Art Basel Opens to Select Crowd

Scott Reyburn reporting for Bloomberg reports Art Basel opened for a preview for invited guests only.  In other words, the heavy hitters and collectors of the contemporary art world.  As in the auction place, the news at the very top end of the sector remains good, with a Picasso sculpture selling for $15 million.

The art fair is one of the largest contemporary art fairs in the world with 303 galleries displaying.  This is the 41st year for Art Basel.

For appraisers, the interesting aspect is again the strength of the top of the market, and the muddled middle.  Current auction sales, including the recent price records has helped with market momentum and is certainly helping sales at the fair.  Some dealers saying the contemporary market is just about back to 2007 levels, at least at the very top end.

Art Info also reports of eager buyers with "wallets in hand" and that it is a bull market.

Reyburn reports

Hauser & Wirth also sold two sets of five 6-foot-high silicone sculptures of dwarfs by the Los Angeles-based artist Paul McCarthy. New works inspired by Walt Disney’s “Snow White,” these were priced at $3 million per set. Cheim & Read sold a canvas by the French-based painter Joan Mitchell for about $2 million, said Sheffer.

“We’re back to 2007 price levels for some names,” the New York-based dealer Per Skarstedt said. He listed a 2002 Christopher Wool abstract at $800,000, a 1992 Cindy Sherman photo at $500,000 and a 1987 Barbara Kruger silkscreen at $700,000 among his sales. The Sherman went to a Swiss collector, the Wool and the Sherman to U.S. buyers.

Hauser & Wirth was keen to avoid being overly exuberant about its recent signing of Matthew Day Jackson. A new life-size recycled wood sculpture of the artist as an astronaut sold to a European collector for $150,000. U.S.-based Jackson’s work was recently exhibited at Francois Pinault’s Punta della Dogana museum in Venice. One of his works sold for a record 601,250 pounds ($890,000) in February.

“We’ve been careful about pricing this artist,” gallery director Iwan Wirth said in an interview. “Otherwise, the market is pretty much back to the world we knew in 2008. The crisis in the art world lasted for six months, then it went back up.”

To read the full article, click HERE. To read the Art Info article, click HERE.