Basel Grins and Bears Pre-Boom Prices

Andy Warhol Cy Twombly Donald Judd Georg Baselitz Francis Alys Luc Tuymans Gordon Matta Clark Francesco Clemente

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At Berlin gallery Contemporary Fine Arts, a number of pieces had sold in the fair’s first few hours, including a large sculpture by Thomas Houseago and a sizable painting by Georg Baselitz that, at €375,000 ($528,000), was one of the booth’s priciest items. And at Berlin and Leipzig gallery Eigen+Art, owner Gerd Harry Lybke was ebullient. Among other works, he’d parted with a large new painting by David Schnell, for €60,000. Asked how the fair was going in its early hours, he got right to the point: “Great, perfect, sensational.”

And even with the recession, some young artists are still generating buzz — and copious sales. On Monday night, when the Art Statements section for solo shows by emerging artists opened, New York’s Bortolami sold a handful of small and medium-sized paintings by Richard Aldrich, at $5,000 and $7,000, as well as a larger piece for $14,000. Nearby, collectors had flocked to Karlsrühe, Germany, gallerist Iris Kadel’s booth to snap up paintings and works on paper by Benedikt Hipp, which sold for as little as €1,200 apiece (prints were even cheaper). The largest painting in the booth, which sold almost immediately, was around €10,000. Andreas Pucher, a Stuttgart-based collector and a proud owner of Hipp’s work, pointed out that getting pieces by him is “very difficult. He’s really successful, even in the crisis.”