By Heidi Lee
This year’s ArtBasel, the 41st annual rendition of the international art fair where the world’s most serious art lovers and collectors gather from around the world, once again turned the small town of Basel upside down. Numerous participating galleries and journalists ranked this year’s celebration as more successful than last year’s extravaganza in terms of sales, extraordinary quality material and booth presentations. To add method to the madness, many galleries opted to feature thematic exhibitions and one-person shows in their booths, including Thomas Ammann’s stellar showcase of Andy Warhol portraits and Brillo boxes and Marlborough Gallery’s museum-quality showing of large scale Francis Bacon masterpieces.
Andy Warhol Instillation
If that didn’t take your breath away other highlights included major works by legendary artists Carl Andre, John Baldessari, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Dan Flavin, Mona Hatoum, Anish Kapoor, Robert Rauschenberg, Thomas Schütte, and Rirkrit Tiravanija, joined by works from younger contemporaries Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla (who represented the U.S. in this years Venice Biennial), Jacob Kassay, Robert Kusmirowski, and Sarah Morris. Testimony to the fair’s success was Lucy Mitchell-Innes of Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery in New York who said, “this continues to be by far the best international fair in the world. I found the quality to be stronger this year.”
Haegue Yang Instillation
Kehinde Wiley
Other impressive sights included solo shows by artists Giorgio Morandi, Lygia Clark, Alighiero Boetti, Jimmie Durham and Rirkrit Tiravanija, among others. Design Miami/Basel also drew impressive results in terms of quality furniture and sales, under the new directorship of Marianne Goebl. With so much to see and do, four days was hardly enough for me to see and do everything. I did manage to take a much-needed break at the temporary man-made beach installed across the street–probably Basel’s most practical creative endeavor!
ArtBasel will debut in Hong Kong next year so it is sure to become a must-go travel destination.
