2016 Most Celeb-Heavy Art Basel Yet with Madonna, Leo & Sean

Some people fretted that perceived specter of Zika might keep the crowds away from Miami at Basel—some people were wrong. About 77,000 people attend the fair, about the same as last year. One big difference? More of those people were famous. Like, really famous. Not insta-famous or D-list famous, but actually, seriously famous. Big names like Madonna, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sean Penn, Martha Stewart, Dave Chapelle, Adrien Brody, Chris Rock, Courtney Love were on the scene this year. There were also some usual suspects that either live or practically live in Miami like Paris Hilton, Karolina Kurkova, P.Diddy.

Much of the star power came from Madonna, who performed at the brand new Faena Forum for an VVIP audience that purchased tickets to raise over $7.5 million in funds for for Raising Malawi. Sean Penn, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, P. Diddy, Rosario Dawson, Leonardo DiCaprio and more attended the intimate performance, which did indeed include the promised “mischief.”

It wasn’t surprising that Courtney Love checked out CHARLIEWOOD, the “transgressive” show by Charlie le Mindu that showed at the Faena Theater. We won’t go into details here, but let’s just say even explaining what went on would not be nsfw. The audience, however, was more than printable with Christina Getty, Tara Soloman, Michelle Lesham, Brian Antoni and the Faenas themselves.

Both Katie Holmes and Sarah Jessica Parker came out opening night for L’Eden by Perrier-Jouet. An experiential pop-up evoking the Champagne vineyards of France at Faena. Other guests included emerging actress Sasha Lane, model Shanina Shaik, DJ Ruckus, Petra Nemcova,