art basel 2005, issue 4

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EVENTS, POLITICS AND ECONOMICS - SPECIAL ART BASEL EDITION
How US museum
curators buy at fairs
FRIDAY 17 JUNE 2005
Botero gets a conscience
BASEL. Richard Flood is an
old hand of the art world. He
has just been appointed chief
curator of the New Museum
of Contemporary Art in New
York and has been chief curator of the Walker Art Center
in Minneapolis for many
years. Yesterday morning, he
chaired the discussion “The
art of collecting: those who
collect—artists and art professionals” as part of the Art
Conversation series, sponsored by Bulgari. We interviewed him about how he
tackles art fairs.
The Art Newspaper: What
is your approach to an
enormous fair such as Art
Basel?
Richard Flood: As a curator,
you are contacted in advance
by a lot of dealers who let
you know what they will be
displaying. If the fair is the
first place I’ll be able to actually see a work, then I go to
them first, but mostly, I just
follow the map.
Povera exhibition,
Inevitably, on the
the first thing I did
first day you are
was go to those
running into hundealers most likely
dreds—literally
to have material by
hundreds—of peothat group of artists
ple you haven’t
and, in a number of
seen in a long
cases, I found
time, and making Richard Flood
works that I didn’t
your way through
even know existed,
the fair is a bit like getting or the whereabouts of which
through a conversational were lost.
maze. On the second day, I
We collect contemporary
start again, with much more and emerging work at the
efficiency.
Walker, and I spend a lot of
I always have a feeling, time listening to people tell
even as I go through and me: “There’s an incredible
check off where I have been, painting or sculpture over
that I am missing things. But there.” I try to see as many as
I think that’s the sign of a I can of those recommendagreat fair—when you are not tions from people I trust.
convinced that you have seen TAN: Do you actually buy
absolutely everything.
at the fair?
TAN: Is your priority to RF: Very few [curators] are
look at art or meet with empowered to just go in and
dealers and collectors?
say, “I’ll have it”, because
RF: The priorities change everything has to be brought
from visit to visit. When I back to go through an acquiwas working on an Arte sitions committee. You may
feel very certain that you will
be able to manage to acquire
the work for the collection,
but there is still an element
Villageneuf. There, in Au cerf, of risk. A lot of dealers really
they serve white asparagus, want to nail that sale and
and the 100 days of the don’t want to be taking the
asparagus season comes to an work back home with them,
end during Art Basel, so that and then having to wait for
is what I eat when I go there.
the decision to go through a
And finally, when we start committee and then having
packing up after the fair has to ship it. So if it’s a very
ended, I go to Klingental, important, very expensive
which is right next door to the work of art, the dealer can
biggest brothel in Basel and is choose to whom to sell it and
open all night.
would really have to want to
sell it to a museum for the
Pfeifenwolf, Frier Strasse 10 ☎061 261 26 86
Hotel Klingental, Klingental 20 ☎061 681 62 48
process to run smoothly.
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That’s why I and a lot of
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museum colleagues gravitate
Au Cerf, 72 rue du Gal de Gaulle
towards works on paper,
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because you know what your
budget is for discreetly
priced things.
TAN: Some curators or
museum directors have
patrons on their boards of
trustees who have dedicated themselves to acquiring
work for the museum.
Some acquire the works for
their private collections,
later to be donated, and
some fund the acquisitions
of the museum. Does the
Walker have people like
“My Basel” by Claes Nordenhake
I always visit
the Pfeifenwolf in the
Frier Strasse
to buy cigars.
They have a
great selection and you get 10% off when
you buy a whole case.
