Installation view of Hauser & Wirth’s booth at Art Basel, 2019.
Courtesy of Hauser & Wirth Photo by Stefan Altenburger, Photography Zürich.
On Friday, Rihanna stepped into Art Basel in Switzerland in 2019, strolling around the Gagosian gallery booth before walking to the David Nolan booth to take a photo in front of a large wooden sculpture by Richard Artschwager, with galleries and fair visitors staring straight at the superstar's every move.
Many people did not pay attention to her companion, whose status was as important as that of the world's richest female singer at the art fair. That was Rihanna's boyfriend, Hassan Jameel, a member of a family of Saudi billionaire collectors. Last year, the Jameel Arts Centre, founded by the Jamil family, opened in Dubai.
The presence of the world's most well-known pop culture icon and the Middle Eastern collector with supreme power in the art world has undoubtedly shown the world the unshakable supremacy of Art Basel's flagship exhibition in its birthplace since its inception more than 50 years ago. The tight schedule of events during the fair may have strained the nerves of financially strapped galleries and flight-weary collectors. Still, collectors showed up in Messeplatz in Basel city as scheduled early last week, ready to strike. According to fair organizers and participating galleries, European buyers (and some collectors from Asia and the Americas) tend to open their cheque holders faster and more frequently over the six days of the Swiss version than Basel's shows in Miami Beach and Hong Kong, and deals here tend to be higher than Basel's prices on two other continents.
Gerhard Richter, Assembly, 1966.
? Gerhard Richter 2019. Courtesy of David Zwirner.
The world's countless art fairs may be growing boring, but Basel's status in Switzerland is hard to shake because it never stands still because it never rests on its aura, says Marc Spiegler, global director at Art Basel.
"Every year we set a higher standard," Spiegeller said in an interview on Wednesday, "some galleries didn't come this year because they repeatedly disappointed the organizing committee, especially some of which have been fighting for tickets for a long time." Every year you raise the requirements a little bit, and the quality of the exhibition will only get higher and higher every year. ”
From last Tuesday's VIP preview in the hours before the opening, it is clear that the quality of this year's art fair is superior. Zona Gallery sold Gerhard Richter's Versammlung (1966) for $20 million. This important work by the most respected living artist – a black-and-white painting based on a group of people captured in a photograph – has been treasured by Italian collectors Francesca and Massimo Valsecchi for nearly 50 years, who have now resold it to raise funds for the restoration of The Butera Palace in Palermo.
Zona Gallery also sold an early fabric painting by Sigmar Polk for $10 million, and the gallery has represented the artist's legacy since 2015 (it has been reported that several major galleries, including Gagosian and Marian Goodman, have sold works in the middle of the seven-figure price, but the exact price is not made public and therefore not included in the official sales report released by the fair).
Sigmar Polke,
Palme auf Autostoff, 1969.
? 2019 The Estate of Sigmar Polke / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy of David Zwirner.
Other high-priced works sold at Art Basel switzerland include:
Kukje and Tina Kim Gallery's joint booth sold Korean master Kim Huan-ki's Tranquility 5-IV-73 #310 (1973) for between $10 million and $12 million, setting a new $7.9 million auction record for the artist at last May's Seoul auction.
The White Cube Gallery sold Mark Bradford's Rat Catcher of Hamelin II (2011) for $7.75 million.
Lévy Gorvy Gallery sold a Christopher Wool painting of Untitled (2009) for about $6 million.
Lévy Gorvy also sold Mark Grotjahn's Untitled (Indian #2 Face 45.47) (2014) for $5 million.
Acquavella Gallery sold an aluminum enamel mask from Keith Harlem for $4 million.
Zona and Jack Shainmian Gallery each sold two new works by Kerry James Marshall for $3.5 million.
Mnuchin Gallery sold Mark Bradford's $3.5 million Fly in the Buttermilk (2002).
Hauserworth Gallery sold a sculpture by Eduardo Chillida for 3 million euros.
Skarstedt Gallery sold a $3 million -3 million painting of Richard Prince's "The Housewife and the Grocer" (1988) just before Wednesday.
In the "ImagelessNess Unlimited" section, Test (1994), co-presented by Zöllner and Hauserworth, sold for $3.8 million.
According to Data compiled by Artsy, Hauserworth came out on top of all galleries in Basel this year, with total sales of more than $49.2 million. The only closest to it is the Zona Gallery, which has sales of $46.6 million. The third and fourth, which were far from the top two, were Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac and Lévy Gorvy Gallery, with total sales of $14.8 million and $14.1 million, respectively. Artsy's sales figures are based on the galleries that have announced their sales – 47 of the 290 exhibiting galleries. There are also many galleries – including Gagosian – that do not have public sales, and some that may only be partially available (we further explain our statistical methods in the supplementary note at the end of the article).
On the first day of the fair, Hauserworth sold more than 30 works, both from the booth and from two catalogues previously given to collectors (which included works not exhibited at the booth). Two of the more than $10 million unspecified pieces helped Hauserworth boost his performance dramatically.
