Can you go to a party and call it "art"?

Deborah Schoneman submits from Art Basel Miami Beach: The main art fair in Miami officially opens tomorrow, but the party monsters are already in full swing--hitting events that often have little to do with art.

Last night, the art crowd hit the opening of the New Art Dealers Alliance fair, which hosted a benefit for the New Museum of Contemporary Art just days after the public debut of its new home on the Bowery, and continued on to an after-party at the pop-up nightclub Le Baron, a Paris import that has taken over the Rock nightclub on Collins Avenue for the week.

The New York Times T Magazine Online launch party at the Raleigh drew hotelier Andre Balazs, curator Lisa Phillips, Los Angeles County Museum of Art director Michael Govan, fashion designer Matthew Williamson, and New Line Cinema founder Bob Shaye.

Cartier; the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; and Interview magazine hosted a private dinner for the artist Jorge Pardo in the Jean Nouvel-designed Cartier Dome that was attended by fashion moguls Calvin Klein and Elie Tahari. Lance Armstrong, inexplicably, was there, too.

After the Cartier party, Armstrong hopped over to the Delano for the opening of The Florida Room, a subterranean lounge-cum-modern speakeasy masterminded by Lenny Kravitz's design team, which the rocker keeps busy doing up his international spread of homes. The very social art dealer Tony Shafrazi, music executive Guy Oseary and Kravitz also showed up at the lounge, which was outfitted with lavish Swarovski crystal chandeliers, smoked bronze mirrored ceilings, and a Lucite grand piano.