My favourite restaurant is
Chez Donati. It is the most
beautiful traditional Tuscan
restaurant of the Italian diaspora. Because the Basel
restaurants are always full
during Art Basel, I always
make an excursion to Alsace
to a little village called
CONTINUED ON PAGE
4
Reuters
Richard Flood of New York’s New Museum of Contemporary
Art debunks some myths and gives advice to the visitor
Fernando Botero in front of his painting inspired by the Abu Ghraib scandal,
currently on display at the Palazzo Venezia in Rome. For story, see p.4
New strategy for Art Basel
More theming, less serendipity
BASEL. As Art Basel’s initial
buying frenzy subsided and
dealers settled into the
steadier pace likely to dominate the rest of the fair,
director Sam Keller was
yesterday already looking
forward to the next edition
of Art Basel/Miami Beach,
where visitors will discover
the
latest
in
Messe
Schweiz’s stream of new
fair concepts. Art Cabinet,
a programme aimed at
encouraging galleries to go
beyond merely hanging
works up for sale and instead
devote part of their booth to
more curatorial endeavours,
is to be unveiled at the fair
in December.
“We have created Art
Cabinet in order to do several things”, explains Mr
Keller. “It will help galleries
get extraordinary works,
both from artists and from
estates, because of the special focus on these pieces. It
will add a more cultural and
educational aspect to the
fair. And it will make the fair
visually different—there
will be greater variety
between the stands. ”
Recent examples of Art
Cabinet-style projects at Art
Basel would include the
entire room Manhattan
dealer Per Skarstedt devoted to Richard Prince’s photograph Spiritual America
at last year’s Art Basel and
the dimly lit space created
at Thomas Ammann Fine
Arts to display a set of
Andy Warhol Diamond
Dust paintings.
As with pieces in the Art
Unlimited hall, Art Cabinet
projects will be proposed by
will probably tend toward
more historical art. And it
could
involve
several
artists, as long as there’s a
strong curatorial concept.
The main issue is that with
the market being so strong
Neugerriemschneider’s drastically-themed stand this year
which was simply walled up empty. By Rirkrit Tiravanija
accepted galleries to the
selection committee, which
will then choose as many as
20 concepts for a special section in the fair’s catalogue.
“We don’t want Art
Cabinet
to
be
like
Statements here, with lots of
mini shows for young
artists”, Mr Keller says. “It
right now, galleries tend
to go for commercial
approaches in building their
booths. The committee felt
we needed to give people a
motivation to try something
special, but without that
incentive, many of them
won’t take the risk.”
Marc Spiegler
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ART BASEL DAILY NEWSPAPER •FRIDAY 17 JUNE 2005
2 • THE ART NEWSPAPER
Gossip
Engadine woos
Gian Enzo Sperone
Comparative tables
What Count Panza
admired...
Many gallerists believe that the furniture on the stand is as important a part of
the installation as the works of art and in
some cases, as with the Damien Ortega
tables and chairs on Kurimanzutto
($35,000) and Luhring Augustine’s
magnificent Mattia Bonetti bronze
extravaganza in silver-plated and
coloured bronze (edition of 8,
$190,000), they can be works of art in
their own right. However, a more austere view is taken by the Mayor Gallery
which feels it is quite enough to be surrounded by museum quality works on
the stand without getting flashy with the
furniture. In fact, such is the state of disrepair of their table, with large strips of
formica peeling off its edges that it
threatens to catch on the clothes of
passers-by. So perhaps, given the
gallery’s long-abiding devotion to the
more subversive strains of Dada and
Surrealism, the table is a disguised
work of art after all.
Attempts to buy
at Beyeler
The Beyeler Foundation may be exhibiting in an institutional, rather than a commercial capacity at this year’s fair, but
this hasn’t stop collectors trying to buy
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THE ART NEWSPAPER
ART BASEL DAILY EDITION
Group Editorial Director: Anna Somers Cocks
Managing Director: James Knox
Editor: Cristina Ruiz
Art Market Editor: Georgina Adam
Correspondents: Marc Spiegler, Louisa Buck
Picture editor and editorial coordinator: Helen Stoilas
Production Manager: Eyal Lavi
Project manager: Patrick Kelly
Photographer: Katherine Hardy
Head of Sales: Louise Hamlin
Advertising Executive: Ben Tomlinson, Fabrizio Merlo
Art Unlimited makes
too many marks in high
places
the masterpieces on show on the
stand.“I want them all” a lady collector
was heard to sigh, “Are you sure that
nothing is for sale?”
