(WSVN) - Forget “mirror mirror on the wall.” Art Basel’s all about “mural mural on the wall,” and we want to know which is the fairest — and awesomest — of them all. Deco’s chief art critic, Chris Van Vliet, takes a close look at these works of art.
It’s that time of year again, when Miami gets artsy.
Sebastian Coolidge, artist: “So this is a festival call the Basel House Festival. They bring artists from all over the world to come paint … a lot of walls around here.”
Artist Sebastian Coolidge is used to working with big canvases like the Wynwood Walls. You can see his art, not only in Miami, but in St. Petersburg, Kansas City, New York and Los Angeles.
Chris Van Vliet: “So when you got invited to be a part of this today, did they give you some sort of guidance? ‘We need you to do this?’ ‘We want you to do that?'”
Sebastian Coolidge: “No, absolutely not.”
Chris Van Vliet. “Carte blanche?”
Sebastian Coolidge: “Yeah, whatever you want to do. I didn’t even have to send them the sketch.”
And he free-hands everything. It starts out with a simple sketch, but on the wall, it ends up being whatever he thinks will look best.
Sebastian Coolidge: “You know, [the original sketch] is really completely different from the shapes I drew on the wall. That’s because I felt like it just needed to be a little different when I got here.”
What we’re seeing here is the beginnings of a mural. It’s still three days from completion.
So I offered Sebastian a little help.
Chris Van Vliet: “Does my attire need to be paint-filled like this? That’s impressive.”
Sebastian Coolidge: “You’ve gotta work up to this point. This is the privilege here, you get paint on your clothes. Are you ready? You look pretty cleaned up.”
Chris Van Vliet: “I’m open to as little amount of paint on myself as possible.”
Sebastian Coolidge: “Well, we don’t call it paint we get on ourselves. We call it magic.”
Chris Van Vliet: “That’s the difference between the way you do it and the way I do it. You’re not scared.”
Sebastian Coolidge: “Right. You’ve got to shake that fear.”
For fear of messing things up, I opted for a new job: hand model.
Sebastian Coolidge: “It’s a real honor just to be here with so many talented people, all of us creating at the same time. It’s really a beautiful thing.”
Sebastian will continue to paint into the night over the next couple of days. You can catch him and the other artists hard at work for free. That’s right, it’s free Baselin’!
Art Basel officially kicks off on Thursday.
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