"Our performance on the opening day of Basel, Switzerland, was the most successful this year," Iwan Wirth, co-founder of Hauserworth, said in a statement, "the momentum before the opening of the fair was strong, and the experience at Messeplatz and the energy here are irreplaceable." ”
Other high-performing galleries include White Cube, Pace and Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, who sold George Baselize's €1.75 million "Marokkaner" (2013) and Robert Rauschenberg's $1.7 million "Crossings (Borealis) ( 1990). Overall, the top 10 galleries in terms of sales account for 76% of the fair's total sales, according to Artsy.
While the highest turnover is almost dominated by major international galleries with semicolons in multiple regions of the world, there are exceptions: a single Work by Kim at the joint booth of Kukje and Tina Kim drove sales; and Jack Shainman, a gallery with a relatively low price tag on the second floor of the showroom, sold 11 works totaling $8.7 million on its first day. This achievement was driven by growing interest from collectors around the world in African-American artists, such as Jack Shainman's sale of a new $3.5 million work by Kerry James Marshall and a $1.3 million "Red Hot Deal" in 2012, as well as Buckley S. Marshall's Work. L. Hendricks' portrait Ofy (1974) sold for $1.5 million.
"Kerry's works are popular everywhere," says Tamsen Greene, director of Jack Shainman Gallery, "and judging by the market trajectory of his works, they frequently fetch high prices at auction." He has been widely recognized, with so many institutions exhibiting his work, including art galleries in Europe. Two years ago we brought a painting that was in the collection of the Tate Gallery. ”
Courtesy of the gallery.
Installation view of Jack
Shainman’s booth at Art Basel,
2019, featuring Kerry James
Marshall, Untitled, 2019, at center.
Jack Shainman brings Basel's Marshall's Untitled (London Bridge) (2017) to Basel in 2017, which is in the collection of the Tate Gallery. The title was priced at $2.5 million at the time, which means that Marshall's most sought-after work is now worth $1 million in the primary market than it was two years ago.
Although Basel, Switzerland, is primarily a European art fair (and art basel Hong Kong, the most important art fair in Asia, was just held in Hong Kong at the end of March), it has attracted many Asian collectors to Switzerland. An Asian public collection bought a $2 million new painting by Michi Nara at the Booth of Blum & Poe Gallery, while Yoshitomo Nara's work represented by Pace Gallery is also in high demand in Asia. Pace did not comment on the nationality of the buyers, but revealed the price of the works sold: Yoshitomo Nara's Midnight Cross (2017) sold for $950,000, and an artist's 2011 painted work with colored lead and acrylic painted on cardboard sold for $125,000 each (based on the number of works sold, Nara Yoshitomo sold the number of works after photographer Sanelle Marley, from South Africa, Stevenson, South Africa). The gallery sold 24 of her work within the first hour of the fair's opening).
Perhaps the most expensive work sold to Asian collectors is a Carmen Herrera painting sold at The Ritson Gallery last Thursday. The 1974 acrylic-on-canvas work "Red Square" sold for $2.25 million, nearly the artist's $2.9 million price record at Sotheby's Spring Auction in New York in March. According to the gallery, the works will go into important Asian private collections.
"They've collected her work, and the buyer is our old client, but the painting has to be there," says Alex Logsdail, the executive director of The Ritson Gallery, "and there are no history paintings by artists on the market, much less works that are so perfectly preserved from artists, which appear in every gallery exhibition, in every gallery catalog." ”
Installation view of Lisson’s booth at
Art Basel, 2019.
In Basel, the top galleries sell works at eight-figure prices to billionaire collectors, but they can also see younger, more distinctive galleries on the second floor, especially in the Statements and Features sections. New York's David Lewis Gallery is exhibiting in Basel for the second time this year, following the annual attendance at the beloved Basel Parallel Liste from 2015 to 2018, and last year's first solo exhibition of Barbara Bloom in the Basel "Unlimited" section. This year, David Lewis Gallery presented a series of works by the late artist Thornton Dial, who was born in Alabama and died in 2016. Although long seen as a self-taught artist, Dale's work has recently been exhibited at art fairs across the United States, but it has not yet been recognized by European audiences, the gallerist said. "Among americans who know about Dale's work, his work is getting more and more recognition, and Europe knows nothing about him, so I want to introduce his work to Europe." Dell's Ground Zero: Nighttime All Over The World (2002) was bought by a major American collector for $350,000 and promised to donate to the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Meat Market (2003) was sold to a European collector.
But David Lewis' "If the Tiger Knew He'd Be the Star of the Circus, He Wouldn't Have Hid So Long in the Jungle" (1989) had not yet found a buyer by Friday afternoon. Lewis says he thinks of a buyer who might be interested: "Maybe Rihanna should buy this piece, I think she'll love it." ”
Nate Freeman
Additional Notes:
Ways to visualize data: The charts in the report reflect all of Art Basel's official sales data, directly accessed by Artsy's editorial team, and official data published by individual participating galleries (such as Züner Gallery's "Basel Online"). Of the 290 participating galleries, 47 (16% of the total) posted sales. The statistics only include works published for sale by galleries. For the price of works within a certain range, we use low values to report.
(Article from Artsy)