Art Basel is the catch-all term used to refer to what goes down in Miami the first weekend of December. It’s the largest art event in the country and there are many fairs, shows, projects and parties going on throughout Miami and Miami Beach. Last year, thanks to Nike, we cruised around town and slung cream at their party with No Age and Panda Bear as well as hitting up some galleries and a lot of Primary Flight, the largest, site-specific, mural project in the world.
Primary Flight was the main reason I returned this year. I’ve always been a fan of street art yet was curious why there were never events that brought artists together from around the world and gave them a centralized place to paint walls. Primary Flight started a few years ago and has been doubling in size each year with the number of artists and walls they cover throughout the Wynwood District. The total this year was well over 100. My plan of attack was to borrow an ice cream truck and drive around for a few days offering treats to all the folks painting. The idea was simple enough, trying to get a truck that worked was not.
On Thursday Morning I took a train up to Delray Beach to pick up my friend Felicia’s old truck. I had asked her a while back if she knew anyone with a truck I could use and she said she could try to get her old one fixed. I didn’t know the truck was 75 miles north of Miami but figured it would just take an hour or two to get it back south. When I popped the hood on the 1973 Chevy stepvan I was bit unsure about my ‘simple’ plan. There was no hose for the radiator fluid overflow, one of the spark plug wires was loose, and the battery (which I heard was dead) was still an old one. I completed two national tours in Bessie, our 1969 Chevy so I figured I would just fix any li’l stuff that was broken along the way.
Upon leaving Felecia’s house, things got progressively worse. First, the truck smoked really bad, a mix of oil and gas that filled the inside of the truck as smoked out anyone around. Next, the truck didn’t feel safe to drive and I was afraid to take it over 40mph. I still thought I could make it work by driving US-1 all the way south so I picked up some Curty Wurty Pops and dry ice and kept trying to chug along. I was looking for an auto parts store but wasn’t having much luck. I then remembered I was in Florida and old folks don’t really work on cars.
The gas tank was supposedly full but I wasn’t going to take any risks. I pulled over to put 15 gallons of high octane gas (just for the hell of it, maybe those extra octane numbers might help somehow) in it then tried to start it again with no luck — the battery was dead. I was able to get it near an open parking spot then called up my friend Mike (AKA Wandering Taoist) from the Appalachian Trail who lived nearby and he came out to help. We dropped in a new battery and replaced a headlight then stopped by the auto parts store to check to see if the alternator was working. Sure enough, the mechanic who said the truck was ‘OK to drive’ handed over something with a useless alternator. I stayed at Mike’s that night then after discussing alternatives with him in the morning realized there was no way I was going to be able to make it the 40+ miles south to sling. Reluctantly I drove back to Delray and forfeited the Curty Wurty pops and the $500 I had invested in the truck. After a four mile walk back to the train I got back to Miami to chill for a bit.
I had hoped to sling some on Saturday with Felecia’s other ice cream truck so I waited around all day only to find out it was raining up north and she couldn’t load up to get to Miami. At this point I had seen very little art and hadn’t given away any ice cream. All was not lost though! I’m a huge Alabama Football fan and I returned to the bar where I watched them lose to Florida last year to watch the rematch for the SEC Championship. Alabama kicked ass and after the game we hit the town to check out some gallery shows before winding down at a recreation of the legendary Max Fish bar in NYC.
Sunday was my day to finally check out some walls. I had seen a few people working on Wednesday when we rolled around but most walls were a recently-buffed grey. By Sunday almost all of the walls were completed. Logan Hicks, whose hotel room floor I was crashing on, was finishing up a stencil painting of his son and around the corner I got to check out Surge’s castle piece. Both those artists wrote “Primary Flight” on their walls because, after much success with the mural projects, the Deitch and Goldman Properties were biting their style and starting to steal artists to paint murals on property they owned. The art on their “Wynwood Walls” projects was cool but it was just another example of money winning out over art, which always sucks.
Some of my favorite pieces were El Mac and Retna’s massive wall by I-95, Revok and Reyes‘ on N. Miami, Adam 5100 on NW 2nd Ave, Dabs and Myla on the Wall of Fame, and a ton of the graffiti put up either on inside or outside of the wall of fame and in another li’l compound a block east. I got to stop by Scope a bit and really like Dave Kinsey’s painting at Joshua Liner’s space. I also met up with Laurence who was tuning people into to Babelgum and their coverage of Basel. Jeremiah rented a scooter and, as official photographer for the event, we were able to get a thorough recap of most of the pieces that went up. If you haven’t yet, you should probably just stop reading these words now and start flipping through his pics.
Thanks to everyone at Primary Flight for making it another amazing year – Books, Black, Logan, Typoe, and all the artists. Thanks to Jeremiah and Daryll for some pics. To view more photos, and to find out who the specific artists are, check out Jeremiah’s flickr gallery from Primary Flight. Hoping to make our presence their much bigger next year, an ice cream truck would make for the perfect support vehicle.
Check out some videos on Babelgum from Primary Flight
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