Art Basel

September 2009 Fair Reviews

Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair

Olympia International Art & Antiques Fair

ArtHamptons

Alexander Calder David Smith Francis Alys Luc Tuymans Sigmar Polke Alexander Rodchenko Gordon Matta Clark Wim Delvoye

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If Art Basel is a test of the art market, the market scored a solid pass. Collectors took their time deciding but made a healthy number of purchases. Many dealers claim to have had better sales than expected. Observers agree that this year’s offerings were more conservative than usual. New York art adviser Todd Levin says exhibitors shied away from "pieces that make unruly demands on collectors," sticking with ones that were "reasonably fresh to market, where it’s about known quality and quantity."

+ Movie star Brad Pitt reportedly snagged the 1998 Neo Rauch painting Etappe, for just under $1 million from David Zwirner. The New York dealer also parted with works by Gordon Matta-Clark, Francis Alÿs, Adel Abdessemed, On Kawara and Luc Tuymans. Through a representative, Zwirner says that this year "is not as booming as 2008 was for us, but it feels like 2007."

+ Galerie Gmurzynska, of Cologne and St. Moritz, sold two 1964 Untitled (Nude) paintings by David Smith, at $200,000 apiece, as well as Alexander Calder’s gouache Striped Man: Striped Sweater, 1953, for just under $200,000, and Alexander Rodchenko’s Untitled (Spiral), 1919, in pencil on thin cardboard, for around $71,000.

+ New York’s Sperone Westwater received $50,000 from an unnamed American museum for Charles LeDray’s 1993 sculpture Mattress, in cotton batting, fabric, cord, thread and charcoal, with tea and coffee stains. Sperone also brought in a six-figure sum for Liu Ye‘s 2008 acrylic on canvas Miss, depicting a woman in a bowler hat and trench coat, bookended by suitcases, which a German collector bought. Another European purchased Wim Delvoye’s Cement Mixer Scale Model, 2009, in laser-cut steel, for €80,000 ($112,560).

+ Still a third European laid out $500,000 for Sigmar Polke’s Untitled (Interior), 1984, a gelatin silver print with paint, from San Francisco’s Anthony Meier Fine Arts.

"Art Basel" originally appeared in the September 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's September 2009 Table of Contents.