MIAMI BEACH, Florida — It is the International art show that questioned the sanity of the art buyers: Art Basel Miami. It’s here where, in 2019, the art installation “Comedian” by Maurizio Cattelan gained worldwide notoriety. The “artwork” in question, was a banana duct taped to a wall. Brilliant? Only if you consider that the piece was sold three times at prices ranging from $120,000 to $150,000. But that was before New York City-based performance artist David Datuna pulled the banana off the wall and ate it.
“I really love this installation,” Datuna said at the time. “It’s very delicious.”
The incredulously snickers didn’t seem to damage the show much — the lack of a show in 2020 surely helped erase people’s memory of the incident. But the modern art show returned last week, attracting more than merely 81,000 brain-dead art buyers and the artists willing to hustle them to the Miami Convention Center.
It also attracted the world’s automakers, even as the abandon traditional auto shows indroves.
Lamborghini, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Lucid, Lincoln and BMW were all to be found prowling around South Beach during the first week in December.
If there ever was a week for Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann to converge a dealer meeting and speak with journalists, it was this one. “We are exhibiting two cars,” Winkelmann said. “And I think that this is a good match; our type of cars with the with Art Basel Miami.”
You might think that’s because Lamborghini considers their cars art. Certainly teenage boys in the 1970s thought so; they taped Lamborghini Countach posters to their bedroom walls. But that’s not the case. “I would not call our cars art,” Winkelmann countered. “They are design icons, for sure, and what we see is that a lot of our customers enjoy the Art Basel Miami exhibitions.”
But Winkelmann does see his cars as somewhat akin to the art being sold alongside it.
“If you buy a Lamborghini, you also buy something which is a collectible. You buy something because it's an investment, not only because of passion and performance and design.”
Perhaps.
But it’s the show’s high-end demographics that play a part in automakers participation.
This explains why BMW revealed the Concept XM, the brand’s first “electrified” M model. This plug-in hybrid V-8 driveline delivers 750 horsepower and 737 pound-feet of instant torque while providing at least 30 miles of all-electric range. The car isn’t a full battery electric vehicle, but given its performance mission — BMW’s M models are meant for track work as well as for daily drudgery — it has to use a hybrid driveline. A pure electric vehicle’s batteries don’t have the juice to do more than a few laps around a track, according to Frank van Meel, the CEO of BMW M GmbH. While a high-performance M-badged all-electric SUV might eventually arrive, it's something the company is still trying to figure out.
But BMW wasn’t alone. Mercedes-Benz showcased Project Maybach, a battery-electric Maybach concept at Miami’s avant-garde Rubell Museum. And Lexus once again exhibited at Design Miami, Art Basel’s sister show, and its home for the past couple years. While Lexus didn’t hold special events as it had in year’s past, its exhibit contained an LF-Z Electrified Concept car sculpted in steel and illuminated with embedded LED lighting. The installation was carried out by Germane Barnes, assistant professor at the University of Miami School of Architecture. “Lexus embodies elements that are essential markers of high-quality design for today,” Barnes said.
Meanwhile, other automakers were on hand quietly scoping out the show, deciding whether its quirky approach to contemporary art fits with their brand’s product image. Even Lincoln was there, with its design director, Kemal Curic, in town to chat about design at a special panel discussion. But Cadillac was MIA, aside from the host of privately owned Escalades.
As automaker abandon spending money on auto shows, you have to wonder why they would find a show where artists pawn off a cheap piece of fruit as art for six figures more appealing. The answer may surprise you.
“OEMs are desperate to look for the next viral event to attend,” said Sam Fiorani, vice president for global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions. “They're looking for another outlet for their product to get in front of new buyers, and potentially buyers who could make the product go viral.”
Car shows don’t have the impact that an event like Art Basel can bring.
“Everybody there is looking for a car. If you go to some event where you're not looking for a car, you make bigger news than somebody just attending a car show.”
In the past few years, automakers have increasingly turned to lifestyle events, even if they’re old car shows, to stand apart and capture consumers’ attention. It’s about catching your audience off guard; it’s also about cost. Participating in these events costs significantly less than the millions of dollars it requires to participate in a major auto show in New York, Detroit or Los Angeles.
But Art Basel holds an advantage over other events, such as the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in January. That show provides automakers with a far different stage, one where automakers show off their technology. “At a car show, you're just another legacy car company,” Fiorani said. “If you show up at CES, you become a tech company.”
So even if the thought of shelling out six figures for a piece of tropical fruit seems absurd, the Miami event is part of a growing niche for the world’s automotive marketers.
“Art Basel is actually a different tack from being at a car show or even being at CES," Fiorani said. "It's about being the next viral thing.”
For automakers, the buzz created by Art Basel Miami is everything.
But next year, be sure to bring a banana.
