2023-06-17 10:20:38
Tdeep blue sea, not a cloud in the light blue sky. But dark smoke rises. From a wooden ship slowly approaching from the horizon. There’s a fire on deck. Orange-red flames are shooting out of the cabin, the smoke is getting heavier. At the bow stands a man, stoic, arms crossed – the artist of the video, Adel Abdessemed. Then the barge turns to port.
It is the first work of art that the first visitors to Art Basel, the holders of the so-called First Choice VIP ticket, got to see when the vernissage of the “Unlimited” exhibition (for art that is too big for the exhibition stand ) opened on Monday afternoon. Rarely have they been confronted with a work that is as aesthetically impressive as it is unmistakable at the entrance to Hall 1 of the exhibition center.
Everyone must have thought of the fate of thousands of migrants, of the shipwrecks, of the mass graves in the Mediterranean. Many still remember the “Barca Nostra”, a boat that sank in 2015 with 800 people between Libya and Lampedusa, that the Italian state had lifted and the artist Christoph Büchel embarked four years ago as a memorial at the Venice Biennale.
284 galleries exhibit at Art Basel
Art Basel isn’t exactly known as a critical art association, but Unlimited curator Giovanni Carmine has now made a clear statement. Tens of thousands will see the work of Algerian-born Frenchman Adel Abdessemed (presented by San Gimignano’s Galleria Continua) through Sunday evening. Among them were many wealthy collectors and investors, museum people, artists and dealers.
Is this motif really suitable for Insta? Adel Abdessemed’s video at the Galleria Continua Unlimited booth
What: AFP
The pictures have already gone around the world on Instagram. The image of the boat and the burning question of how long one can still fold one’s arms before the humanitarian catastrophe strikes are hard to get out of one’s mind. And that’s saying something at a fair with 284 exhibiting galleries from 36 countries, whose overabundance dulls even professional picture viewers.
Only the 70 or so large works of art at Unlimited have enough space. For example the surprising number of panoramic paintings. Thomas Scheibitz does not want to see a trend in this yet, but he is one of the artists of this format. “Storage, Tender, Paradise”, on which he painted for seven years, measures almost ten meters, a composition of recognizable and hardly decipherable signs and forms. Presented by galleries Sprüth Magers (Berlin/London/Los Angeles) and Tanya Bonakdar (New York/Los Angeles), the painting was sold to a museum in Australia for $260,000 on the first day of the fair.
Conny Maier’s diptych “The Source” (Galerie Société, Berlin) is a meter shorter, a figurative scene, one recognizes gigantic figures as if engaged in a mythological struggle. A buyer has already placed his trust in the impetuously powerful painting (around 300,000 euros). On the other hand, a twelve meter wide canvas by Günther Förg appears inflated, filled with accumulations of the typical grid lines of the artist, who died in 2013. On the other hand, the creatures by Martha Jungwirth (at Ropac, Paris/Salzburg/London), written gestural on unprimed canvas, are grandiose. Several institutions in Asia are interested in the work, a spokesman for the gallery said, but a sale will probably only take place after the fair.
Painting by Conny Maier at Art Basel Unlimited 2023
Source: Courtesy of Art Basel, Photo: Nina Monsef/Mina Monsef
It gets political again in the video booths. The Pace Gallery, which, in addition to seven locations worldwide, will open an office with a showroom in Berlin in the coming year, is showing the film “Toy Soldier” by Adam Pendleton. A stroboscopic approach to the memorial cult of Confederate generals from the American Civil War.
The very popular Diamond Stingily is being exhibited by galleries Isabella Bortolozzi (Berlin) and Cabinet (London). In “How Did We Die” the camera follows dancing black girls in a schoolyard. But the documentary scenes are projected onto the wall through a chain link fence. As a viewer you feel isolated, you become a voyeur.
Millions for blue chips
A sale of these works was not reported at the time of going to press. In the past, it was only whispered behind closed doors, but sales prices are now being trumpeted. A whopping $22.5 million was spent at Hauser & Wirth on a “Spider IV” by Louise Bourgeois that crawled over the wall. Millions for blue chips, i.e. works of art that are considered “assets”, are not uncommon.
For example, paintings by Philip Guston, George Condo or Mark Bradford also at Hauser & Wirth (including in Zurich/London/New York and from October also in Paris), a painting by Paul Klee at Di Donna (New York), glass sculptures by Roni Horn with Xavier Hufkens (Brussels). What many collectors complain about, however, is that the general price level is so high that they can hardly make discoveries in the four or lower five-digit range.
