The crowd at the Sagamore Hotel on Monday night seemed conspicuously overdressed. Back in October, they had all thrown their clothes off to pose for artist Spencer Tunick.

Now they were back for the unveiling of photographs by the famed New York artist -- and to pick up their reward, a signed 8-by-10 print of the event.

Volunteers sipped champagne and searched for themselves in images. Eventually the bubbly got to some, who got naked in groups or alone so that friends could take snapshots of them in front of the photos in which they appear. Not part of the plan. Hotel staff tried to hurry the flashers back into their clothes.

Performance artist Michael Red Earth showed up to the event wearing the inflatable rafts Tunick had used to pose volunteers in the Sagamore pool, guys on green rafts and girls on pink rafts. Red Earth, who is Native American, sewed himself a coat with tails out of a green raft and a cummerbund out of a pink raft. He set off the outfit with a crisp white tuxedo shirt.

''I create a lot of clothing for my own performance art, so I thought it would be ironic to pose nude for another artist,'' he said.

Tunick was tickled by the costume.

''It was such a struggle for the men to get on those green rafts,'' Tunick said. ``Maybe they were less filled than the pink rafts. Or maybe it was because the guys are bigger. It's funny to watch them make their valiant effort to climb on those things.''

You can watch them struggle on the big screen at the Sagamore's bar, where a video of Tunick's South Beach installation plays this week.

-- LYDIA MARTIN

Art Basel-related events in Miami kicked off Monday under, literally, a lot of heat.

There was so much of it at Monday's ''Poppin press preview'' of Roy Lichtenstein's fanciful sculptures at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, that the artist's widow, Dorothy Lichtenstein, couldn't pass up the opportunity to have a little fun at the weather's expense. After she was assured that a cold front would surely provide cooler weather for the rest of her week's activities at the park, Dorothy quipped: ``I love Miami's idea of a cold front! It'll get down into what? The 80s!''

Dorothy, who wore a sleeveless black sundress for the press tour, had already charmed reporters, photographers and videographers with her sense of humor and remembrances of her husband and his work. There are 10 Lichtenstein sculptures throughout the park and Dorothy visited most of them along with Jack Cowart, executive director of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation in New York City.

Cowart said the pop artist's reaction to his garden show would have probably been one of his usual one-word puns, ``Gulp!''

-- FABIOLA SANTIAGO

Socially conscious art is not new to Xavier Cortada, whose work has tackled subjects like AIDS activism.

But his engagement with eco-art, in the form of the Reclamation Project, began in 2005. In the project, Cortada has galvanized volunteers to help grow mangrove seedlings to be planted in a coastline setting. On Monday night, the most recent 1,111 seedlings -- ''take or leave a few,'' he said -- were shown at the Miami Science Museum, each floating in a plastic cup full of water attached to a 14-foot wall.

They will be planted the second week of January. ''This is better than any painting I've done,'' Cortada said of the ''re-permanent exhibit'' (the seedlings will be replaced by new ones).

``This is my Guernica!''

-- ENRIQUE

FERNANDEZ

It seems everybody is buying art this week. But for the price of one piece selling at Art Basel, you could send your kid to college or buy a townhouse in Kendall.

Feeling left out? You don't have to be. You can pick up an original work for just $75. They are small pieces (about five inches by six inches) by Cuban-American artist Julie Lopez.

She signs some of her work JLo, and she's all about making art accessible.

Graffiti and street art are primary influences, she says. She paints creatures covered in made-up hieroglyphics, invoking ancient religions and imagery. Have her work framed, or peel off the backs and stick them on things. But just don't call them stickers, because they're hand-painted originals. Much cooler than stickers.

She originally meant for her work to cover storefronts and street signs all over Wynwood during Basel.

But Wynwood's Hardcore Art Contemporary Space, 3326 North Miami Ave. (she is part of a group show there titled Objecthood), thought the works should find safer homes. Somebody would just end up scraping the work off everything before anybody got the chance to see it, a gallerist said. In fact, somebody trying to spruce up the building Hardcore Gallery is in just painted over a large drawing Lopez had made on an exterior wall.

-- LYDIA MARTIN

Laurence Gartel, considered a pioneer in the digital art movement, debuted his provocative new exhibit, Gartel: Exotic/Erotic/Electronic at a private party at the World Erotic Art Museum on Monday night. Forty-eight pieces, from early works in the late 1970s to 2007 prints that incorporate photos of decades-old nude sculptures from the museum's collection, were on display.

Gartel's Miami Beach exhibit runs through early January and can be seen with $15 admission to the museum, located at 1205 Washington Avenue in Miami Beach and open daily from 11 a.m. to midnight. No one under 18 is admitted.

--JAWEED KALEEM

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