2023-06-16 20:40:39
As a foretaste of its Parisian edition in the fall, the Miami-Basel fair proves its vitality with a restricted selection of exhibitors.
For all the marathon runners of this grueling week of Art Basel, in a dense crowd and intense heat, the Miami-Basel design tour is a real refreshment. A breath for the eye that ends up saturating, after hours of strolling through the great modern and contemporary art fair, held on two enormous floors, in hall 2, with nearly 300 galleries and thousands of works. The design is located just in front of “Art Unlimited”, hall 1, space reserved for monumental installations and videos. On the other side of the tram lines which cuts the square in two with its huge circular hole in the metal architecture of the famous Basel architect duo Herzog and de Meuron.
Change of format for the design fair which, until last year, was held on the first floor, with dissuasive access by a terrible escalator, after crossing an icy ground floor giving the impression of a great void. With half as many exhibitors – around 25 -, the fair has taken refuge in this ground floor, redesigned as a smaller but cozier setting, still without daylight but airy through beautiful aisles. Merchants and visitors are unanimous in saying that it is incomparably better.
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«We can be seen from the Messeplatz, the light from the stands encourages us to enter, we are immediately in an atmosphere conducive to discoverysummarizes François Laffanour (Dowtown gallery, rue de Seine, in Paris), one of the pillars of the fair for historical design. To celebrate the 120e anniversary of the birth of Charlotte Perriand, emblematic figure of post-war architecture and design, the merchant of the rue de Seine in Paris, brought some rare pieces including this large storage cupboard says the houses, designed in 1952 for his apartment-workshop located in this street, in Paris. His daughter Pernette Perriand inherited it and kept it for a long time, before parting with it.
Smaller, but more selective too
In the other part of its stand, under the black metal spiral bookcase by English designer Ron Arad, stands a monumental brutalist wooden table by designer, sculptor and architect Jose Zanine Caldas, figurehead of Brazilian modernity and ecological thinking (280,000 euros). The creator had the honors of the Museum of Decorative Arts in 1989 with the retrospective «Zanine, the architect and the forest “, baptized “ Complaint » («Denunciation“), name of the movement he launched in the 1960s to warn about overlogging, and more generally the greed of a Brazil ruled by a dictatorship.
The Carpenters Workshop Gallery exhibited the Brazilian at the start of 2023. For the first time, the founding duo, Julien Lombrail and Loïc Gaillard, who have branches of the gallery in New York and London, withdrew for this edition. tightened Basel. Their objective was elsewhere. The two friends have just opened, in the British capital, at the end of April, Ladbroke Hall, a multidisciplinary place of 4000 m2, a marriage of art, music and gastronomy, after three years of work, under the leadership of David Adjaye’s cabinet. The British-born Ghanaian architect is currently widely celebrated at the Venice Architecture Biennale.
Patrick Seguin’s stand dedicated to Jean Prouvé with a series of sixteen iconic chairs Galerie Patrick Seguin
Scale model, so this year, for Design Miami/Basel. But more filling at the bottom of the fair, with often second-rate galleries and publishers, damaging the image of the domain. With more unity, what is offered seems of better quality. However, we find ourselves in essentially French territory, the best of vintage and even contemporary design coming mainly from Paris. They brought “heavy”. On shelves: sixteen Prouvé chairs, all of different types and colors, at the Patrick Seguin gallery (from the early 1930s, with the historic “Cité” chair, to the 1950s and its emblematic “Métropoles n°305” chairs “, not to mention the masterful swivel armchair “Direction n° 353”. On the podiums: a selection of iconic pieces bringing together chairs from the 1980s and 1990s, at Ketabi-Bourdet. That is 15 models by Ron Arad, Garouste and Bonneti, François Morellet, Philippe Starck, Martin Szekely or Jean-Michel Wilmotte.The scenography is signed by the French artist Bruno Rousseaud, at Ketabi Bourdet.Almost the entire stand was sold out at the opening.
