WALL-TO-WALL ART: More than 200 galleries will display artwork during Art Basel Miami Beach this month. In six years, the south Florida art fair of modern and contemporary works has become one of the largest in the world. [Photo: Bill Wisser]

NetJets, the vendor of shared ownership in business jets, booked 284 trips to Miami last February for the Super Bowl, the most ever for a single Florida event. That record is likely to tumble this month when NetJets flights arrive for Art Basel Miami Beach, a four-day whirlwind of fine art, swank parties and conspicuous consumption.

Now in its sixth year, Art Basel Miami Beach is one of the world’s largest art fairs of modern and contemporary art (works completed in the 20th and 21st centuries). More than 200 galleries from across the globe will set up Dec. 6-9 in the Miami Beach Convention Center peddling sculptures, paintings, photographs and the indefinable je ne sais quoi of expressionistic art. More than 40,000 paid visitors are expected; tens of thousands more will attend art-themed block parties, lectures, film screenings and any of 22 other arts fairs across town. The ultrarich will mingle at private dinners, lured here by corporate sponsors and the promise of balmy weather. Art sales will come fast and furious.

“It’s a buying frenzy,” says Lisa Austin, a Miami-based art adviser for private collectors and institutional buyers like General Dynamics and Gannett. Last year, Austin recalls arriving early with a client on the fair’s opening day to consider a 14-foot painting by Dutch artist Carla Klein priced at about $40,000. The dealer pressed for a decision within five minutes; five other interested buyers were waiting. “If you’re not prepared to buy the moment you arrive,” she says, “you’ve already missed out.”

With so many high-end collectors and institutional buyers in town, the event has morphed into a kind of international economic summit for the art world, attracting throngs of art lovers, business honchos like financier Henry R. Kravis and celebrities like Yoko Ono and baseball’s Alex Rodriguez.

Miami Beach hotel rooms are booked solid, with some penthouse suites going for $5,000 a night. Investment bank UBS, the event’s main sponsor, will host two VIP dinners on the beach for 800 clients and other handpicked guests. Similar invitation-only events are hosted by Cartier, BMW and other sponsors. And each year members of Miami-Dade’s small circle of affluent collectors open their homes for exclusive dinners celebrating visiting artists. “It’s much more than the art; it’s a cultural happening,” says Craig Robins, a Miami real estate developer and noted local collector.

As Robins tells it, that’s always been the plan. When Miami art patrons and local government officials first met with organizers of Art Basel — the annual June fair in Basel, Switzerland, now in its 39th year — they envisioned a citywide celebration of design and culture that showcased Miami as much as the art. Art Basel Miami Beach debuted in December 2002. Austin calls the moment a “perfect storm” for the art industry: Skyrocketing art prices, strong investor interest, the emergence of art fairs as the leading marketplace for modern and contemporary art, and the international media’s fascination with Miami.

Michael Spring, veteran director of the Miami-Dade Department of Cultural Affairs, credits Art Basel’s organizer (privately held MCH Swiss Exhibitions) with carefully selecting sponsors that would help surround the fair with an alluring mystique. Media attention has been a publicist’s dream, with legions of reporters from around the world descending on south Florida each December to chronicle the holiday extravagances of the art-loving monied class. Art Basel Miami Beach, as Spring puts it, is “the confluence of art, money and style.”

That amalgam, some industry leaders say, has forever changed the art market. Art collecting is now de rigueur — a fashion statement for anybody willing to write a check or eager to impress their friends. “Instead of buying a new Rolex, people will buy art,” says Alexis Hubshman, the New York-based founder and director of SCOPE Miami, an art fair that occurs during Art Basel. It recorded $14 million in art sales last year. “It’s a new way for the wealthy to invest their bucket loads of cash, and I’ll tell you they’re running out of buckets.”

Hubshman expects to see plenty of Chinese and Russians this year. Indeed, UBS will offer clients private tours of the fair in a number of languages — Chinese and Russian among them. “Fairs make it easier to collect,” adds Hubshman. “For the new buyer it’s less intimidating than going to a dealer or a gallery.”

Despite the subprime crisis, the real estate slump and jitters on Wall Street, industry insiders predict strong sales and sustained prices at this year’s fair. Austin says sale prices for modern and contemporary art remain “in the stratosphere.” At UBS, client inquiries to its art advisory service are rising, and the firm can’t keep pace with demand for tickets to its VIP events during the fair.

The success of Art Basel Miami Beach has been a boon to the region’s local arts industry, which officials say contributes nearly $1 billion to the economy each year. Once-blighted neighborhood’s such as Miami Design District, the Upper East Side and Wynwood (where SCOPE Miami sets up under a tent in a gritty park) are blossoming as cultural enclaves. Spending on art infrastructure is up: Miami now boasts a new half-billion-dollar performing arts center and major expansions to three art museums.

Miami-Dade County also spends $22 million annually supporting local arts groups — more than double what it was in 2001, before Art Basel arrived. Spring credits Art Basel Miami Beach for demonstrating to local leaders the economic benefits of a vibrant, sustainable arts community. “We can ride the wave of Art Basel only for so long,” says Spring. “The long term benefits will come from the direct investments we make to support the arts.”

Links: Art Basel Miami Beach, the annual December extravaganza celebrating modern and contemporary art, is as much tribal gathering as art fair. [Photos] For more articles this month with extra links, go to the Links page.