In old Society with a capital S, people used to stay inside all night if they weren't invited to the party of the year. The neurosis was that, by being seen elsewhere you were acknowledgedly uninvited. It doesn't quite make sense to me, because the only people who would see you are the other uninvited and those invited would not be able to corroborate your presence at the party if you, say, needed an alibi. But, alas, it made people feel better.
There's a similar anxiety about living in New York and not going to Art Basel in Miami every winter. Art Basel is like Fashion Week, Oscar night, the New York Film Festival, and Burning Man all in one weekend. It is the mecca of the cognoscenti, the high holidays of the demimonde. So if you don't go, you may as well not even leave the house. Yes, even if you're a thousand miles north.
But here I am, if not leaving the house, talking outside of it. I didn't go to Art Basel this year. Or last. That's because Art Basel is not about art or promoting artists anymore. It's about being Kim Kardashian. It's about being up all night partying in someone's room at Soho House. It's about showing others you were there on IG. It's about anything but art, unless you consider the art of self-promotion.
