By Sebastian Spreng, Visual Artist and Classical Music Writer

There comes a dire moment when you realize it was a mistake to have undertaken a journey, when you question the whys and what-fors. But once you’re at the dance, you dance. You resign yourself to a journey that for Miamians takes place at a home that has been overrun by others. That moment comes in the midst of Art Basel Miami Beach, when people speak not of art, but of how they managed to get there and how difficult it was to find a parking spot. The subject, though quite dull, is fundamental and often involves a variety of prayers and small miracles. The traffic nightmare invariably occupies the first part of every conversation, followed by complaints about prices at the main show and the satellite fairs that fill every available nook.

The Art Week, held under the wing of the omnipotent Swiss Mutti, is a carnival with inevitable ashes and diamonds, and sometimes a bittersweet taste. It brings to mind a series of sayings – “It’s good fishing in troubled waters,” “You can’t draw blood from a stone,” and “All that glitters is not gold” – that apply perfectly to the microcosm that is Art Basel Miami Beach and the satellite art fairs. It is a universe unto itself; luxury toy stores for adults in which the most coveted article is a Koons dog, colossal supermarket that talks you into believing art is the safest investment and you need to fill your shopping cart asap. At its core, it is a pyramid of castes that proves how little we have evolved as a species, a case of the human condition caught in flagrante and no less happy as a result.

And because nowadays everyone has the inalienable right to call himself an artist, even the human zoo that packs the corridors reflects back what each one believes himself to be, or aspires to be. It’s an exercise in narcissism, as fascinating as it is contagious, and difficult to get through unscathed. Any criticism is met with provincial disdain as if coming from a bitter enemy, and often hacked into pompous press releases. The publicist replaces the critic, and Instagram and Facebook rule, leaving only tracks in virtual sand.

Miami and Art Basel were made for each other. The region provides ideal conditions for the show’s invasive fauna, as residents excitedly await the arrival of the princes who will rescue them from their Cinderella condition. But after 13 consecutive seasons, each more successful than the last, the frantic activity called Baseling starts to get tiring and not just for those who want to see everything and, out of simple saturation, end up seeing nothing. Some decide to attend only Art Basel Miami Beach; others only Art Miami. To survive the exhausting maelstrom, Marina Abramovic proposes moving in such slow motion that movement becomes imperceptible. The paradox is that you need to stop, look and see. It’s wise advice, also essential when buying a work of art.

And the art? Very well, thank you. In this context, Art Basel Miami Beach remains sovereign, matriarchal, wealthy, calculating, untainted, cleansed of the staid – and stale – Mittel-Europa. The show is a gigantic, high-level block for high-level spending. The figurehead is made up of the large traditional galleries that continue to offer treasures inaccessible to those who do not travel. And that is in itself a rare privilege, even if this year you saw repeat works at the classics Landau, Acquavella, Gmurzynska, Hirsch and Adler (with magnificent mini-shows of Fairfield Porter and Charles Burchfield), Thomas, Mary Anne Martin (always displaying excellent Gunther Gerzsos), Sur, Malborough and other ever-present quality galleries. Juda essentially brought a one-man show of David Hockney I-Pad work, fresh and charming. Here and there you saw memorable pieces by Anselm Kiefer and Milton Ivory, a Robert Wilson cabinet featuring Lady Gaga in action and a penitent Baryshnikov as an arrow-riddled St. Sebastian. A new section, Survey, displayed more homogeneous visions, among which Michelle Stuart stood out. In this department, it is impossible to leave out the remarkable Robert Longo and his powerful works of stunning topicality and execution, or the Urs Fischer installation Small Rain, a shower of avocados aspiring to be lethal meteorites.

The other twenty art fairs were more uneven. Some, already known for their poor quality were not worth visiting, whereas others continue to improve. Art Miami is the principal rival to the Swiss show and in some ways the more accessible option, though the motley assortment of works and the way they were arranged conspired against the total result of the current edition. There were important pieces – for instance, two small Gerhard Richter, veritable jewels, at Terminus – and always-impeccable displays by Durban Segnini, Leon Tovar and Wetterling galleries. This year, Art Context presented an interesting, well-executed show with excellent growth potential, there Beatriz Esguerra featured the Iranian Hadi Tabatabai, a true find whose work exhibits geometric exquisiteness and unequivocal spirituality. The smaller PINTA provided a much-needed Latin American presence, displaying the important contribution of the kinetic and geometric schools. A far cry was the welcome breadth of the Miami Project. On the sands of South Beach, Untitled won hands-down over a declining Scope, Pulse erred in trading the traditional Ice Palace for an out-of-the-way beach, and as to Acqua and Nada, better luck next year.

In brief, and on both shores, Miami and Miami Beach, installations and conceptual art lost ground, the digital gained it, kitsch had their day, and geometric art, whether kinetic or pop, proved it was alive and kicking, as were graphics and photography, whose impact was notable. In the final analysis, Art Basel remains an exhausting exercise in the quest for hidden treasure – exhausting and, with some luck, successful.

Although after a dozen years the fair has not thrived locally as many expected – or dreamed – it made private collections fashionable. Along with the brand new Perez Art Museum of Miami (PAMM), which received 300,000 visitors its first year, an axis seemed to take shape that brought together projects of various sorts. The Rubell, Margulies, Cisneros Fontanals (CIFO) and De la Cruz collections are slated to join forces with newer ones, such as the upcoming Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), and the Young Arts campus updated by Frank Gehry. On the heels of the projected Gary Nader’s Latin American Art Museum (LAM), it is no longer inconceivable to envision a row of vibrant private museums along the formerly not-so-desirable Biscayne Boulevard. Likewise, the Design District may combine – in a very Miami way – museums with Fendi, Dior and Vuitton outlets, while across the Intracoastal, the Argentinian Alan Faena is close to creating its own art district.

The money czars impose their plans and set themselves up as benefactors, not without obvious benefits to a city that lacks the necessary infrastructure and doesn’t know what’s coming. Everything goes, thanks to the revitalizing shot that glamour provides. And Miami loves it, as it loves the graffiti painted in Wynwood by armies, until your eyes hurt. It doesn’t matter, soon the wrecking ball will do away with the meticulous work of those extemporaneous Michelangelos. Perhaps the area’s many vacant lots could be used to build a great exhibition center to rival Miami Beach’s outdated structure, which, incidentally, is scheduled for a face lift beginning in 2016, another nightmare to come. That’s life in the tropics.

A touch of black humor lightens up this annual diatribe of sorts, and over and above the advances and setbacks, the outcome is positive for the city, once an old lady dozing by the sea. Congratulations are due as the city takes to artistic winds and some seeds germinate. The way will be long and thorny. For fun or fashion, people go see what that vaunted art is all about, and that’s worth a lot at a time when the entire planet seems given over to banality. In any case, since “brevity is the soul of wit”, perhaps it would be advisable to make Art Basel a biennial. The city could better prepare and anticipation would win over the impeding routine. Yes, “talk is cheap,” but “if you can dream it, you can achieve it.”