ScopeShowMiami
Color Over Money. Just like the lethargic bubble that swirls every color before it implodes, Scope Show 2016 has the color and pop factor of all my 90s dreams returned. Glitter, diamonds, rainbows, and celebrity beamed off this art show in brighter glamour than the mirrored neon lights on every corner. The pristine white & glass big top, beachfront on the pastels of a South Beach sunset could almost soothe if not for the Studio 54 esque ambiance wafting gently out into the humidity. The air is intoxicating, the juxtaposition of lights and color are a drug money can’t buy, or maybe it can. Contemporary art, according to SCOPE is sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll all grown up.
Punches of color and dazzling glitter seem to give an energetic sparkle to the dirtiest scenes, turning manhole covers and ashtrays brimming with cigarettes into silent discos. To the same degree that glitter generously distributes adoring attention to the scummy things, diamonds were the instigator of ridicule of contemporary American interests. A theme most notably conveyed in a gumball machine full of glass diamonds, Diamonds Are Forever, a three foot tall rose chrome bullet with its tip coated in diamond, and a bejeweled baby Buddha in a black diamond encrusted kimono covered in dollar signs.
Neon lights offered confessions such as “Own Your Lie” (Tim Tate’s “Shadow Nation”) and “Follow Me” as well as infinite gilded helicopters in Peter Gronquist’s “Helicopter”. Ironic pop art of political leaders and celebrities were fantastically bold. The collection The Pinks by Scott Schedily’s “pink Series” uses fuschia frames to portray political leaders including Adolf Hitler, Kim Jong-un, China’s previous president Mao Tse-tung, grinning and clutching various seemingly innocent objects such as an Elmo, teddy bears, and Mickey Mouse ears. Color has griped us in its saturation, reaching from our deepests lusts for fame and fortune to exposing our world’s most grave troubles. It has shined a light unignorable on the viewer, forcing us to feel something, anything, even ironic joy, towards topics we might usually like to ignore.
Unlike the serious bids being placed in the Art Basel Convention Center, SCOPE Show allows the art rather than the artist to take the light. The only Picasso at SCOPE was a colossal hyperrealistic bust of Pablo Picasso, by Jamie Salmon. The sculpture is so unsettlingly realistic, a resurrection of the man himself in a modern age still greatly affected by him. This seems to be a theme at SCOPE, the use of technology and modern mediums to resurrect humanity in the inanimate things we love. This theme is also observable in Arnix Wilnoudt‘s equally lifelike, tragic mermaid corpse, The Tragedy of Lucretia, from McLoughlin Gallery, San Francisco. As the mermaid wiggles in fragility, we are forced to confront a human representation of a conventionally sugar coated fantasy.
The contemporary art scene seems to be rooted in exposing the facade of entertainment, money, and glory, and returning us to the freedom of simply existing and observing, and using the simple yet fantastical mediums of light and color to show us how easily that freedom can be reclaimed. What felt reminiscent of the 60s love revolution, SCOPE Show destroys the association of glamour with money, reminding us that perspective is free, and glitter is cheap, and it’s important to have a ton of both.
