We thought it apt that there were two planes with banners flying up and down the beach here in Miami yesterday afternoon. One said ART IN MOTION. And the other said 2NITE PARIS HILTON AT MANSION. From what we can tell after one night at Art Basel, that sums it up. It’s kinda hard to enjoy the art when the clubbing clothes, scenesters scrambling for plus ones, and people saying things like “Well, if you had a Lexus, you’d understand” keep getting in the way.

Case in point: We were excited to peruse P.S.1‘s skate park-cum-shipping yard with graphics by Ryan McGinness, but let’s just say it’s not so fun to be trapped in a shipping container with a dozen Paris wannabes sipping champagne and tottering on stilettos, no matter how great the art.

100 yards and a world away, Iggy Pop played a set on the beach with the Stooges, where he even let the crowd climb up to sing “No Fun” with him. The only problem with getting a few dozen art world kids to take off their shirts and mosh in front of an audience is getting them off the stage, as the footage will attest. Our video doesn’t capture the best part of the concert, when Iggy thanked the crowds for joining him onstage: “It gets so lonely up here at these…art shows.”

We thought for sure we’d see Iggy over at Lynn Goldsmith‘s party in the Shore Club’s well-named Red Room, especially since he wrote the forward for her new photo book Rock and Roll. Alas, he was represented only by the DJ spinning “Lust for Life,” and in spirit by Steven Heller and Lita Talarico who entertained us with their own raucous rock’n'roll tales. By the way, don’t believe a word that Heller says—he swears he never goes to parties, and we saw him at two.

Our sometime-Midwest stringer Emily Burton alerts us to “Graphic Content: Contemporary and Modern/Art and Design,” a huge show currently being mounted by the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati. Rotating galleries will devote serious space to Ohio-based midcentury designers and painters, contrasting them with works and installations by contemporary artists. The current show is apparently a winner: Charley Harper and Malcolm Grear vs. Ryan McGinness. Since you’ll remember Harper (above) for his collaboration with Todd Oldham (scroll down) for the textile patterns in Oldham’s signature La-Z Boy line, you’ll see it’s fitting, then, that Oldham designed the exhibition. The current combo’s up through February 26, 2007.