Art Basel 37: Best in Show (So Far): Andrea Rosen Gallery

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For the quality of the works on display, the Andrea Rosen Gallery (New York) would be justified in charging a separate admission for the pleasure of strolling its space.

Upon entering, an Andrea Zittel wall sculpture (with three gouache paintings) takes up one wall, and its warm wood leads nicely into some iconic Al Hansen female figures made of cigarette butts and Hershey collages.

The gallery also has on view dozens more works by some of the most interesting artists of the past 20 years, including Sigmar Polke, John Currin, Ed Ruscha, Richard Tuttle, Claes Oldenburg and Wolfgang Tillmans.

The runner-up gallery is next door to Andrea Rosen: London's Victoria Miro Gallery, which was showing six Alice Neel paintings (our favorite being a portrait from 1946, Dick Bagley's Girlfriend) and three drawings; a Chris Ofili elephant-dung painting, a Thomas Demand photograph, Fassade (the last two prints from the edition of six were on reserve at £65,000); a photo from Isaac Julien’s True North series and a Hernan Bas painting from 2006 that went for $16,000; The Burden (I Shall Leave No Memories) features a louche young man, slouched in a chair, with his neck super-elongated by four Elizabethan ruffles.

Honorable mention goes to another gallery in this same, upscale neighborhood: White Cube (London). Particularly eye-catching was a Damien Hirst installation, The Martyrdom of St. Jude, a large, glass-walled cabinet containing medical glassware, bones, wooden crosses, a bloody glove and varied and sundry other Hirstian objects.

Other notable works included 20 mixed-media drawings of fantastical creatures by Jake and Dinos Chapman, a Tracey Emin neon sign and a drawing of a woman masturbating; a Fred Tomaselli painting, a Gilbert and George work, a Gary Hume painting, Cave Pauline, from 1999; and an elaborate Antony Gormley installation.