The art world's attention is traditionally focused on Basel in June - the annual fair and accompanying events take over the city for a week. In 2024, Berlin scene veteran Maike Kruse, who made her first appearance as director of Art Basel and previously headed Gallery Weekend Berlin, is in charge of the fair's renewed identity. Here are the main points that surprised the public, made collectors happy and gave curators and gallerists something to think about.
The symbolic center of this major event, which has expanded over half a century to Miami Beach, Hong Kong and Paris, remains in Switzerland. In 1970, when gallerists Ernst Beyeler, Trudl Bruckner and Balz Hilt opened the first Art Basel, some 16,000 professionals gathered on the banks of the Rhine. Now the number of visitors to the most important art fair is five times greater, and it has become a key venue for the art world. The exhibitor list includes 285 international exhibitors and is complemented by a long list of associated exhibitions. It is a global organization for member galleries and artists, with an emphasis on the regional identity of each country. Basel this year is demonstrating its ability to bring together top-notch works, fantastic collectors and museum groups - and the market, as sales have shown, is following suit.
The current artistic director, who already worked at Art Basel as head of communications, continues her commitment to community engagement: her optimistic view of an art ecosystem that has endured a long period of uncertainty is inspiring. The current composition of galleries looks like this: European galleries make up about 60%, but in total galleries from 40 countries are represented, and in recent years many young institutions have appeared on the list.
Kruse comments on the results of the fair: “The quality and ambition of the work presented this year is extraordinary, and the presence of collectors from all over the world is exceptional, a combination that has led to excellent sales.” The new director is working hard on local identity: her areas of interest include closer collaboration with Liste, a young art fair, as well as Basel Social Club, a free event space.
The art market is still strong, confirms Noah Horowitz, CEO of Art Basel. “We are witnessing an increase in art collecting around the world. New buyers are entering the market and providing a basis for the business, while at the same time our usual audience remains and continues to collect works of art. Most of this professional audience was in Basel during the fair,” he noted.
Indeed, the results showed that the leading galleries only strengthened their positions. David Zwirner sold Joan Mitchell's sensual diptych Sunflowers (1990–91) for $20 million, close to the artist's auction record of $29 million. Arshile Gorky's Untitled (Gray Drawing (Pastoral), c. 1946–47), charcoal and pastel on paper, sold to Hauser & Wirth for $16 million. Gerhard Richter's Abstraktes Bild (2016) sold for $6 million. Yayoi Kusama's sculpture "Longing for Love Pumpkin, Love in My Heart" (2023) went for $5 million to a private collection in the United States. And Jannis Kounellis' Untitled (Wooden Rose) (1966), Gladstone Gallery, was one of the top deals, reaching $2.5 million.
“Despite all the rumors, we are confident in the sustainability of the art market, and the first day of Art Basel confirmed this,” comments Ivan Wirth, president of Hauser & Wirth in a statement. “The benefit of the market returning to a more humane pace is that international collectors are now favoring the best of the best.” We have posted rare works that span the history of modern art and its different generations. On the first day we sold more works than last year. And all the days were just as busy as the first. Moral: Real quality and great relationships always prevail."
Fair visitors were greeted by one of this year's ambitious attractions - the iconic wheat field designed by Agnès Denes at Messeplatz. In 1982, the artist first created land art Wheatfield - A Confrontation on two acres of landfill along the banks of the Hudson River in New York. This artistic gesture drew attention to issues of economic mismanagement, waste, world hunger and environmental problems. Now “Reverence of the Wheat Field - Confrontation” solves the same problems and means continuing the fight against phenomena that nature itself cannot control. Fair organizers will leave this installation in the city until August, until the wheat is harvested.
The huge installation The Extended Line by Chiharu Shiota is dedicated to her personal experiences in defeating cancer. Hundreds of kilometers of red ropes are suspended in the 16x9 meter structure, and white sheets of paper seem to fly out of them. The work speaks to the audience's personal experiences. “What does it mean to be human? I ask questions that, as it seems to me, every person faces during his life, but does not come to a clear conclusion. I believe in the power of asking these questions together. And although we don’t have the answers, we experience the same suffering, regrets and joys in life,” says the artist.
The Unlimited section houses one of Mario Ceroli's largest and most powerful works of environmental sculpture. Originally conceived by the artist in 1968, the work represents a fragment of land with four-meter high flags tightly planted, symbolizing peace.
Donald Judd, often called the godfather of American minimalism, was featured at Gagosyan with a rare 1970 installation to coincide with a new exhibition of Judd's Swiss work at the Basel gallery. A set of five-foot-tall galvanized iron panels stand eight inches from the wall, and in a rare feat for Judd, the work allows for customization with each installation. This monochromatic work by Judd is quite unusual, because his favorite method is usually to combine color and volume. He said: “Material, space and color are the fundamental aspects of visual art. Everyone knows that there is material that can be selected and sold, but no one sees space and color.”
The huge painting “From Spring to Autumn” by Sam Falls, which the artist spent a year creating outdoors in the Hudson River Valley, immersed one in leisurely contemplation. Falls placed various vegetation on a canvas laid out in a field and sprinkled water-soluble pigments on the plants. Weather-activated paints created surreal silhouettes of plants. Repeating this process over different seasons, the artist created layers of flying flowers, branches and leaves to capture their short lives directly in the painting. The nature image, approximately 20 meters long, is painted on a single roll of canvas measuring 3.6 meters high: it was the largest work on canvas presented at the fair.
One of the most discussed works was Keith Haring’s masterpiece, which graced the Gladston Gallery’s stand - the 18-meter painting “Untitled” (FDR NY, 1984). Haring once created an original 90-meter mural of 30 panels on the fence of Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive in New York. After this monument was removed a year after its installation, its fragments were taken to museum exhibitions, and the largest structure to date moved to the exhibition pavilions of Basel.
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