Scope Basel Ups the Ante

BASEL—Say what you like about Alexis Hubshman and his Scope team, but you can’t accuse them of complacency. Though I wasn’t the only one to praise Scope’s Basel debut last year as one of the highlights of the week, this year they’ve gone and upped things a notch, finding themselves a new site right by the Rhine and making sure you can get there not only by shuttle bus from Art Basel, but also by water taxi from Volta, Bâlelatina, and Liste. (They also claim you can walk there from the Messeplatz, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend it.) They’re in the sort of tent they use in New York and Miami, but seem finally to have installed an A/C system that works, and — most important of all — they have discovered even more galleries (now a total of 85 from 28 different countries, apparently) who share their ethos.

It’s an ethos that snickers at the high seriousness of Art Basel and is happy to take things as they come. Scope wasn’t even meant to be open yesterday, and many gallerists were still hanging their booths, but when people showed up — “we were bum-rushed” was Hubshman’s explanation — they were let in anyway, and quite a lot of buying and selling got done: by the ever-successful Mike Weiss and his star painter and video artist, Yigal Ozeri, for example, and by Saatchi Online, which sold 10 pieces commission-free.

It’s an ethos that respects technical adventure above technical perfection, renders the phrase “mixed media” almost tautologous, and is so respectful of alternative materials — sewing thread piled upon mirror boxes, beans, sugar, etched eggs, and skin, for example — that they hardly seem alternative anymore. I very much liked Jonathan Baldock’s heads made of salt dough and his big stuffed installation made from wool and felt, Fat Face Tells Porkies But All Eyes Are on Him (2006–08), which has been reserved at £20,000 ($39,000), both at London’s FAS Contemporary.

It’s an ethos that’s a little too fond of soft porn sometimes — though you’ll find that at the big fair, too — but that values the creepy and bizarre: Utrecht’s Flatland Gallery has a group of ceramic figures by Carolein Smit that dwell on nature and its functions in a wonderfully unsettling way, including a man of sorrows oozing blood and a Skinned Hare (2008), with a look of understandable horror on its face, that can be yours for €6,500.

It’s an ethos that encourages artists’ sense of humor and their prolificacy. There’s far too much to take in at Scope, but unlike the desire that Art Basel induces in many of its visitors — to run out into the Messeplatz screaming — there’s something so genuinely engaging about much of the art at Scope that you really want to go back for another visit.

It’s an ethos that knows that there’s far more to art than buying and selling it. The Scope Foundation continues its installation program here, as at previous fairs, with various projects; I particularly enjoyed Jade Townsend’s your dirty and smelly and you steal babies (dated 2008, but his gallerist Priska Juschka explained that in this case, that means that he built it here last week). Also included within the Scope space is “By All Means,” a noncommercial exhibition curated by Thomas Erben that presents ten emerging artists from India and South Asia.

But it’s also an ethos that realizes that without dealers, many artists end up simply making work for their family and friends, or can’t afford to make anything at all. And it’s an ethos that’s ambitious: None of the Scope gallerists is in it simply for fun. Many of them are already very successful, both artistically and financially, and in Alexis Hubshman have found a fair president who aims high — probably irritatingly so, to his competitors. He claims that Scope has “brought Volta and Bâlelatina into its orbit” and talks about expanding into Spain, China, and Dubai. And I bet he won’t allow himself to fail.

Louise Blouin Media, parent company of ARTINFO.com, is a media sponsor of Scope Basel.