Although Scott Lawrimore (Lawrimore Project) says art fairs are for people with attention deficit disorder, isn't the opposite true? In order to see anything amid the abundance of Art Basel/Miami, you have to be able to concentrate with a confident and unswerving commitment to focus.

Greed to see it all gets in the way. Absorbed in one place, I found myself worrying that more memorable and important art was on view someplace else, and through bad planning, misdirection and (tick-tick) time constraints, I'd miss it.

"What did you see?" became a competitive question as Seattle gathered around its Miami watering hole, otherwise known as the Aqua Art Fair.

What stuck with me from last week's biggest art event in the U.S.?

Before answering that question in posts to follow, I'd like to pause to praise Eric Doeringer.

Who? He was peddling his startling good, small format imitations of major painters (called Bootlegs) in a cart outside of scope fair.
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He does a credible Damian Hirst, Richard Prince, Agnes Martin, Elizabeth Peyton, John Currin, Peter Halley, Mel Boucher, Ellen Gallagher, Kara Walker, Barry McGee, Keith Haring and Glenn Ligon, among many others.

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Last year in Miami, I bought a silkscreened t-shirt Ligon produced as a benefit for Participant Inc., featuring his iconic kid's coloring book version of Malcolm X, which in turn is a shout-out to David Hammons' billboard of a white Jesse Jackson.

I paid more for the t-shirt ($150) than Doeringer charged for the painting of the same image. Inside scope, I saw a Jean-Michel Basquiat imitator who was trying but failing to copy and charging thousands. Give me Doeringer's straight-up fakes any day.

Besides paintings, Doeringer was also selling Basel VIP cards that entitled holders to limo service, fine wines, rarified food and an open door at the most exclusive parties. Flashing that card, if you'd blown your nose on the draperies, tasteful people would have pretended that you were well within the bounds of good manners.

If you think of Doeringer as a performance artist with props instead of a painter, he himself is showing signs of future blue chip potential, a 21st century version of the 1980s Appropriation Movement. That fake you ordered off his website today might soar in value, assuming none of the artists he rips off have lawyers.