AfricanColours - Letter From Basel

International Sat 30-07-2011

Letter From Basel - Part One
Osei G. Kofi | AfricanColours.com

Four years ago, in the middle of the European summer art circuit, a scribe of brittle faith from a famed art journal asked: “Has Art Basel lost out to Venice and Documenta?” Would the writer have the temerity to pose the same question today? The emphatic response is: “No!”

The Title Says it All

The just concluded 42nd edition of Art Basel has put to rest, for years to come at least, the idea that there may be a contender to the lofty perch of this stupendous high mass in homage to the Goddess of Art and creativity–and Mammon too.

Which international art fair has the pull-power to draw, year after year, "all" the movers and shakers of the contemporary art scene to a little known town called Basel? This industrial hub in northwestern Switzerland is sandwiched between rural France and rural Germany on the banks of the Rhine at a place where the river is at its sleepiest.

Apart from its clout in the pharmaceutical industry, Basel is the kind of town you’d stop-over for a beer en route to more illustrious destinations such as Strasbourg, Frankfurt or Amsterdam.

But for six days in June every year Basel becomes the place to be if your business is art – or if you’re seriously, incorrigibly smitten by it. This year’s edition showcased 300 highly vetted exhibitors from 35 countries, who brought $1.5 billion smorgasbord of modernism and post-modernism:

Ai Wei Wei at Art Basel

An Ai Wei Wei at Art Basel

Giacometti, Klimt, Picasso, Bacon, Basquiat, Modigliani, Kandinsky, Kippenberger, Picabia, Rothko, Chagall, Calder, Warhol, Haring, Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein, Koons, Baldessari, Hockney, Gormley, Sugimoto, Mapplethorpe, Nikki Saint-Phalle, Jasper Johns, Lucian Freud, Anish Kapoor, Kehinde Wiley, William Kentridge, Marlene Dumas, Yue Minjun, Takeshi Murakami, Julian Opie, George Condo, Ai Wei Wei, Maurizio Cattelan, Chris Ofili, Richard Prince, Andreas Gursky, Cindy Sherman, Louise Bourgeois, the neo-Pollocks led by Mike Bidlo... Actually, it’d be easier to name the contemporary titans whose works weren’t there than those who were. The creations and expressions shone, bristled and tantalized from every metre of space in the three aircraft hanger-size exhibition halls that dominate the sprawl of the Messeplatz.

A Kehinde Wiley at Art Basel

There were chief executives from more than 50 state museums - on the hunt for additions to national collections. Lately, Hollywood and the fashion world have caught up with the happening and recent attendees have included Brad Pitt, Pharrell Williams, Bianca Jagger, Linda Evangelista and Naomi Campbell. The event is covered by an army of art correspondents from Rio de Janeiro to Moscow, Reykjavik to Wellington, Toronto to Hong Kong, not forgetting Nairobi – yours truly.

Business this year was brisk and boisterous. As the doors flung open on the first day “first choice” invitees stampeded to reach the stands - to beat the competition to a favourite artwork in the catalogue.

Chinese buyers mobbing an artwork by Mike Bidlo-Letter-from-Art-Basel

Chinese buyers mobbing an artwork by Mike Bidlo

Normally gentle mega-collectors, including California’s Don Rubell, were spied ducking under rope barriers to gain the lobby’s elevators.

Jean Pigozzi, Africa contemporary mega-collector, all six foot four, vaulted up the escalator to Tomio Koyama’s stand and snatched up one of Satoko Nachi’s "Quartet 2011" series, for a cool $70,000.

Now, that’s the lower end of Art Basel prices. The most expensive work at the 42nd fair was Andy Warhol’s "One Hundred & Fifty Black White Grey Marilyns", on offer at Zurich’s Bischofberger for – wait for it - $40 million.

Among the most successful dealers this year was Gallerie Mai 36. Minutes into the fair’s opening they sold a neo-Warhol mono-chromatic can of something by Lewitt for $275,000. Yes, that cash was for canvas of a can, beautiful can though.

Art Basel-Nikki Saint-Phalle

Nikki Saint Phalle at Art Basel

New York’s top gun Tony Shafrazi, as usual, had his guns blazing; this time with a stunning array of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Damien Hirst, Mike Bidlo and George Condo. A large size Haring was priced at $3million while a paper, acrylic and canvas collage of Basquiat was for $6million.

French-born American artist Louise Bourgeois, more popular, more expensive since her death last year is in evidence everywhere these days, and Hauser & Wirth (London, New York, Zurich) offered for an undisclosed price her 2004 "Hidden Past," an upside-down pink head hanging in a cupboard.

Thomas Ammann Fine Art of Zurich showcased a tongue-in-the-cheek work by Andrew Masullo: "My Client Is Bigger Than Your Client".

Zurich's Galerie Bob van Orsouw brought sensual, some say porno, images by Japan’s veteran photographer and "enfant terrible", Nobuyoshi Araki. If bondage is not your thing, don’t ever look up Araki’s work. Many feminists will blow a gasket if they heard the old samurai vaunt that he shackles the bodies of his models (all female) because he’s unable to shackle their minds.

Alan Cristea Gallery, Europe's biggest contemporary print dealer and publisher, offered a new series of portraits by Julian Opie of his daughter and a girlfriend preparing to go to a party, for about $10 000 a print.

Art Unlimited, the section of the fair given to outsize artworks, giant installations mostly, was the most impressive I’ve seen in years, ditto the most recent innovation – the Art Basel-Miami Design section.

Now, to get back to our opening task. Is Art Basel losing out to Venice and Documenta? No ways.