The success of Candice Breitz’s
Mother/Father installation in the Italian
Pavilion at Venice has won her many
admirers and none, it seems, more
ardent than Jay Jopling, who was seen
having a long, intense, hand-clasping
conversation with Ms Breitz at
Francesca von Hapsburg’s party in honour of the artist, held on Das Schiff, a
barge-cum-restaurant moored on the
Rhine. Later on, Mr Jopling was seen to
be having another deep discussion with
Francesca Kaufman, who represents
Candice Breitz in Milan–but this time
with no hand-holding.
Italian dealer Gian Enzo Sperone of
Sperone Westwater may be spending
more time in the green pastures of the
Engadine. Rumours have it that he is
being wooed by one one of the valley’s
communities with the offer of premises
in which to hold exhibitions and other
culturefests. Gian Enzo Sperone has a
notable collection of art, with particular
strength in US Pop art.
The veteran collector of US art, Count
Panza di Biumo, much of whose collection ended up in America after the
Italian government failed to recognise a
good thing when it saw it, was observed
yesterday going around the fair. What
especially took his fancy? The Mariko
Mori ring of glowing glass forms,
Transcircle, in Art Unlimited.
Mr Gibson was forced to negotiate
Basel’s public transport system and is
now a complete convert: The Art
Newspaper has observed him take the
tram at least twice. What a pity that
London’s tram system is still on Mayor
Livingstone’s must-do list.
There has been much debate as to
whether the scratch-off cover of the Art
Unlimited Catalogue is a punky design
feature or a production flaw. Whichever,
it is certainly no friend to the high-maintenance art lover, wreaking havoc with
the elegant handbag linings and French
manicures of the art fair’s clientele.
Thomas Gibson takes
the tram
Grandee gallery owner Thomas
Gibson likes the finer things in life,
preferring not to get involved in matters mundane or domestic (he is last
known to have done some washing up
on Christmas Day, 1979 and his family have the photographs to prove it).
Imagine his dismay, therefore, when,
on finishing a meeting with a wealthy
client and asking directions to the
nearest taxi rank so that he could
return to the fair, the client directed
him to the nearest tram stop and put
him firmly inside the correct vehicle to
Messeplatz. Too terrified immediately
to get off and search for a taxi in case
his client happened to be passing by,
Sean Kelly: keeping
in touch
Guests at Sean Kelly’s 50th birthday
party were treated to a slide show á la
“This is your life”. While most of the
anecdotes accompanying the photographs must remain off the record, Mr
Kelly’s daughter Lauren recalled flipping through Gardner’s epic tome Art
through the ages, and coming across a
large-scale photo of Piazza San Marco
in Venice. Peering more closely at a
strangely familiar figure among the
throng of pedestrians, Miss Kelly was
shocked to recognise a younger version
of her father. She probably picked him
out because he was, as now, talking on
his mobile, though instead of a streamlined Nokia, this model was the size of
a large brick. ■
...and Gérard Regnier
Gérard Regnier aka Jean Clair, and
director of the Musée Picasso in Paris,
does thinking people’s exhibitions and
has kicked against the pricks of the contemporary art world for decades. Paula
Rego, on Marlborough’s stand, won his
Martin Creed: artist or musician?
A
rt and music are common bedfellows;
current “Scotch” rockers Franz
Ferdinand were all at art college before
releasing their first album, as was Jarvis
Cocker, whose band Pulp played at the Venice
Biennale a few years ago. He was also to be
found spinning discs at the Frieze party during
the opening week of the latest edition of the
Venice exhibition last week. The hip New
York band, Scissor Sisters played on the beach
last December at an Art Basel/Miami Beach
party. The evolution of artists into musicians
seems to be a usual and accepted occurrence.
However, as with everything, Martin Creed is
a little different.