Collectibles
Lalanne is always at the top of his rating. Everywhere in the last auctions, he did not tire the amateurs. On the contrary. The most expensive piece of the fair is a donkey with its baskets filled with flowers by François-Xavier, proposed between 5 and 6 million euros by the gallery of Mitterrand. It has just won a record at 8 million euros, at Christie’s. It therefore has a good chance of finding a buyer. “We have already sold several important pieces whose prices are between 300,000 and 2 million euros, including a “Bambiloba bench”, a set of two “Stone sheep” and a “rabbit-cabbage”. We are in talks with an important American collection for “L’Âne Planté” and with a French foundation for the “Singe Attentif”. », comments the father and son duo, Jean-Gabriel and Edouard Mitterrand.
“The planted donkey” by the sculptor François-Xavier Lalanne, on the stand of the Mitterrand gallery. asking price between 5 and 6 million euros. Mitterrand Gallery
Many other historical pieces are not to be missed, such as the rare “Stoleru” three-seater sofa by Martin Szekely dating from the 1980s (260,000 euros), in midnight blue velvet, and the desk, a unique piece with its return of compartments, an order 1985 special in black metal and glass top (300,000 euros). The sofa is reserved and the “Pi” seat is sold to a foundation. Historical Caryatids table, not quite square, by Diego Giacometti, in brown and green patinated bronze, surmounted by a DG monogram glass top and signed Diego, circa 1976, from the Jerry Ganz collection, on the ultra-modern stand. chic by Jacques Lacoste (listed price of 4 million euros, for this table spotted by the merchant on avenue Matignon, at public sale). It is next to furniture and objects by Jean Royère, including a large Mosque chandelier with twelve lights in black and gold painted metal (circa 1962).
Caryatids table by Diego Giacometti, in brown and green patinated bronze, surmounted by a DG monogram glass top and signed Diego, circa 1976, from the Jerry Ganz collection Jacques Lacoste Gallery
For ceramic lovers, go to Pierre-Marie Giraud from Brussels to buy one of the small or large red or green lamp mushrooms by Belgian Jos Devriendt (from 6000 euros). For the most Pop of design, at Open Stage, with green and pink lamps to be placed on the ground, of which only the artist Léa Mestre, a thirty-year-old French designer, has the secret of the technique (from 8,000 to 14,000 euros). For the most technological, at Kreo, with the incredible black lights, made of automotive precision modules, by the German from Berlin Constantin Gricic, already in the collections of Moma or Decorative Arts. It is to be seen in a sensational exhibition at the Kreo gallery, rue Dauphine. All the gratin of art have already bought his new creations.
Next stop: Paris
For the first time Design Miami should leave the borders of Basel and Miami, arriving in Paris, from October 17 to 22, during the week of Paris + by Art Basel which has replaced the Fiac since last year, at the Grand Palais Short-lived. Its director Jane Roberts had tried to impose the design fair in 2023 but for lack of a place – after the prefecture refused to install it under a tent at Concorde for fear of demonstrations – it had been canceled at the last minute. Design is a strong sector in the capital and the benefits, through the arrival of foreign collectors or their decorative emissaries, are not negligible.
Beautiful case of woodwork in which you will not be able to put a nail on the wall, the place makes you cringe. This is the mansion at 51 rue de l’Université, acquired in 2010 by Ali Bongo, the son of Gabonese President Omar Bongo (1935-2009), as revealed The world, the day of the start of Art Basel. And “French anti-corruption magistrates have been tracking since 2007 the luxurious real estate held in France by the former Gabonese president“. To make the place more glamorous, it is better to evoke its former owner, the Pozzo di Borgo family who settled there from 1840 to 2010. One of the descendants, Philippe Pozzo di Borgo, who died on June 1, was the hero of the film Untouchables who made cinema admissions records. A communication tool that the organizers will not fail to highlight.
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