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"FacebookPinterest\n\n You may know me as GQ's Style Guy, but I think I'm also becoming the Billy Crystal of the art world. Last year I helped out at the debut of Rob Pruitt's Art Awards at the Guggenheim Museum, acting as the faceless \"voice of God.\" For the 2010 edition in December I was promoted to emcee. It was great fun introducing all the glamorous presenters, including Michael Stipe and James Franco, and getting a lot of laughs from very serious people.\n\nThat's Rob and me in a promotional photo. One of the best parts was making an entrance in homage to Marina Abramovic's show at the Museum of Modern Art, squeezing through the curtain between a naked man and a naked woman. I was wearing my tux, my Barker Black evening pumps and purple rubber gloves just like the TSA inspectors at the airport. Looking at the nude couple I said, \"Haven't I seen you at the airport?\" I was tan, just back from Miami's art fairs, and I didn't even have to get the full body scan. I was almost disappointed.\n\nThe Art Basel Miami Beach fair has created a sort of seasonal migration. Everyone we know in New York City packs up and heads south to Miami Beach for a week of art business, partying and poolside recovery. When I say everyone, I mean it. It's no longer just the dealers, curators and collectors, now even artists show up to party. And people who like to party. A whole class of people, including a considerable contingent from the fashion world, just wants to be where the action is. And even in times of financial stress, the art world seems to maintain a high level of action.\n\nThe fair has been going nine years now and it's not just Art Basel anymore. There are lots of fairs trying to cash in on the presence of so many collectors. The sideshows have gotten bigger than the main event. There's SCOPE, Aqua, Pulse, Art Asia, Art Miami, Fountain Miami, Ink Miami, NADA, Photo Miami, Pool Art Fair, Red Dot Miami, Verge and Zones Art Fair. And then there's Design Miami, an interior design show that has become important, even if it's small compared to the art events. I used to try to see it all. But now I don't even remember why. This year I decided my main objective in going to Miami Beach in fair week was to get a tan. That put the art in perspective.\n\nThe whole Miami in December thing is definitely, officially too much. I often like \"too much,\" but when it comes to art less is definitely more. If you go to every single fair you're bound to come away thinking less of art in general, because art, when it's not good, tends to be awful. And make no mistake: Most of the art shown in total, like most art, is awful.\n\nMy past experiences led me to take a new approach this year. Less is more. I decided to go for quality, not quantity, and I decided to attend only Art Basel Miami Beach, the Miami Design Fair and NADA, the fair of the New Art Dealers Association where I have discovered new artists every year and have generally bought something. (Works there tend to fall within my price range, unlike at the big fair where everything I like seems to be $1.4 million. ) I also decided to take the family and only go to the parties that I really wanted to go to or that were at my hotel, so if they were bad I could just go to bed. Staying at Andre Balazs's The Standard was good. Nice spa and most of the parties were good enough to stay up late.\n\n The party scene during the week of Art Basel is ultra-crazy. People double book dinners, eat an appetizer at one, and move on for entr\u00E9es and dessert at another. It seems like everybody is afraid of missing out, so there's a frenzied rush from one scene to another. By midnight each night there's a conga line staggering from lobby to lobby in search of free booze, what's next, or besieging venues like Mr. Andre of Paris's LeBaron.\n\nFacebookPinterestundefined"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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