Basel plays host to the art world

Basel's art fair is the biggest in the world swissinfo.ch

The annual art fair which describes itself as the world's largest "temporary art museum" is underway in Basel. It features some 5,000 works including many by leading artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.

But not all of the more than 50,000 visitors expected at Art Basel go there just to admire the broad canvas, which ranges from classic modernism to the cutting edge of contemporary art.

Before the fair closes on June 18, many will have paid large sums of money for works by artists such as Degas, Picasso, Matisse and Miro.

Not surprisingly, the criteria for exhibiting at Art Basel are strict. “This year we received nearly 900 applications from galleries throughout the world to exhibit here,” said Zurich dealer, Gianfranco Verna, who is a member of the selection committee.

“That’s the most in the 32-year history of the fair. Nearly all the galleries here last year wanted to come back, but obviously we couldn’t accommodate them all.”

The flood of applications is an indication that a boom is continuing in the worldwide art market, and the 262 galleries represented at Basel are leaders in their field. “We have to make the fair as international as possible, with no country or region of the world, such as the US, over-represented,” said Verna.

Although only nine galleries from Asia are among the 262, they have a significant presence, says Jonathan Napack, Art Basel’s Asian art adviser. “Since the economic problems in Japan during the early 1990s,” he told swissinfo, “there’s been a recovery in recent years, and we’ve seen an explosion of innovative galleries there.”

Innovations at this year’s art fair include one which is crucial for exhibition purposes. Each gallery has its own space, and these are now equipped with higher walls for hanging pictures. One dealer who is delighted with the improved presentation facilities is Antonio Homem, whose Sonnabend gallery in New York is at Art Basel for the first time since 1975.

“In 1975 I swore I would never again attend an art fair,” he said. “It seemed a terrible waste of time. We had a show of collages by Robert Rauschenberg, and didn’t sell a single one of them. A few months later we sold them all to people who said they were much better than the ones they’d seen in Basel.”

Homem says another factor which influenced his gallery’s decision to apply to return to Basel has been the growth of the art world, especially in Europe, from its comparatively small scale as recently as in the 1970s.

Art Basel reflects that growth. Apart from constantly increasing its conventional exhibition space, it also has “Art Unlimited”. Martin Schwander, who is in charge of this section, says the title is deliberately provocative because it features outsize works – installations – by mostly young artists.

“We have provided them with space which is simply not available at any other art fair,” said Schwander, “so now they are no longer excluded from events of this kind.

This year promises to be busier than usual for the organisers of Art Basel. In six months’ time a sister event in Florida will open – Art Basel Miami Beach.

Describing it as a perfect location for such an event, Art Basel director, Samuel Keller, sees Miami as a bridge between North American, Latin American and European cultures: “It will be the main winter meeting of the international art world,” he said.

Both fairs are run by a joint management team to guarantee interplay – and joint promotion. Keller says Art Basel’s high quality standards will also apply to Art Basel Miami Beach.

by Richard Dawson