Basel - Art Basel draws high rolling collectors and investors
June 16, 2013, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
WITH private jets filling the air and lines of luxury limousines on the ready, deep-pocketed collectors from around the world flocked to Switzerland this week for Art Basel, the planet's biggest contemporary art fair.
The 44th edition of the show gave VIPs an advance peek on Tuesday at the wide range of artwork displayed across a whopping 31,000 square meters of exhibition space. It opened to the public on Thursday.
Amid all the stock market turmoil in recent years, the world's wealthy are increasingly turning to art as a good and safe investment. On Wednesday, 110 private jets landed and took off from Basel airport, after 83 flew through on Tuesday despite a strike.
It was important to be among the first to squeeze through the doors, Swiss collector Annka Kultys said.
"The rule in Basel is that you cannot put artwork on hold before the art fair opens, so we need to be here the first day, and just run to the booths that we are interested in," she said.
Around 65,000 visitors are expected this year to see exhibits by a lucky 304 galleries, picked from more than 1,000 that vied for a lucrative spot.
"There's been an immediate buzz," Tim Marlow, director of exhibitions at the London-based White Cube Gallery said as the buying frenzy began.
"We've sold two Sergei Jensen paintings, a Tracey Emin, we sold this Mark Bradford for US$725,000," he said, pointing to a large abstract canvas.
"And there's serious interest in the Damien Hirst pill cabinet, at 4 million pounds (US$6.2 million)," he added with a smile, nodding to a large mirror wall packed with narrow metal shelves covered with pills in different colors and shapes.
Art Basel's impact on a gallery's bottom line does not stop with what sales, he said. "It's about connections and clients made. A lot of museums come... conversations are hatched, work is bought... exhibitions are planned."
The art world appears to have bucked the global economic crisis, with income from global auction sales more than doubling since it hit bottom in 2009, passing 8 billion euros (US$10.6 billion) last year, according to French specialized website Artprice.com.
The 44th edition of the show gave VIPs an advance peek on Tuesday at the wide range of artwork displayed across a whopping 31,000 square meters of exhibition space. It opened to the public on Thursday.
Amid all the stock market turmoil in recent years, the world's wealthy are increasingly turning to art as a good and safe investment. On Wednesday, 110 private jets landed and took off from Basel airport, after 83 flew through on Tuesday despite a strike.
It was important to be among the first to squeeze through the doors, Swiss collector Annka Kultys said.
"The rule in Basel is that you cannot put artwork on hold before the art fair opens, so we need to be here the first day, and just run to the booths that we are interested in," she said.
Around 65,000 visitors are expected this year to see exhibits by a lucky 304 galleries, picked from more than 1,000 that vied for a lucrative spot.
"There's been an immediate buzz," Tim Marlow, director of exhibitions at the London-based White Cube Gallery said as the buying frenzy began.
"We've sold two Sergei Jensen paintings, a Tracey Emin, we sold this Mark Bradford for US$725,000," he said, pointing to a large abstract canvas.
"And there's serious interest in the Damien Hirst pill cabinet, at 4 million pounds (US$6.2 million)," he added with a smile, nodding to a large mirror wall packed with narrow metal shelves covered with pills in different colors and shapes.
Art Basel's impact on a gallery's bottom line does not stop with what sales, he said. "It's about connections and clients made. A lot of museums come... conversations are hatched, work is bought... exhibitions are planned."
The art world appears to have bucked the global economic crisis, with income from global auction sales more than doubling since it hit bottom in 2009, passing 8 billion euros (US$10.6 billion) last year, according to French specialized website Artprice.com.
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