One way to tell that the NADA art fair, now in its second year, is officially on the map: Collectors snuck in Tuesday, two days before the official opening, while galleries were still unwrapping works fresh off the trucks. One way to tell that the NADA art fair is still experiencing growing pains: At the press preview just before Thursday’s opening, many of the booths were still in darkness as electricians made last-minute adjustments. (There were audible cheers whenever a booth’s lights unexpectedly switched on.) Inability to see the art didn’t seem to slow down the buying, though: New York

Let's do the time warp—again. On Friday night, a few thousand people turned out for the opening of ICON, a new Miami condo development designed by Philippe Starck and built by developer-slash-collector Jorge Perez. Guests toured the building's lobby, lounge, pool and spa, but, alas, the apartments were not available for inspection. A real estate agent informed me—this is not a joke—that the units come in four conceptual varieties: Culture, Classic, Nature, and Minimal.

In terms of design, ICON is a pleasant pastiche of Starck’s greatest hits—all perfectly chic, but stale as

Day two of the art fair began with a phone call from Yoko Ono. “Hello,” I said tentatively, picking up the receiver. “Hello,” she replied. With the easy part behind us, we talked about the weather. “Is it warm in Miami?” she asked. “Yes,” I answered. “And sunny.” I couldn’t believe it—not that I was actually chatting with Yoko, but that the conversation was virtually indistinguishable from one I might have had with my grandmother. Perhaps this shouldn’t have surprised me, though, since she had absolutely no idea who had answered the ringing phone of her Talking Sculpture, perched on a table

“Hi there,” said John Armleder, the most glamorous-looking art-world denizen since—forever. Looking up at the sky, he didn’t appear to be greeting us—the audience standing expectantly on the grass—but either a passing airplane or (as he explained to me later) the heavens themselves. With his signature braid and dark suit, and shades with one transparent and one dark lens, he looked more like some kind of luxurious pirate than one of Christ’s disciples—but that, it seems, is what he felt like. Now that I think about it, the whole scene had clear biblical connotations. The

In a cab from the Miami airport on Wednesday, I got a call from a savvy collector who suggested in not so many words that the art fair was all but over—before it had even begun. And judging from the diffuse energy at the vernissage that night, the prognosis seemed fairly accurate. By that time, any collector worth his fleur de sel had already breezed through the fair, and not during Wednesday’s afternoon “First Choice” preview either. Clearly, “First Choice” was for latecomers only, or, as promotional materials put it, major collectors, museum directors, press, and “special” VIPs. Shopping, it

A tedious fifty-minute taxi ride from Miami Beach got us to the de la Cruz’s block just after midnight. Block, not house, because as we turned onto Bay Drive, we were greeted by a gridlock of limos, yellow taxis, Mercedes sedans (with drivers), and chartered buses that provoked even the relatively patient to hoof the home stretch. The size of the houses and the frenetic movement of valets and anxious guests recalled a late-night traffic jam in East Hampton. Artforum.com correspondent David Rimanelli was among several familiar faces exiting as we strolled up the gravel driveway—he was in a

The grand annual party thrown by queen-bee Miami collector Rosa de la Cruz and her husband, Carlos, on Tuesday marked the unofficial first night of the third Art Basel Miami Beach fair. Arriving on a late-afternoon flight, I opted for a shower and a meal of M&Ms in my hotel room, though pre-Rosa dinner options were legion. New York dealer Barbara Gladstone fêted her star artist with a family affair one collector described as a “bar mitzvah for Richard.” The occasion: the display at the Rubell Family Collection infelicitously titled “American Dream: Collecting Richard Prince for 27 Years.” But

Pavel Pepperstein's opening last night at the Centre du Diamant, a glitzy wholesale jewelry showroom in the rue de la Paix (two steps from the Opera and Place Vendôme), was quite charming: little watercolors of dollars and euro symbols exhibited on the wall and in vitrines alongside the ugliest diamonds you ever saw. The art world conduit to such an unlikely venue was the Galerie Iragui (in the Marais) which deals with Russian artists and, apparently, with French jewelers. And you could try on the jewelry—Lisa, my wife, tried a big, citrine dinner ring. The champagne glass in her other

If your evening of private views begins on the gleaming avenues of Piccadilly and officially ends with an undignified scrabble for the last lukewarm bottle of Rolling Rock from a plastic bucket, it’s likely you’ve been on an eastward trajectory. And on a night when the three most promising openings were spread across town, with the less formal East End shows tending to stay open later, there was really no other way to go. I headed first for Dryden Goodwin’s second solo at Stephen Friedman Gallery. A long-term fixture here, Goodwin exemplifies a classic predicament: potentially interesting artist

A few hours into a two-day visit to Warsaw, I took a short taxi ride to a primarily residential neighborhood just across the Wisla River from the city’s historic center but seemingly light-years from its “olde-world” charm. Thanks to an early snowstorm, an otherwise prosaic cityscape had taken on an almost festive winter ambiance. Perhaps because of this pristine dusting of white, Thomas Hirschhorn’s cardboard-and-Plexiglas sculpture was almost impossible to find. Installed on an empty patch of concrete not far from an outdoor fruit-and-vegetable stall, a newspaper stand, and a makeshift cubicle

Maybe it was the ice-cream truck dispensing free sundaes out front or the guffawing long-haired dude boinging up and down on the trampoline inside, but the opening of “Phiiliip: Divided By Lightning” at Deitch Projects’ Williamsburg outpost felt like a decidedly off-kilter fun fair. Phiiliip—né Philip Guichard—is the 24-year-old cipher whose home-recorded album Pet Cancer made all the best-of lists in 2001. He’s also a club entrepreneur, DJ, and part-time Dior model with one glittery foot plopped in Scott Hug’s K48 magazine scene. “P:DBL,” organized by John Connelly Presents and produced by

Touted as the “artists’” evening, Tuesday’s reception at the Museum of Modern Art’s revamped midtown digs also boasted scores of curators, dealers, and collectors, with gallerist Gavin Brown being the first to flip a roving Artforum paparazzo the bird. But while Creative Time curator Peter Eleey reported having overheard architect Yoshio Taniguchi’s atrium blithely condemned as “Japanese Fascist,” most attendees basked contentedly in the expanded schmoozing arena. The installation received mixed notices, with the contemporary wing in particular felt by many to be padded with mediocre work (though