Ugo Rondinone at Eva Presenhuber, via Art Observed

Closing its doors this evening, the week of sales at Art Basel Miami Beach came to a close, capping off a strong week for galleries in South Florida, and a strong opportunity to close out the year with a flourish.  Sales percentages with new clients were particularly high this year, underscoring the fair’s crucial role in connecting collectors across continents and drawing so many to the city.

Keith Haring at Levy Grovy

At Paula Cooper, the gallery was championing works by artists Sophie Calle, Cady Noland and Sherry Levine, while PACE gallery presented a highly curated booth with a focus on light and space, featuring  Robert Irwin, Christo and Peter Alexander, among others. The presentation entitled “lightness of being” offered an impactful, memorable experience drawing energy and crowds to the booth.  Perrotin’s booth, by contrast, featured What goes round- are comes round (2010), an installation by Paola Pivi covering the floor walls and ceiling of the booth of black and white bear shaped rugs.

Thomas Bayrle at Gavin Brown, via Art Observed

New galleries to the fair included Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Los Angeles that stated outstanding sales and a marked enthusiasm from the community on hand. Others, like Hanart TZ Gallery in Hong Kong presented Chinese artist Xu Longsen’s works for the first time, and were also welcomed with great enthusiasm.  Other young emerging artists successfully selling were Tschabalala Self and Issy Wood. The Latin American market definitely was strengthened with collectors emerging from Peru, Colombia, and Brazil, with galleries from Brazil showing continued growth. Italian gallery Magazzino was exploring the region of Calexico, presenting Guillermo Galindo’s flags found at the border once used to indicate the presence of water tanks in the desert. In similar fashion, the work of Fiamma Montezemolo’s video contemplative images, confessions and theoretical reflections on life between the United States and Mexico. The video was composed of images of a rusty wall, decaying surveillance structures, and furtive moments of voiceover work by undocumented migrants enunciated from different times and places. Both works were sold to major institutions in North America and Europe.

Allen Jones, via Art Observed

Tom Wesselmann, via Art Observed

Although Art Basel is mostly known to be a contemporary art fair, modern art still proved to be a popular proposition in the fair ecosystem, and exercised its power with major works by Picabia and Chagall selling at Hammer Galleries, while Pablo Picasso’s Tete de Femme (1971), sold by Van de Weghe at $17 million and Frida Kahlo’s final self portrait, priced at around $5.8 million, sold at New York based gallery Mary Ann Martin. Other outstanding sales were made by Hauser & Wirth, which sold Philip Guston’s Shoe Head  (1976) for $7.5 million and Mark Bradford’s Feather ’s Feather (2018) for $5 million.

Grune Lounge, via Vienna Tourist Board