Tiermetabolismus V (Katzchen) by Jonathan Meese at Bortolami Gallery, Art Basel Main Fair, Hall B, Booth I-09.

Art Observed will be on site as of today for the ninth edition of the America’s biggest contemporary art fair: Art Basel Miami Beach which will open to the public on Thursday December 2 and will run through Sunday, December 5.

The main section of the fair will house over 180 galleries and over 40,000 are expected following the December 2nd opening.  Annette Schönholzer and Marc Spiegler are the main fair organizers alongside its main sponsor UBS with Cartier, NetJets and AXA Art as the associate sponsors.  While Art Basel is still the main draw, the NADA Fair (the New Art Dealers Alliance) up the road at the Dauville Beach Resort will open to the public Thursday December 2. It will run through Sunday December 5 and also should not be missed.

Untitled (Art Fair Floor) by Ryan Reggiani.  Kate Werble Gallery at Nada Art Fair, booth 312.

The fair week is notable for its bridging of the Latin American buyers with American and British art centers as well as its uniquely intense amalgamation of social, media, fashion and other spheres of influence into the business of selling art.

The global art market seems to have stabilized this year and the main fair, along with its very significant satellites, should be met with lively buying this round.  Beyond this, all around Miami, the social calendar will be infused with events to the point where there is little chance to avoid regretfully missing something.

A view of an installation by Terrence Koh at The Island, an event during the week (see bel0w).

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Quilt by Alexandre da Cunha, and Six Billboards by Angus Fairhust, Art Basel.  Image via Art Daily, AP Photo/Keystone/Georgios Kefalas.

Yesterday marked the end of the most highly-attended Art Basel to date. The 41st annual contemporary art fair boasted 306 galleries from 36 countries, and AO was on site to peruse the work of some 2,5000 artists.  62,500 dealers, collectors, curators, high-profile shoppers, artists, and art appreciators navigated installations, browsed gallery booths, mingled, and enjoyed the city of Basel.  Artists, established and newcomers both, showcased works ranging from Polaroids to performance pieces, paintings to videos, sculptures to large-scale installations.  A social and teeming affair with an obvious commercial edge, Basel’s sales were optimistic.  Picasso, Warhol, Prince, Hirst, de Kooning, Pollock, and other similarly established artists reigned supreme as the focus of this year’s event.  Franck Giraud, a New York dealer, spoke to the New York Times about the lack of prominently featured up-and-comers: “Is it because that’s what the market wants, or is it because dealers didn’t want to take risks? I think it was a bit of both.” Nonetheless, certain galleries used Basel as a platform to introduce new artists and show off their latest signings.

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Team Gallery Booth at Art Basel 2010, Image via Art Basel.

AO is on site at Art Basel, Switzerland, where Wednesday marked the official, public opening of the international show.  On the roster was an inaugural Conversation Series speech by Paul McCarthy, an Art Film at Stadtkino Basel, and an Artist’s Talk with Rodney Graham at Kunstmuseum.  If the congenial and thronged atmosphere hadn’t tipped us off to the anticipation surrounding this year’s exhibitions, Tuesday’s sales would have been a clear indication.   A $15 million Picasso 1960 plaster maquette, Personnage, was snatched up immediately from Krugier Gallery by one of the VIP guests (an American collector) invited to Basel’s early opening, as was a line drawing by the same artist, one by Egon Schiele, and paintings by Max Ernst and Paul Klee. Sara Kay of the Geneva- and New York-based Kugier Gallery was unable to disclose the buyer of yesterday’s Picasso sale, but ten minutes after the purchase’s confirmation noted to Art Info that “[The] piece went to a very important collector with the best modern masters.  This is museum-quality, not trophy-level. It’s a very serious piece.” Skarstedt Gallery also enjoyed a  meritorious patronage yesterday, with sales including a Christopher Wool painting, Untitled, for $800,000, a Barbara Kruger photograph for $700,000, a Cindy Sherman piece for $500,000, and two works by George Condo: The Madman and The Colorful Banker, which fetched $375,000 and $225,000, respectively.  Hufkens Gallery sold a Louise Bourgeois etching, A Baudelaire (#7), which the late artist completed several months before her death in May, for $650,000 to a European collector.  Cheim & Read boasted a lucrative afternoon as well, with sales including a $2 million Joan Mitchell abstraction, a $125,000 Sam Francis drawing, a $100,000 Ghada Amer painting, Paradise, and a 28-strong Bourgeois watercolor series, Les Fleurs.  Lisson Gallery sold two Anish Kapoor‘s for $742,000.  Richard Prince‘s Student Nurse brought Gagosian $4.2 million, and Paul McCarthy’s bronze suites–Sneezy and Dopey–yielded Hauser & Wirth a combined total of $3 million. Blum & Poe sold a dyptich by Takashi Murakami for $1 million. White Cube reportedly sold six of Damien Hirst‘s new paintings, as well as Hirst’s “Memories of Love,” valued at $3.48 million. Lehmann Maupin sold two neon works by Tracey Emin, each for $74,000.

Damien Hirst, ““Memories of Love,” at White Cube’s booth, sold for $3.48 million. Image by Art Observed.

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Art 41 Basel, entrance view. All images by Art Observed unless otherwise noted.

AO was on site yesterday at Art 41 Basel, Switzerland, to see the 56 installations exhibited by the eleventh Art Unlimited, a museum-like forum for sizable and high-priced pieces. Installations of established masters and up-and-comers alike are characteristically oversized this year, with six pieces taking up over 200 square meters.  Despite the diversity of work, galleries, and featured artists, a distinct tonal resonance pervades Art Unlimited.  The lustrous style favored by Art Unlimited’s formative years gives way to a bold, rustic minimalism.  Although an intellectual understatement saturates this year’s Art Basel, Art Unlimited is hardly a quaint affair.  Economists and art experts alike are predicting major acquisitions for the international art elite, with a Giacometti and a Bourgeois notably up for grabs.

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Installation view of Adansonias at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris via gallery’s website

Terence Koh, a controversial Canadian multimedia artist, has premiered his first solo show with Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris. The enigmatic exhibition cum installation cum operatic performance in two parts distinctly embodies Koh’s ouevre. The gallery is transformed via the artist’s multitude of references to mythology, identity, power, religion, fashion and sexuality. In addition to the time-based pieces Koh presented on October 6th and October 22nd, on display are various objects and wall pieces executed in the artist’s signature white monochrome style. An amalgam of drawings, photographs, and collages document the experimental opera project and reflect the influence of Parisian architecture and sensibility on Koh’s art.

A photograph of Adansonias opera performance staged by Terence Koh and 8 white-clad participants via Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

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