CHRONICLES OF AN UNDERCOVER REPORTER FROM EVERYWHERE TO BRAEMAR

Art

2019 is shaping up to be a big-bang

year with three new world- class museums set to open. In March, just after the Dubai art fair, Qatar will inaugurate its already famous National Museum, which was designed by Jean Nouvel, the acknowledged starchitect of cultural institutions. In April we’ll finally discover The Shed, a gigantic art centre given over largely to performance and financed by the Bloomberg group to the tune of $550 million, which will open in Manhattan in an ultra-technological and mobile building designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro – the architects responsible for the Broad in Los Angeles or the incredible Museu da Imagem e do Som in Rio de Janeiro which, alas, still hasn’t been completed. And then there’s the Cent re Pompidou Shanghai, which will join the West Bund group in a building by David Chipper f ield, who’s the most sought-after architect in the art world right now, distilling his chic minimalism all over the globe, from the Kunsthaus Zür ich to the Royal Academy in London, not to mention the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.

But, at the beginning of the year, it’s snow and mountains that are

synonymous with contemporary art. First up, Elevation 1049 – produced by the Luma Foundation and sponsored by Moncler – which once again took place in Gstaad, under the artistic leadership of Neville Wakefield and Olympia Scarry. A number of performances were specially conceived for the event, including Isabel Lewis’s in the grotto of the waterfall swimming pool in the incredible chalet that once belonged to Gunter Sachs, and is now the showroom of Hauser & Wirth. Meanwhile, at the Verbier Art Summit, Jochen Volz, director of the São Paulo Pinacoteca, coordinated a think-tank that featured an eclectic panel – everyone from curator Gabi Ngcobo and artists Ernesto Neto and Tania Bruguera to professor of neurophysiology Wolf Singer. Finally, the Engadin Art Talks continued their discussions, which this year took as their theme “Grace and Gravity,” with stars of the fashion world such as Juergen Teller (Phoebe Philo cancelled) and of course of the art world, such as curator Francesco Bonami, who is now also an artist – he’s currently showing 50 small portraits of his colleague Hans Ulrich Obrist at the 107 gallery in S- chanf. Engadin is a hothouse of collectors, and there are many galleries there, including Hauser & Wirth, who’ve just opened in Sankt Moritz. Iwan Wirth and his wife Manuela have also just inaugurated the sublime Fife Arms Hotel in Braemar, Scotland, which includes in situ works such as a ceiling by Zhang Enli, a “mural” by Guillermo Kuitca and a chandelier by Subodh Gupta. Located just 18 km from Balmoral, the hotel was opened by Prince Charles, no less.