Blue chips: Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring at Galerie Van de Weghe
What: AFP
Where this is possible with a little luck is the satellite fair List, just above the Unlimited Hall: Among the 88 exhibitors from 35 countries you will find, for example, the American gallery Adams and Ollman from Portland, Oregon. It shows several works on paper by Will Rawls (from 18,000 euros). The black and white photo elements that form words are based on his work as a dancer and choreographer.
68 billion dollars were turned over on the art market in 2022. Corona is forgotten. The fair is well attended. Not overcrowded, which may be due to the fact that not quite as many First Choice tickets were issued, but also because Asian customers are obviously not as happy to travel as they could be. The gallery owners are pleased that many Americans have come to Basel, many of whom are unsure whether Art Basel in Basel could not be cannibalized with Paris+ taking place in the autumn.
But Basel remains the “heart of the company,” says the new CEO Noah Horowitz. He leads a fresh, rejuvenated team: the Paris+ par Art Basel fair, which replaced Fiac last autumn, is headed by Clément Delépine. Angelle Siyang-Le has been Director of the Hong Kong Exhibition Center since November 2022. Someone for the post in Miami Beach is currently still being sought. But with Maike Cruse, what is probably the most prestigious position on the board of four was filled just a few weeks ago. The Berliner will take over Art Basel in Basel from July 2023.
In the past few years, a number of galleries have even opened a location in the city of 200,000 on the Upper Rhine. Gagosian made the start in 2019. The latest addition is Contemporary Fine Arts from Berlin, which is showing sculptures and new paintings by Leiko Ikemura at the fair. Your branch is scheduled to open in late summer.
Most Original Stand Design: Contemporary Fine Arts featuring works by Cecily Brown and Leiko Ikemura
Source: Courtesy of Art Basel, Photo: Nina Monsef/Mina Monsef
Die Art Basel don’t want to expand any further. Four trade fairs in four seasons are challenging, says Vincenzo de Bellis, who has been the director for “Fairs and Exhibition Platforms” since August 2022, and explains his newly created sandwich position in the restructured management level. “I get an overview of what the Art Basel fairs stand for worldwide and how this can then be implemented and adapted for each one individually. The fairs have to be a little different from each other, but they have to have the same intention: to present the best quality.”
As a museum man who worked at the Museion in Bolzano and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, he sees himself as a curator and Art Basel primarily as a platform for the artists. “One of my goals is to think about future projects that we can do, whether in the cities where we operate or elsewhere,” continued de Bellis. “Right now, none of this can exist unless we have the top four shows in the world, so we really want to focus on that.”
Successes for the political artist Doris Salcedo
In the best-case scenario, the goals of artists, the market and the world of museums overlap. As in the Fondation Beyeler, the place of pilgrimage for contemporary art in the village of Riehen near Basel. There is currently a great Retrospective by Doris Salcedo shown. The Colombian reflects loss and pain, abuse of power and collective grief. She grew up with the violence that was omnipresent in Bogotá, she said in an interview with the former director of London’s Tate Gallery, Nicholas Serota.
Sewn rose petals: Doris Salcedo, “A Flor de Piel II”, 2013-2014 (detail)
Those: © Doris Salcedo Photo: Patrizia Tocci
Eight of the elaborately created works, such as “A Flor de Piel”, will be shown after a long period of research. The room-filling shroud, sewn together from countless rose petals, is reminiscent of the torture of a nurse whose death was never explained. With the installation “Plegaria Muda” (2008-2010) made of earth and tables, she conjures up a burial ground for the anonymous victims of gang crime and murder justice. Single blades of grass grow through the wooden panels, as if some hope were germinating there after all. She makes art for the poor and disadvantaged, she explained in an interview. It is “important to give something back to these communities that solve crimes”.
Doris Salcedo could be considered the artist furthest away from the market. Her often ephemeral installations in public space are not commercial, but Salcedo uses the art market for cross-financing, for example to be able to pay salaries to her employees. The fact that White Cube (London) was able to sell an object from “Tabula Rasa” to a large institution at Art Basel for 1.1 million dollars is not only a success for the gallery and its artist, but also for the fair.
Sold at Art Basel: Doris Salcedo’s “Tabula Rasa XI” from 2019-23
Quelle: © the artist. Photo © White Cube (David Westwood)
In any case, Salcedo’s work continues. She also devoted herself to the migrants who drowned in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. In the monumental, but at the same time highly sensitive floor work “Palimpsest”, their forgotten names write and overwrite each other with water letters that keep seeping away.
Salcedo only acknowledged that the deeply moved Nicholas Serota felt compelled to apologize for his country’s Prime Minister, who was campaigning with the slogan “Stop the Boats”. But the audience again had the image of a burning ship in their minds.
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