Art Basel Diary: It's a Brand New World

MESSAGE 'N' A BOTTLE Branded Art/Basel party (Photo: Getty Images)

Art scene veteran, author, and regular Radar contributor Anthony Haden-Guest files dispatches from deep inside the annual Art Basel romp in South Beach. In the first installment, Guest takes the racing pulse of power players behind the brouhaha ...

Art Basel Miami Beach can be an overwhelming experience, a rolling week-long tsunami of openings and events, of unexpected faces in unfamiliar places.

Such as ...

"Hey! I think that's the guy from Outkast!"

It wasn't.

"That can't be Shaggy?" But, yes, it was New York's most infamous gatecrasher, and perched at a computer in the media center, no less.

But even at Miami-Basel you can find peace. And I like to think of the Art Collectors' Lounge as the fair's Heart of Lightness.