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Where a $12 Bag of Peanuts Can Fetch a Fortune, The New York Sun, December 5, 2005

Where a $12 Bag of Peanuts Can Fetch a Fortune
Art Basel in Miami Beach
By CARLY BERWICK
…"I want to talk about art, and you can't do that at art fairs. I hate them," said Zach Feuer, a New York gallerist who helped found one.In 2003,the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA), of which Mr. Feuer is a member, started its own Miami fair. This year it had 400 applicants for 83 slots.
It's a love-hate thing. Mr. Feuer knows the fair is good to him. "I love NADA," he said. "I wouldn't be happy at any other fair." And yet: "People get in a frenzy. It's great to be on the receiving end, but it's not always good for the art. People have called after fairs to say, 'What did I buy? I have this invoice.' "
Mr. Feuer's downtown attitude is typical of the NADA dealers. Candid, casual, deadpan, he is literally married to art: His wife, Alison Fox, recently had one of her paintings installed in the home of Rosa de la Cruz, a Miami collector. A close-up of the bearded, 27-year-old dealer graces a two-page spread in this month's Art and Auction "power issue" (he represents "rising power").The spread was featured in his booth, crumpled and tacked to the wall. Scrawled above Mr. Feuer's face are the words: "An art dealer of my stature should stay at the Ritz."
"I checked into one hotel - the Shelborne - and it was disgusting," Mr. Feuer said. "So I checked out and went to the Ritz."
Gallery artist Justin Lieberman, who had an opening of new work at Miami gallery Locust Projects on Saturday, was inspired to create the Art and Auction-intervention piece on the spot. The work's price was a night at the Ritz-Carlton for the artist. A California collector put down $459 plus tax, and Friday night, Mr. Lieberman was in.
The collector did not warn about mini-bar charges, however, and Mr. Lieberman found them exceedingly high. So he created a second piece, which incorporated a $12 bag of peanuts. Someone else bought it, so on Saturday evening, Mr. Lieberman was back at the Ritz. Two editions of a photograph by Mr. Lieberman, "A Little Man," a three-quarters life-size cowering nude in T-shirt and socks, also sold for $6,000 each.

Another gallery artist, the Berlin based Swede Nathalie Djurberg, also sold well in Miami. On Thursday, the fair's official opening day, the New York Times critic Roberta Smith peered intently at a monitor showing works by Ms. Djurberg as collectors Don and Mera Rubell looked over her shoulder. The Rubells bought five of her stop-animation videos - which show plasticine figures variously engaged in an orgy and in a French Neoclassical comedy - for $5,000 each. Four videos by Ms. Djurberg at Mr. Feuer's booth each came in an edition of four, and only two of 16 were left on Saturday. "She's been the hit for us," Mr. Feuer said. "It's been nice to launch an artist."
The Rubells had also passed through on the fair's opening night, Mr. Feuer said, along with other seasoned collectors such as Dean Valentine, Charles Saatchi, Dennis and Debra Scholl, and Susan and Michael Hort. The more experienced collectors tend to buy first, fast, and expensively - at the $15,000-and-up level, Mr. Feuer said. By Friday, newer collectors took their time worrying over works in the $2,000 range. By the weekend, some visitors, perhaps unfamiliar with the subtleties of contemporary practice, were angry at the art. "The Haim Steinbachs have been pissing people off," Mr. Feuer said.