesday.
