Special correspondent Alexis Brantley reports from Switzerland…
The contemporary art market continues to exhibit buoyancy as the week of art events in Basel, Switzerland closes this afternoon (Sunday, June 18, 2006). Thousands of art collectors, artists, dealers, curators, critics and enthusiasts descended on the small Swiss town (many in their private jets), all of them looking for the latest objects of desire to admire or to add to their collections.
ArtBasel, once again, proved its position as the most important of modern and contemporary fairs in the world. The art on offer by the galleries, the calibre of collectors and the management of the fair contribute to the formula of success. More than 300 galleries and nearly 2,000 artists span two floors of the convention center. The ground floor of the fair showcases the crème de la crème of galleries in the world: Aquavella, Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Krugier, L&M and Marlborough, to name a few. The booths were aplenty with Dubuffet, Francis, Miro, Picasso and Tanguy. The museum-quality of the installations and art is truly impressive, especially considering the logistics and expense incurred for a week-long fair. Reassuringly, several ground-floor galleries sold over $5 million worth of art after the Vernissage (preview day) on Tuesday. The second floor of the fair was less predictable, with more emerging and mid-career/mid-established artists. The galleries on this floor looked more like galleries and less like rooms from a well-endowed contemporary museum.
Adjacent to the convention center is ArtUnlimited, an arena that displays large installations from ArtBasel galleries, too large for their booths in the fair. The most impressive work is by Julius Popp (b. 1973), an artist working in Leipzig. He created a “sculptural information curtain” of text formed by drops of water that fall from ceiling to floor. As the viewer stands before the “curtain” the drops form one temporary word, which is discerned by the viewer before it falls into the floor. The “buzzwords” are pulled from internet news websites by a computer program. The work is being sold through Galerie Jocelyn Wolff (France) and Galerie nachst St. Stephan (Germany).
This year, three smaller fairs join the stage with ArtBasel: Volta, Liste and Balenatina. Volta is a satellite fair which gives young artists, under 40, an opportunity to show their work. Liste showcases over 40 small galleries from over 15 countries, while Balenatina is committed to exclusively showing Latin American artists. These fairs are rather insubstantial in comparison to the breadth and scope of ArtBasel, but offer collectors with smaller check books an opportunity to buy at lower price points.
For further information:
ART/BASEL
Galerie Jocelyn Wolff
Schwarzwaelder
liste
VOLTAshow02
Balelatina
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