This is the first of two updates from 2021 Art Basel in Miami. The second one is going to be from the Wonder Fair at Wagmiami, but I don’t know when I will get that up. I would like to say tomorrow or Friday but I am on a big deadline, but we will get to that in a second. This post has photos from four events, the Scope Art Fair, Untitled Art Fair, The Doodles/ Heart Project NFT party, and a bunch of photos of murals taken in Wynwood. So let’s get started.

I only went to Basel for three days, but two of those days were really half days. I landed around noon on Thursday and I went up to Delray Beach Saturday evening to hang out with my Dolfans NYC partner Michelle and then go to the game with her Sunday. I flew home Monday morning… So while I was in South Florida for 5 days, I really had about 50 hours doing Basel stuff. 

I came to Miami because a few weeks ago I was awarded a grant to photograph people in the NFT space for an organization of photographers and NFT collectors called Obscura. They got 100 photographers together and set them out on a mission to photograph as many people in the NFT world as possible. Unfortunately in the month or so I had for this project I had to go out of town for my girlfriend’s birthday and out of town for Thanksgiving. When I was finally back Basel was happening and a ton of people I wanted to photograph were in Miami. I figured since I got this grant I could just use that money to fly to Florida for a few days. 

When I got to Miami I actually had no plans, that is very like me. I have had great success just showing up in Miami and hoping for the best, and so far it has worked out, and I think it worked pretty well this trip. When I landed I didn’t know where to go but I saw in a Discord that if I mentioned Quantum Art and Superchief I could get into the Scope art show for free. Quantum is a platform for NFT photography and Superchief is an art gallery (I did both Instaxxx book release parties art their spaces) and I wanted to check out their stuff so that seemed like the first place to go. I went by the Superchief/ Quantum exhibit and said hi to those guys. I actually asked the Superchief guys if they wanted to be part of the project, they said yes but I could tell they weren’t really into it so I didn’t press it. I ended up just going to check out the rest of the Scope show. I took photos of really whatever, I don’t know why I picked the art I did other than it was photogenic. I just figured you guys would want to see something. 

While I was looking at art I ran into my photographer friend Tod Seelie and while we were talking my artist friend Shark Toof showed up, and then after that Mark from The Cobrasnake showed up and it was amazing to just run into so many people I knew without even moving. Shark Toof told me he could get me into the Untitled Art Fair next door so we walked over there and I got a few more pictures of art for you. I wasn’t there long because I had to go meet up with a former journalist, turned NFT “influencer” named Andrew Wang. We were going to shoot some photos for the project but there was so much traffic and chaos that by the time I got to him it was getting dark. We drove to an event but we got stuck in traffic so bad we just had to turn around. I think we were in the car for over an hour for nothing. I went back to his place with a bunch of his friends and we all went to dinner. It was so much fun just to nerd out about NFTs with a bunch of people, but I was like 15-20 years older than everyone so that was mildly awkward. Whatever, I am that weird old dude now, that’s fine. 

After dinner we all went to a party thrown by two NFT projects, Doodles and The Heart Project. The place was really fun looking so I got my camera out and took a handful of photos but I didn’t have my flash on me and I was exhausted from traveling (I was on two hours of sleep) so I didn’t last long. I still had to go check into my hotel. I ran into Atrak and his brother Dave 1 on the way out. They were DJing but I had to miss it so I could crash. It was a fun day, but honestly sleep was the move at that point.

The next day my back was killing me because I have a herniated disc that I mention in every post, and I was tired and had work to do, so I just hung out at the hotel for a while, until I met up with an NFT influencer named Deeze to take some photos. Deeze is one of the main reasons NFT photography has really taken off and while I haven’t sold a ton of work, the whole NFT space owes him a lot. I was so glad he agreed to let me take his photo. He’s anonymous so I shot him from behind on the beach, and with is phone in front of his face and I got to pick his brain for a bit about NFTs for a bit which was really cool.

After that I went over to shoot my friend Krystall for the project. She was throwing an event and I wanted to come by before it started to shoot her with some day light. Unfortunately traffic screwed me again and we rushed to shoot before the sun went down. Hopefully that ends up working out, but I guess we will see tonight when I go pick up film. Anyway, while I was talking to Krystall about taking photos, she actually hired me to shoot her event so I did that, and I will tell you all about it in the next post. It was a really cool event…

The next day I had some tentative plans but I had to leave around 5pm and I knew I was gonna stay in the hotel until the last minute because I was up until 4am and I took a muscle relaxer for my back. Being old is so much fun. So I had this like 4 or 5 hour window to shoot some stuff. I was gonna go back to Scope but I didn’t want to risk the traffic again so I went to the arts district Wynwood to take photos of all the murals that were being painted all week. It’s funny to see middle aged midwesterners doing art tours interacting with graffiti artists who have gone to jail over their art. No one ever got back to me about the tentative plans so I finally just bounced and headed to Delray. I didn’t get a ton done on Saturday, but you do have some pictures of some very cool art to check out.

Before we go let me plug some stuff… as part of this project I shot a TON of film, I know I got a grant for it but it was only $1000 and I spent almost that much on the trip. It cost $365 to develop and scan all this film that I am about to pick up, so if you want to support my work you can sponsor a roll. What that means is that you pay $30 and you get to see the roll of film before anyone else. You get to then pick your favorite photo from the roll and I send you a print of it in the mail. The process takes a couple weeks but I can try to get it done in time for Christmas, at least if you live in the US. Click here to sponsor a roll!

Oh, I should also plug my NFTs since this is an NFT related post. Click here to buy one of my juggalo NFTs!

So yeah, that’s everything, more on the Wagmiami party soon! But until then, go look at some photos.

Click here to see a bunch of my 2021 Art Basel photos!

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