Nearly 100,000 art lovers attended Art Basel, the world’s most prestigious modern and contemporary fair, which closed on Sunday. Almost 300 galleries from 33 countries exhibited works by 4,000 artists, from Monet to the latest art sensations, with an estimated total value of $3.4 billion (£2.1 billion).
With auctions in this sector running at their highest level ever, dealers were anxious to tap into the buyers’ enthusiasm – and they were not disappointed. While the most expensive works there, by Rothko, Picasso, Calder and Bacon – priced from $15 million to $50 million – were not selling, there was frenetic activity for lower-priced work.
Within the first hour, the Victoria Miro Gallery from London had sold out of works by Secundo Hernandez, Yayoi Kusama and Sarah Sze. The Max Hetzler Gallery from Paris and Berlin sold six paintings by the abstract artist Albert Oehlen, one for €600,000 (£430,000), while the Pace Gallery from London, New York and Beijing sold seven works by Robert Rauschenberg from the Seventies for $4.2 million. The David Zwirner Gallery from London and New York sold 12 works on day one for $13 million, including old and new art by Marlene Dumas, Sigmar Polke, Michael Borremans, Bridget Riley and Kusama, all over $1 million.
The buying frenzy was put down to the increasing popularity of art as an investment for the wealthy, and the fear of being outbid. That said, several artists sold for more than their auction records. A large canvas of dozens of interlocking figures by the graffiti artist Keith Haring sold for $5 million, and a painting by the neglected American pop artist Alan d’Arcangelo sold for $500,000.
In the exhibition hall for outsize works, a room of 25 monochrome paintings graduating from white to grey to black made by Marcia Hafif in 1973, and not seen since, was being held on reserve as a minimalist classic for a museum at $1.75 million – far more than her auction prices. Meanwhile, a 52ft wall of charred aluminium cooking pots by the littleknown Saudi Arabian artist Maha Mullah was priced at €190,000, and sold quickly.
The performance artist Ulay is back after an illness to exhibit 100 polaroid photos from the Sixties. Exhibited by London and Brussels gallery MOT International, they sold for €500,000.
Perhaps the most lasting impression of this year’s fair was the number of people snapping their favourite images and putting them on Facebook or Instagram. Most popular were Jonathan Horowitz’s nine panel portraits of Beyoncé, which sold at Sadie Coles for $95,000; Jeppe Hein’s Parallel Mirrors, a semi-circular walkway through tall mirrored strips, which sold for €180,000 through Meyer Riegger; and a wall of crystal spheres that changed colour as you walked by them, by Olafur Eliasson, creator of the famous Weather Project (see Richard Dorment, opposite), which sold for €400,000 at Berlin’s Neuggeriemschneider.