Art Basel This Week

Over 300 art galleries will be exposing their proposals thru June 19 in one major venue of the contemporary art market: Basel.

The fair is currently reaching out to new East horizons. Director Marc Spiegler had this to say before the grand opening to DPA press agency: “In the past mostly Europe and the Americas were counted in. Now there are new markets, so that’s why we should be everywhere.” No wonder Art Basel recently bought 60 percent of the Art HK fair in Hong Kong, the most important exhibit of its kind in Asia. “We’ll mediate between the West and the Far East by fostering collaboration with Asian artists and gallery owners,” Spiegler went on to say. Another goal behind this effort is the multiplication of the Art Basel Miami Beach ripple effects, being held since 2002 thanks to the tremendous success it has had in America with increasing numbers of Latin American collectors attending the fair in Basel.

Spiegler and Annette Schönholzer are the directors of this 42nd edition that has added new cores to its structure in a bid to keep gallery owners, collectors and the general public interested in it. For instance, Art Feature came along, focused on the curatorial work of the galleries. For the 2011 edition, some 200 new candidates were presented and 20 projects were eventually chosen, a token of mounting expectations and interest among exhibitors. Another feather in the fair’s hat was Art Unlimited, dedicated to monumental pieces, many of them especially designed for this event, which grabbed great acclaim among visitors. This time around, spectators will watch artworks by John Baldessari, Daniel Buren, Hans-Peter-Feldmann, Anish Kapoor, Thomas Schütte, Robert Rauschenberg, Brazil’s Waltercio Caldas and Mexico’s Minerva Cuevas, among others.

Generally speaking, this year’s Art Basel will gather 300 galleries from 35 countries for a grand total of 2,500 artists representing the 20th and 21st centuries. For the first time there will be exhibitors from Thailand, Hungary and Iceland.