Courtesy Patrick Sequin

At Galerie Patrick Seguin, a unique Charlotte Perriand bookcase in steel, wood, and aluminum from 1960 sold for around $182,000.

Courtesy Perimeter Editions

Perimeter Editions sold a stunning three-part Nenuphar Miroir table by Janette Laverrièrre in plexiglass, plywood, and polished steel for roughly $35,000.

 

 

Gio Ponti Isamu Noguchi Marcel Breuer Le Corbusier Joep van Lieshout Neo Rauch Jean Prouvé Charlotte Perriand

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Participation at the design fair was down somewhat, after a handful of major New York and Asian galleries dropped out due to the global recession, but the 27 strong exhibitors on hand reported reassuring results.

Business was booming at Paris-based Galerie Patrick Seguin, which brought its usual vintage stable of major French designers, including Jean Prouvé, Charlotte Perriand, Pierre Jeanneret, and Le Corbusier.

“We’ve had a lot of sales, including some to major contemporary-art collectors,” said Patrick Seguin, explaining that 95 percent of his clients focus on contemporary work.

Seguin sold three minimal wall units in wood from 1956–59 by Le Corbusier at €6,500 ($9,100) apiece, Jean Prouvé’s Brazzaville table from 1952 in African wood and steel for approximately €180,000, and a Chandigarh sofa set with two armchairs from 1952–56 in teak and cow skin by Pierre Jeanneret at €65,000.

Seguin also sold a pair of Jeanneret’s Visitor, High Court armchairs in teak and cow skin, also from Chandigarh, for €40,000, and, from Charlotte Perriand, a unique bookcase in steel, wood, and aluminum from 1960 for around €130,000 as well as a swiveling armchair in wood from circa 1947 for approximately €38,000.

“I had no big expectations,” said Seguin, “but people are really buying.”

It wasn’t only big French modernists that were selling, as indicated by brisk transactions at Rotterdam’s Vivid Gallery.

On Tuesday, screen hunk Brad Pitt continued his Basel buying spree, acquiring from Vivid Atelier van Lieshout’s unique Fossil Chaise Lounge, a 2009 interpretation of a human figure in foam, epoxy, and metal, for €23,000.

Perhaps Pitt will view his newly acquired Neo Rauch painting, Etappe (1998), which he snapped up earlier in the day for €680,000 from New York’s David Zwirner gallery at Art Basel, while lounging in the deliberately funky Lieshout chaise.

A Swiss collector bought Studio Job’s Spoon (2007) — an overgrown model of the pedestrian utensil towering some 10 feet high and clad in 24-carat white-gold mosaic — for €40,000.

Noted graphic designer/architect Mels Crouwel bought Spaniard Jamie Hayon’s prototype Science Vase 2 in pyrex glass and colored tubes from 2009 for €8,500.

“The exciting thing this year,” said Vivid’s creative director, Aad Krol, “is the new location, which brings us so much closer to the main fair.”

But some of the exhibitors were expecting more in terms of both sales and foot traffic, including Paris-based Perimeter Editions.

“We’re happy, but I think we could be doing better,” said the gallery’s Nicola Chwat, who ticked off a number of key sales, including two works by gallery artist Guillaume Bardet.

Moby Dick, a massive bench in Carrara marble from 2008 and part of an edition of 8 plus two artist proofs and two prototypes, sold to a Turkish collector for approximately €45,000, and the organically shaped “Demi Galet,” in resin and lacquer and from the same edition size, sold to a European collector for €24,000.

The gallery also sold a stunning three-part Nenuphar Miroir table by Janette Laverrièrre in plexiglass, plywood, and polished steel, from the same edition size, for €25,000.

Chwat was hoping Pitt, who had expressed strong interest in Studio Libertiny's The Bic Blue Cabinet in lacquer, ink, and wood, priced at for €24,000, would pull the trigger.

“We need a few more sales to make us really happy,” she said.

But on Wednesday afternoon, the generously proportioned aisles in Halle 5 were barely trafficked, leaving the appearance of a fair about to begin, not in its second full day of operation.

Part of that underwhelming turnout might be attributed to the relative lack of branded signage heralding the fair’s location directly behind the Art Unlimited building that faces the Messeplatz.

Several exhibitors voiced irritation at the “try and find it” situation, saying it might be the result of a tricky relationship between Art Basel’s sponsor, the giant but troubled Swiss bank UBS, and Design Miami/Basel’s main sponsor, HSBC Private Bank.

“There’s no signage,” complained design dealer Loïc Le Gaillard of London's Carpenters Workshop. “It’s completely screwy because UBS doesn’t want to see any HSBC signage. The move of the design fair to here (from the Markthalle) hasn’t created more foot traffic.”

Efforts to reach a UBS spokesperson for comment were unsuccessful, and a spokesperson for Art Basel declined to comment, explaining that there is “nothing I can say at this point” of the perceived situation.

But back to the commercial action. Stockholm- and Berlin-based Jacksons, a Design Miami/Basel newcomer, reported a handful of sales, including Gio Ponti’s Jumping Horse desk in Mahogany from the 1950s for a little under €70,000 and a 1936 Marcel Breuer laminated Birch table in molded plywood that the architect/designer originally gave to his accountant and that a young Swiss collector picked up for €20,000.

The gallery also sold a striking cabinet from the 1940s by Austrian designer Josef Frank that is covered in paper decorations of botanical illustrations for €30,000.

Jacksons’s star attraction, though, a rare and stunning swivel-top Isamu Noguchi table in aluminum and wood from 1944, believed to be one of only four extent versions and priced in the €200,000 range, had yet to find a buyer.

“It’s an important and rare piece,” said gallerist Paul Jackson. “I discovered it in a New York collection and immediately bought it.”

Veteran exhibitor Philippe Denys of Brussels was very pleased with the rate of transactions at his booth, which included some hard bargaining with Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. The billionaire art-lover bought a slew of work by Poul Kjaerholm, including two marble-topped tables from the mid-1950s for €55,000 and a set of six leather-covered PK 9 chairs with stainless steel legs for €36,000.

“He likes to bargain,” said Denys.

The dealer also sold a rare grouping of colored, cube-shaped lights in fiberglass by Verner Panton that were commissioned for the German news magazine Der Speigel’s Hamburg headquarters in 1968 for €20,000.

One of the more unusual additions to this latest edition of Design Miami/Basel is first-timer Galerie Perrin of Paris, more familiar to visitors of Maastricht’s TEFAF fair; in shocking contrast to the mostly 20th- and 21st-century dealers at the fair, Perrin is exclusively offering works from the 18th century.

Has Design Miami/Basel gone antique?

Who knows, but dealer Philippe Perrin was delighted with his new surroundings, saying “it’s a totally different crowd” compared to TEFAF, “and the response has been pretty good.”

“I feel comfortable,” added the dealer, despite not having made any sales. “I brought really big and important things and they [the collectors] don’t decide in a minute.”

Even some of the exhibitors that opted out of Design Miami/Basel this time round felt good about the fair, and about its new atmosphere. “We’ll come back next year,” said Suzanne Demisch of the New York–based Demisch Danant. “It’s an important part of the business.”

Judd Tully is Editor at Large of Art+Auction.