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A Slow and Steady Art Basel
"Slow and steady wins the race" could have been the slogan for the 43rd edition of Art Basel, which opened with a two-day-long VIP preview for the first time this year. The staggered openings consisted of three preview slots ("1st Choice" on Tuesday at 11am, a second slot at 3pm the same day, and a third on Wednesday at 11am) and gave collectors plenty of face-to-face interactions with dealers and more time to make informed decisions.
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The Kiev Biennial Opens Softly
Earlier this month saw the belated opening of the first Kiev Biennale, "The Best of Times, the Worst of Times," organized by British-born independent curator David Elliott. Showcasing over 250 works (40 of them new) by 100 artists, the biennial is the inaugural exhibition at the newly refurbished Mystetskyi Arsenal, a 200,000-square-foot former military base that will henceforth function as the National Cultural Art Museum Complex.
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Peter Greenaway Advocates Non-Cinema at Video Fair
The video-only art fair LOOP kicked off its 10th edition last Thursday in Barcelona. 47 international galleries rented a room each in the four-star Hotel Ramblas in the Catalonian capital to show the work of one artist in their program. With Spain's economy at a standstill, the fair more than ever recalled the Gramercy International Art Fair (now the Armory Show) held in New York's Gramercy Hotel during the economically difficult mid-'90s. But buyers at the opening were undeterred.
During the professional preview, Crevecoeur (Paris) sold a 2009 edition of the multi-part Whispering Pines, a projected video by L.A.-based artist Shana Moulton, for over $5,000, with a second on reserve. Motive from Amsterdam pushed the boundaries of the video fair, sneaking in a 16-mm film, Monument of Sugar (2007) by the Dutch artist duo Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan. It sold within the first hour to the collection of the FRAC Marseille for about $20,000. Paris's Galerie Martine Thibault de la Châtre sold one copy of Moussa Sarr's two-and-a-half-minute video The Frog and the Scorpion (2012) for roughly $2,500.
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Sunny Skies Over Berlin Gallery Weekend
Squeezed between Art Cologne, Art Brussels and Frieze New York, Berlin Gallery Weekend got off to a bright start last week. With 51 participating galleries, this year's eighth edition was the biggest ever and for the first time included a handful of younger galleries who were invited at a reduced participation fee. Coinciding with this year's seventh Berlin Biennale, the extended opening rung in the German summer with temperatures in the mid-eighties. As Rachel Pownall of Maastricht University argued at this year's TEFAF, "Sunshine significantly influences art buying behavior." She claimed auctions take in 3% more on sunny days.
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Art Brussels Takes on Rival Art Cologne
The 30th edition of Art Brussels went head to head with Art Cologne this past weekend. They opened just a day apart. The bulk of the fair comprised up-and-coming European galleries like Soy Capitán (Berlin), Torri (London), fluxia (Milan), Plan B (Cluj / Berlin), Motive Gallery (Amsterdam), Torri (Paris) and Hannah Barry (London). VidalCuglietta (Brussels) and Office Baroque (Antwerp) were among the young Belgian galleries; both reported sold-out booths by the end of the second day. On the first day, Gallery Maskara (Mumbai) sold nearly all its paintings and drawings by Indian artist T. Vekanna, while Cherry and Martin (Los Angeles) sold out a solo presentation of six two-colored abstract paintings by Matt Connors.
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Mixed Media. Courtesy Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York, and the artist.
Extraction, the most recent series of mixed media collages
