White Cube hangs up its dancing shoes

As the art world gears up for its annual relocation to Florida for Art Basel Miami Beach, news emerges that White Cube, which for the past 10 years has kicked off proceedings with a wild party, has decided not to host one this year.

Irene Del Principe, a member of the gallery’s press team, says, ‘Since opening White Cube New York last September, our programme of parties, dinners, talks and other events designed to celebrate our artists in the US has evolved significantly.’ Rakewell is curious about what exactly this evolution is. Presumably the gallery is no longer throwing the kind of bacchanal that ends up with Ruinart-fuelled dealers paddling in the Atlantic Ocean while slurring.

Somehow this seems like a sad moment. Rakewell understands that all good things must come to an end, but must it, we wonder, be like this? The whole point of Art Basel Miami was that vacation feel. Nothing bad could happen when the winter sun was shining down on you, and nothing said ‘vacation’ like the feel of sand between your toes. Plus, you could hobnob with the biggest market-makers in the world. In some ways it was confirmation that the youthful vigour that was so much a part of Miami/Basel when it first opened in 2002 still held sway. Nothing could match the fair’s third year, when the allure of Andrée Putman taking over great swathes of the city and Todd Oldham DJ’ing the night away lured Rakewell from provincial England to the Magic City.

The end of this party may not be the end of the world, but it could be a sign that something else is at work. Some unhelpful people might be muttering that the market is cooling, but surely that can’t be it? Could it be that the people who have been travelling to Miami for the past 20 years for their fix of art-world fun have found that now is the time to, well, grow up?