Fair warning

You’ve got a good imagination, on a good day perhaps even a great one. You can see things beyond how they are, sometimes even past how they’re perceived, and you take pride in that fact. But no matter how imaginative you get, there’s no way on Earth you can imagine all that will take place at this year’s Art Basel. Hell, not even a team of history’s greatest visionaries would be up to that task. And between Art Basel itself, its mainland counterpart Design Miami/, and the 15 official satellite fairs that are slated to run alongside both, we wouldn’t blame those visionaries if they just sat this one out.

But you’re made of sterner stuff than those fogies, and you wouldn’t miss Art Basel for all the tea in history. Neither would we. So let’s get a few facts straight and get on with it. Anybody not up to the action can bow out now.

As you may know, Art Basel Miami Beach is second in size only to its namesake sister, which takes place in Switzerland each June and has been around 32 years longer. So big is the Beach branch in fact that they’ve had to appoint two directors to take the place of the one who led the Fair since its’02 inception. And while there’s still no word on how Annette Schönholzer and Marc Spiegler stack up against Sam Keller, it’s highly unlikely they would have been drafted were they not up to the task at hand.

And oh what a task do they have at hand. The core of the Convention Center will play host to 250+ of the world’s most renowned galleries, showing works by more than 2000 artists of both the 20th and 21st centuries. Considering these distinguished entities were culled from a list of 800 and represent lights as leading as Mary Boone, Larry Gagosian and Deitch Projects, you can be sure that what you’ll see is the very best you’ll ever get.

But, believe it or not, that’s just the beginning of Basel’s be-all. In addition to the main collections, there’s Art Kabinett (the Select Committee’s chosen 17, which’ll theme out with everyone from Jonas Lipps to Marcel Duchamp) and Art Nova (132 new and emerging artists, 12 of them solo), both at the Convention Center, as well as Art Projects (eight site-specific works, seven at Lummus Park, one on Watson Island, all reachable by shuttle) and Collins Park’s ever popular Art Positions (20 young, cool galleries, in 20 converted shipping containers, each a mighty surprise), where Art Perform also goes off at 8 p.m. each night (3 p.m. on Sunday).

Top of my must list though has gotta go to the conversation that kicks off the afternoon Art Salons. I mean the massive American Chuck Close and his Brazilian antagonist Vik Muniz, both of whom break image into particles so vast they defy gravity, and both of whom will have their chat moderated by New Museum curator Richard Flood.

Of course Basel itself is just the catalyst behind the week’s invasion, an invasion that includes the aforementioned satellites, among them Scope, NADA, Pulse, Photo Miami and GenArt Vanguard, all of which are taking over the mainland, and Beach-based hotel mini-fairs such as Bridge (Catalina), FLOW (Dorset), Pool (Cavalier) and Aqua (Aqua).

Yet there comes a time in every fairgoer’s schedule when you’ve just gotta ditch the fairs themselves, and when that happens I suggest you swing through either The Gansevoort or The Sagamore and get comfortably lost.

This year the brand-new Gansevoort is not only hosting the official post-Bass Russian Party up on Plunge (good luck getting an invite for that!), it has aligned with “Surface Magazin”e to set up The Surface Lounge, an afternoon hang which will serve treats from STK, cocktails from Stoli and feature an environment designed by the high-end Italian wunderkind Gandia Blasco.

The Sagamore, always the scene of high art even during off season (hey, there’s a reason it’s called “The Art Hotel”), this year will outdo everyone with Olaf Breuning’s 150-ton sand sculpture. Rumored to look like a Sphinx and large enough to sate even the egos of South Beach, Breuning’s behemoth will undoubtedly be the talk of Basel. And while it might not cause as many titters as last year’s naked body blowout by Spencer Tunick, I’m sure it’ll be commotion enough, even for you.

Naturally no Art Basel is complete without parties and ’08 is no exception. I won’t dare tempt you with the lowdown on places you might not be able to get into (hell, I’ve got enough problems angling invites for myself!), but I will say that there will be at least a dozen shindigs going down at any given time and if you play your cards right you’ll surely be able to wrangle entry into more than a few of ‘em. That’s, of course, on the condition that you’re in the right place at the right time, which for these four days at least means all over town!

Fair enough?