Miami Herald - December 4, 2004
Jane Wooldridge and Anne Tschida, jwooldridge@herald.com

Can Miami throw a street party? It certainly can. From super-sized installation art to street performers, an area of downtown Miami was transformed into a festival Friday night.

A few square blocks west of the under-construction Performing Arts Center, huge pieces of art, three bands, free drinks and hundreds of partygoers filled the streets and adjoining warehouses. Giant human silhouettes emanated from a warehouse next to an enormous video installation complete with a live DJ. Finnish artist Kaarina Kaikkonen, just back from the Havana Biennial, had filled a huge room with men's jackets of many colors.

Said Noah Lang, visiting from California: "This never happens in San Francisco. I've never seen this amount of local art and local people turn out like this. I love it."

Out on the streets, local students were not talking. Their silence was part of a performance piece. But inside, Cuban artist Tania Bruguera's piece had much to say. When visitors spoke into her microphone, they didn't hear their own words but instead a stream of classic Cuban socialist propaganda. The exhibit marked the first time the Cuban artist had exhibited in Miami.

Miami artist Carlos Betancourt's sand sculptures, looking like something a child might have created with a pail, were silent. They filled a huge room, where they will stay until Jan. 14, when they will be ceremoniously destroyed.

Other kinds of parties were under way up and down Miami Beach.

At the Wolfsonian Museum, Leonard Lauder, of the cosmetics giant, architect Richard Meier and namesake collector Micky Wolfson were among the guests. "I've been to the Wolfsonian many times," Lauder said. "It's absolutely unique in the world."

About 450 guests sipped champagne as they perused the museum's collection of decorative and propaganda arts. The big draw of the night was artist Richard Tuttle's installation, Beauty in Advertising, which starts on the museum's fifth floor and extends outside the building. It was lit by spotlights mirroring the white, gold and mint-colored globes strung across the street in the yard of the Best Western -- where fashion designer Todd Oldham played DJ later in the evening -- all part of a design by accessories maven Kate Spade.

Husband Andy Spade represented the family: Kate, 7 months pregnant, is in New York awaiting the birth of their first child. Spade said they didn't know the gender. "We just know it's going to be a Democrat," he said.

Up the beach, at collector Craig Robins' development Aqua, MoMA's man of the moment, architecture curator Terry Riley, hosted cocktails for a cause: Aid for AIDS. The New York-based charity is the country's largest recycler of HIV medications, sending them to 26 countries, most in Latin America and the Caribbean. This evening, the crowd of 200 had the opportunity to purchase donated works by artists Anthony Aziz and Sammy Cucher, Teresita Fernandez and Guillermo Kuitca, with all proceeds going to the charity.

On hand were Patty and Gustavo Cisneros, whose daughter Adriana is a longtime supporter; Aid for AIDS founder Jesus Aquais; and New York collector Dr. James Cottrell, whose contemporary collection was recently at the Orlando Museum of Art.

At the Art Loves Architecture party, revelers were greeted with oversized chandeliers, floaty white curtains and quirky touches like gnome stools -- mirrored by live elves. No, it wasn't The Delano, but design icon Phillipe Starck's latest Miami statement: the Icon condo on South Beach. Developer Jorge Perez hosted hundreds of VIPs at the building's opening, with a white-on-white Zen theme at the pool deck and plenty of Asian hors d'oeuvres by caterer Jorge Mena. Among the crowd: Miami-born artist Michele Oka Doner, interior designer Tui Pranich, photographer Iran Issa Khan and Miami Beach commissioner Simon Cruz.

Starck made an appearance onstage wearing jeans and a Blues Brothers black hat. At the Delano, fashion and photography mingled for an Art Basel moment as photographer Patrick McMullan autographed editions of his coffee table book, In-Tents, at a poolside party hosted by Ocean Drive magazine.

McMullan's book is a documentation of the past decade inside the backstage tents at New York's Fashion Week. The photos capture fashion industry insiders in unscripted moments.

As fans came to the table for the book signing, McMullan snapped their photos. He said he will donate 10 percent of the book's proceeds to the National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance.

"I am a cancer survivor," he said. "So I wanted to give something back."

Herald staff writer Daniel Chang contributed to this report.

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