A Surprisingly Steady and Solid Beat at Art Basel’s Day Two

Courtesy Bortomlami Gallery

New York's Bortomlami Gallery sold Aaron Young’s “fenceMiami" for $100,000 to an Italian collector.

James Nares Tim Eitel Morris Louis Luc Tuymans Michelangelo Pistoletto Sigmar Polke Wolfgang Tillmans Mary Heilmann

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Activity was noted at Chelsea’s Paul Kasmin Gallery, as French artist Claude Lalanne’s bronze Ginkgo (Banc) from 1996 sold in the $90,000 range; American artist Walton Ford’s large-scale and natural history–like Housatonic Ghost Cats from 2008 in watercolor, gouache, pencil, and ink on paper, depicting mating lions on an ancient cemetery plot, went in the $400,000 range; and an 80-inch-high oil-on-linen painting by New York–based artist James Nares, What I Saw from 2008, sold for an asking price of $60,000.

Kasmin also dispatched at least one version of Kenny Scharf's Cosmic Donut (2008) from an edition of 60, for $8,000.

“People came down to Miami to get access to things that normally are gone in two seconds,” said Kasmin director Clara Ha.

Another Chelsea presence, Bortolami Gallery, managed to do some business, despite making it difficult for viewers to enter its booth because of Aaron Young’s fenceMiami — a steel hurricane fence dipped in 24-carat gold that covered the width of the stand but was bent in two places to allow patrons to pass through. It sold for $100,000 to an Italian collector, much to the disappointment of a super-famous hip-hop couple making the rounds of the fair with oversized bodyguards. The artist has agreed to make a duplicate of the 255-by-96-inch schoolyard fence for the couple, rumored to be Jay-Z and Beyoncé.

Snapshots like these might tempt one into thinking that the market has found respite from all of its economic worries and woes, for a few days at least, in sun-drenched Miami Beach.

Make no mistake, though, the correction has arrived, and it remains to be seen how far and deep it will go.

“Hopefully this reset on the market will be good for art and artists,” said New York exhibitor Sean Kelly, “but everyone has to adjust their expectations.”

Judd Tully is Editor at Large of Art+Auction.