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ART BASEL

Private jets descend on Basel as rich collectors flock to art show

The global art market appeared to collectively sigh with relief as deep-pocketed collectors descended on Art Basel this week after two years of dwindling sales.

Private jets descend on Basel as rich collectors flock to art show
Attendees look at an artwork by Sir Anish Kapoor displayed at Art Basel. Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP
The world's biggest contemporary art fair opens to the public on Thursday, but VIPs got an advance peak at the vast array of artworks for sale.
   
They range from 20th century masters like Pablo Picasso to today's cutting-edge creations.
   
Nearly 300 galleries representing more than 4,000 artists from around the world have put their best goods on display at the show, which has become unmissable for sellers and collectors alike.
   
“The mood is very, very strong,” enthused Art Basel director Marc Spiegler.
   
“There are great collectors here. Great artworks. There is a very good energy. Very good atmosphere,” he told AFP ahead of the public opening, adding that “sales are being made.”
   
That is good news for the global art market, which in 2016 was valued at $56.6 billion (50.5 billion euros) — down 11 percent from a year earlier, according to a study by Swiss banking giant UBS, the fair's organisers.
   
It was down a full 17 percent compared to 2014, when the global art market reached its pinnacle value of $68.2 billion, before geopolitical turbulence put the breaks on investors' ebullience.
 
Private jets 
 
As a sign the pendulum may be swinging back in their favour, 116 private jets were expected at Basel airport on Tuesday when rich collectors descended on the show — 18 more than last year.
   
Galleries boasted numerous large sales in the first hours after their booths opened.
   
“We did a few sales around a million dollars,” Mathias Rastorfer, the head of the Gallery Gmurzynska, told AFP just an hour after the doors opened. Works by Fernand Leger, Wilfredo Lam, and Roberto Matta were among those that had found new homes, he said.
   
Marc Glimcher, president of Pace Gallery, agreed that “Art Basel is fantastic this year… People are being very excited about the art they're buying.”
 
A work by US artist Jeff Koons. Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP   
 
His gallery sold about a quarter of its booth within the first hour, he told AFP, mainly pocketing checks in the $100,000-$800,000 range.
 
And he said most of the multi-million-dollar pieces were already on reserve for museums, while he had numerous collectors vying for a $6.5-million David Hockney.
   
Brett Gorvy of the new Levy Gorvy gallery also hailed the “fantastic energy” at the fair. Works were selling “very, very quickly,” including an Alberto Burri piece for $4.5 million.
   
The gallery also had Jean-Michel Basquiat's painting “Baby Boom” on reserve, the asking price a smooth $32 million.
 
Middle market struggling 
 
But while the high-end galleries and the top artists are raking in sales, they acknowledge that the entire market is not faring as well.
   
“The top end, if you want to say the bluechips, have become so strong that it has in some ways disadvantaged the middle market,” Andreas Leventis, associate director at Lisson Gallery in London, told AFP.
   
This is because mid-level artists are “neither a sure thing or just affordable enough to be a viable risk, from a purely investment point of view,” he said.
 
'Vivian' by New Zealander artist Francis Upritchard. Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP 
 
Rastorfer agreed that there have been “some corrections in the contemporary middle section… I think they are having a harder time.”
   
But he said the dip in the market last year had had a positive impact for “knowledge-driven” galleries.
   
When the market is booming and “everything is going up, you don't need much expertise. It just goes up,” he pointed out.
   
But when times are a bit more challenging, “you go to a gallery like us, because we focus on expertise and knowledge,” he said.
   
“So I'm not unhappy about the current development.”

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PAINTING

How women artists are bringing #MeToo reckoning to Basel fair

Mannequins display inflatable, white airbag dresses created to protect women from workplace harassment, while nearby details of the alleged sexual misdeeds of 170 public figures cover four long walls, splashed in red.

How women artists are bringing #MeToo reckoning to Basel fair
A visitor looks at Anne Collier's "Woman Crying (Comic) #7" at Art Basel. Photo: AFP

The #MeToo movement that exploded on the global stage in late 2017 has inspired several works exhibited at this year's Art Basel, the world's biggest contemporary art fair, which opens to the public on Thursday.