For the uninitiated, Venice Biennale and Kassels’ Documenta, plus TEFAF-Maastricht, Amory Show-New York, FIAC-Paris, Frieze-London, panAmsterdam, Art Forum Berlin and Art Basel-Miami are touchstones in the multi-billion dollar contemporary and fine art business.

ART Hong Kong, SH Contemporary Shanghai, CIAC-Beijing, Art Dubai, Abu Dhabi Art, India Art Fair (formerly India Art Summit) and Joburg Art Fair-Johannesburg (kudos, Ross Douglas!) are among the recent additions to the world circuit.

Dealers, agents, curators, collectors, directors of international auction houses, galleries or national museums worth their pay packets or commissions may miss any of the above majors but to miss Art Basel would be, ahem, a sorry mishap indeed.

The most one can say about the Venice Biennale is that at more than 54 years it’s the world’s oldest contemporary art fair. It consistently puts on a polished event, spread over four months, displayed in architect-appointed national pavilions and historic palazzos.

Furthermore, its "bella figura" location is unbeatable for the "glitterati" to come and see and be seen. Also, Mother Africa will always hold Venice in gratitude for it was the first among the majors to give African artists, from the Diaspora mostly, a toenail space in the big tent of the burgeoning global business.

In fact, some see Venice as a “copy-taster” for Basel, the holy grail. Market big hitters and trend setters such as Larry Gagosian, Acquavella, Haunch of Venison, Francois Pinault, Eli & Edythe Broad, Peter Brant, Christian Boros, Norah and Norman Stone, Roman Abramovich, Xavier Hufkens, the Metropolitan’s Thomas Campbell, MoMa’s Glen D Lowry and Zurich Kunsthalle’s Beatrix Ruf usually descend on Basel after attending Venice’s opening in early June.

And there are dealers and gallerists who’d go and introduce their discoveries (new artists) in Venice and jet to Basel for the proper business of selling them. In other words, in Venice you look, in Basel you buy.

Art Basel

As for Documenta, banished to the German outpost of Kassels, less said of it the better - even if a city that rose from ashes of Allied carpet bombardment during World War II deserves all the sympathy we can give. The trouble is, art lovers and collectors hate waiting for five years to attend a fair - no matter how niche-special it may be. Life is too short.

And, what about Art Munster? Good gracious – who hatched the idea of an art fair every ten years?

If there’s a pertinent question to be posed today it may be this one: will too much success harm Art Basel? Is Art Basel nearing the tipping point of too much wonderfulness?

For instance, the scrum in the main lobby on opening day, with millionaires jiu jitsu-ing millionaires, the shortage of hotel rooms, the jam-packed restaurants, the VIP bars upstairs that had too many VIPs brandishing too many colour-coded passes, etc are a disturbing development indeed.

Yours truly had a singular experience this year. In mid June, after couple of months in Nairobi doing my best to breathe new life into Gallery Watatu, I went back to Geneva, my base for the past several years. Quality time spent with my two young boys who’d been pestering their mother with “where’s papi?” and “when is he coming back?” made me forget I had to reserve a hotel room in Basel.

A day before the fair opened I shipped into town and breezed into my usual hotel. “Entschuldigung, Herr Kofi – das Hotel ist voll” or sorry buddy, we are full. This never happened before. I later learnt that instead of the normal 50,000 to 60,000 visitors, the 42nd edition had attracted 200,000!

Pure madness - no event, sports or otherwise, in an annual calendar has ever had such an exponential surge. Later I was to come across in the Messeplatz six lovely Cariocas, Fernanda, Paula, Maria, Marcia, Renata and Nherda, who told me they were ordinary hairdressers in Rio de Janeiro and had saved and saved “just to come and see Art Basel.” Eish!

Hairdressers from Rio who saved to come to Basel-Letter-from-Art-Basel2

Osei G. Kofi with the lovely hairdressers from Rio who saved to come to Basel

Well, that day I worked the phones for hours and finally got a room in Mulhouse, 30 minutes by train over the border in France. It meant commuting each day and missing the night life, of social events that come with Art Basel week.

Horror of horrors, for the first time I was late for the opening press conference and thereby missed pestering Marc Spiegler and Annette Schonholzer, Art Basel co-directors; a super-efficient duo with star aura who’ve grown into, and bested, the big shoes left by Sam Keller, former director and the man who put Basel on the world map.

I always have one question for Marc and Annette: When will Africa be admitted to Art Basel?

"This is a multi-billion dollar global business, how come, for 42 long years, we Africans haven’t been admitted under this big tent you have here, hu? When will Africa ever make your cut?" I keep wailing to the duo.

For Marc and Annette’s answer and advice, as well, for news of some independent Euro-African initiative in Basel please watch out for Part Two - next week

Osei G. Kofi,
Art Africa Investment | Art Columnist | MD & Partner, Gallery Watatu-Nairobi, Kenya

Posted By: Allan Kapten

skip to top

Your Comments

skip to top

African Artists Portfolios

Miguel Petchkovsky is a Mixed Media Artist

Stephen Garan'anga is a Mixed Media Artist

Click To View All African Artist Portfolios

Kaafiri Kariuki at the Creativity Gallery

Shades of Time: An exhibition by Kaafiri Kariuki at the Creativity Gallery National Museum of Kenya

News By Regions

Featured Artist Portfolio

Title: Making Ways
Name: Tabitha Wa Thuku
Country: Kenya
Medium: Mixed media on heavy canvas
Size: 149 X 140 cms
Click here to view