The Swiss art fair’s opening day exceeded expectations.
(Bloomberg) — In advance of the Swiss fair Art Basel there were whispers—some more panicked than others—that the art market was faltering. But standing in the satellite fair Liste a day before Art Basel’s VIP opening, the collector and arts patron Lonti Ebers said she was willing to collect art regardless of market conditions: “I’m always in a buying mood, if it’s the right thing.”
The next morning, an international crowd of VIPs stormed into the fair’s convention center and decided to ignore the doldrums, too. (VIP days are June 13 and 14; public days run from June 15–18.)
“I’ve only seen great pieces,” said Loa Haagen Pictet, the head of arts and chief curator of Geneva’s Collection Pictet, speaking in the opening minutes of the fair. She’d already purchased several works by the artist Julian Charrière in advance of the opening, and was looking forward to finding more by other artists. “There’s some nervousness, but I also see great enthusiasm,” she said of the art market. “I’m still fairly optimistic.”
Early Sales
Certainly on the fair’s upper floor, where galleries are exhibiting younger, comparatively cheaper artists, opening day sales were brisk.
“In the first 10 minutes we sold 10 works,” said Thilo Wermke, the co-founder of Galerie Neu in Berlin. Sales at his booth ranged from $55,000 for a sculpture by Manfred Pernice to $185,000 for a painting by Jill Mulleady. “Some had been reserved,” in advance of the fair, Wermke explained. “But some were just people coming to the booth.” He’s been showing at Basel since 1998, he said, “and we’ve never had a bad year.”
And that, in turn, became the lingering question of the day: Is the art market back, or is Basel so vaunted, and the works on view so unusually good, that the fair exists in a bubble of its own?
“It’s a very singular art fair experience,” said the New York dealer Bridget Donahue, who’d brought paintings by the artist Satoshi Kojima priced at $27,000 apiece, all of which had been reserved by the time the fair opened. Even as enthusiastic as the response has been, Donahue continued, the fact the work was reserved rather than bought in advance is a change from years past.
“The fact that people are waiting to come and look at something? That is not what used to happen,” she said. “People would commit early.”
Big Galleries, Solid Prices
Downstairs, on the ground floor, more established dealers with more expensive artworks saw an encouraging first-day response from collectors, including many serious transactions. Hauser & Wirth reported several major sales, including a Louise Bourgeois wall sculpture which sold for $22.5 million; Pace reported selling five pieces by Alexander Calder, including a $2.8 million hanging mobile; and White Cube said it sold several million-plus works including a $4.5 million piece by Mark Bradford.
“We’ve had a really great fair so far,” said Caroline Luce, a partner at Gladstone Gallery, which says it sold more than 20 artworks including a collage by Robert Rauschenberg for $1.2 million. “The artists we know there’s going to be a line for—the people who’ve always been interested remain so,” she continued. “It doesn’t seem that there’s a shorter list of [collectors] because of the given situation in the market.”
But not every multimillion dollar work flew off the wall. Although Michael Werner Gallery sold pieces by a bevy of artists including Florian Krewer, Markus Lüpertz, Peter Saul, and Maki Na Kamura for prices ranging from $65,000 to $450,000, it also brought a very significant painting by Sigmar Polke for $9 million, which had yet to find a buyer. “There’s interest already,” said the gallery’s partner Gordon VeneKlasen. “But these conversations sometimes take weeks.”
Catching up with Ebers again after the end of Art Basel’s first day, she was pleasantly surprised by how things went. “I didn’t have high expectations,” she said. “You always go into the fair not knowing what will be there, and then there are some things that make sense for your collection.”
Ebers said she purchased “a couple of great things,” although she declines to say what exactly they were. She’d seen images of the pieces in advance, but only realized she wanted to buy when she saw them in person. “That’s why,” she said, “you really need to see things in the flesh.”
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