Women artists have taken centre stage at the show's 50th edition, with in-your-face installations expressing disgust and exasperation at persisting gender inequalities and culturally condoned abuse and harassment of women.

Spanish artist Alicia Framis has filled a room with delicate, white mannequins wearing different styles of dresses made from airbag material, which inflate to protect different parts of the female body.

The piece called “Life Dress” consists of dresses “to protect women in all work situations where there is some kind of abuse,” Framis told AFP.

The 52-year-old artist said she had spoken with victims of harassment and abuse and allowed their stories to inspire the dress designs, using “fashion to demonstrate against violence.”

Where Framis uses humour to spotlight abuse, Los Angeles-based artist Andrea Bowers's massive archival project “Open Secrets” radiates rage.

Andrea Bower's “Open Secrets” has already caused controversy. Photo: AFP

It consists of reams of photographic prints on red backgrounds, each listing the name and occupation of a public figure accused of sexual harassment or abuse, their public response to the accusations and details of the case.

'Rape culture'

Disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein, whose misconduct first sparked the #MeToo movement, has two full panels dedicated to his long list of alleged misdeeds.

US President Donald Trump also figures in the piece, as do his predecessors Bill Clinton and George Bush Senior, two Supreme Court justices, as well as actors, journalists, musicians and other public figures. 

“I just felt like the #MeToo movement is perhaps one of the most important feminist movements of my lifetime,” Bowers told AFP, explaining her inspiration for the piece.

The 54-year-old self-described feminist activist artist said she had been shocked to realise “what it was like for me growing up, that it was rape culture, where … young men were given permission to sexually violate me and my friends.”

With the #MeToo movement, such behaviour is finally “being acknowledged,” she said. “I hope that it's a historic shift.” 

During a preview earlier this week, men in particular lingered in front of the piece which covers two long walls, back and front, in the middle of the fair's Unlimited exhibition space.

“You can see a lot of men standing here and being a bit unsure how to react,” said Vanja Oberhoff, a young German art investor standing among some dozen men gazing at the articles.

“It's a very strong piece,” he told AFP. 

Not all reactions have been positive.

Helen Donahue, who in 2017 tweeted out photographs of herself bearing the marks of alleged abuse by freelance columnist Michael Hafford, voiced outrage that Bowers had used one of the pictures.

“Cool that my fucking photos and trauma are heading art basel thx for exploiting us for 'art' ANDREA BOWERS,” she tweeted on Tuesday.

Bowers, who insists on the importance of trusting survivors, quickly issued an apology for not seeking Donahue's consent before using the picture and removed the panel from the exhibit.

'Equalisation'?

The artist also told AFP that showing her piece at Art Basel had been more challenging than she had expected.

The VIP opening of the show drew “some of the richest people in the world, and they actually know many of the people on the walls, because these are also some of the most powerful people in the world,” Bowers said.

“This is an emotional piece for a lot of people here because it is very personal.”

The piece shows “we have to change our thinking, and not everybody is ready to do that… There is still a lot more work to be done.”

This year's Art Basel is also abuzz with discussion about disparities between the prices raked in for pieces made by male and female artists, as well as access to gallery representation.

Clare McAndrew, a cultural economist who writes the annual Art Market Report released each year ahead of Art Basel, told AFP that women still face “stark under-representation” in the art world.

“Only five percent of the work sold last year at auction were by female artists, and the higher up the price point you go, the worse that gets,” she said, adding that even at galleries only showing contemporary art, women account for about a third of the represented artists.

Marc Glimcher, who heads Pace Gallery, a global leader in contemporary art, acknowledged that the most talented women artists have long made only about a 10th of the amount made by contemporary male artists, if they were lucky.

But he told AFP that “an equalisation is taking place”.

“The market recognises that there was an arbitrary depression of value, and a possible opportunity.” 

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