As the bejewelled guests at the Bulgari party
on Wednesday discovered, this Turner Prize
winner, is nothing if not consistent, producing
music that is just as conceptual as his art.
Swap on-off light switches for beats and quavers, you have a fairly good idea of what to
Correction
Yesterday’s edition of our daily Art Basel
newspaper incorrectly stated the location of
Gerhard Richter’s Two sculptures for Blinky
Palermo’s room, 1971. The work is on the
stand of Peter Freeman (R5, ground floor) and
not Gagosian.
expect; the music could be described as
“Outsider Punk”.
His repertoire includes a song about how he
“likes things.. a lot”, which definitely has
echoes of a cracked children’s TV presenter:
Sesame Street comes to Basel.
There is something both shocking and quite
funny about Creed’s delivery of punk and playtime. Fortunately, his sense of humour translates well into music—a relief to those who
think the art world takes itself too seriously.
Another of Creed’s songs starts with the
familiar count in of “One, two, three, four”
but then continues with “ five, six, seven,
eight”, all the way to 100, missing out a few
numbers along the way in a display of either
punk rebellion or sheer confusion.
The big question about this artist’s music is
how to approach it. Is it art or music? Do you
buy a CD or a photograph of the gig?
Creed’s music is best experienced if one considers it against other performance artists,
rather than measuring it against something
from today’s music scene. At first I couldn’t
imagine the single “Fuck off Fuck off Fuck
off Fuck off Fuck off Fuck off,” faring particularly well in the music charts. But then,
judging by recent number one hits, it might be
the fastest selling single of all time.
Katherine Hardy
Photo Katherine Hardy
Ahoy to
Candice Breitz
approval though, for her strong painting
skills and sinister emotional power.
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ART BASEL DAILY NEWSPAPER • FRIDAY 17 JUNE 2005
4 • THE ART NEWSPAPER
Botero gets a conscience
The Moderns are now history, says Harvard professor
T
BASEL. Recently, in the pages
of The Art Newspaper, YvesAlain Bois, Professor of
Modern Art at Harvard and
himself a 20th-century expert,
lamented the fact that most
graduate students today want
to work only on post-1945 art,
particularly the 1950s and
1960s, and mainly in Europe.
He has only one student working on Matisse, and one on
1930s Russian art. Can it be
that the giants of the 20th century are remote art history for
the current generation?
And yet we still call the
works from the first half of the
20th century Modern, as
though it might actually mean
modern in the way the man in
the street still thinks Picasso is
modern. But modern is now,
of course, called “contemporary” (what are we going to
call the growing body of material between Modern and
“contemporary”?
perhaps
Modern+ and then Modern++
and so on). Art Basel, founded
in 1969, has always been
renowned for its classic
Modern works of art. Go to
the Fondation Beyeler here to
see the wonderful collection
of classic Modern art put
together by one of the founding dealers of the fair, Ernst
Beyeler.
The current fair does not
disappoint on this front.
Quietly grand stands show
works by the great masters at
prices (not always easily disclosed) that, of course, are in
line with the pieces’ rarity and
authors’ fame. Go there for an
educational experience, at
least.
A first stop could be Helly
Nahmad, who has an amazing
selection of Picassos, including an early collage, Bouteille
et verre sur un gueridon
(1912), juxtaposed with a Cy
Twombly. A marvellous Le
petit pierrot aux fleurs (192324, apparently not for sale) sits
between two portraits from the
1960s; there is also an exquisite tiny Miró, A la lueur de la
lune le soleil couchant nous
caresse (1952, $1.2 million).
CONTINUED FROM P.1
this who accompany you to
the fair?
RF: We do, but they don’t
accompany us to the fair. We
work from a long-term
acquisitions list, so they are
well aware of what we’re
looking for. Usually we turn
to them for historical material to amplify what the collection already has, or to
continue to collect in depth
around a particular school or
artist. It isn’t a system that
really lends itself to impulse
shopping at a fair.
TAN: Do you have any
kind of pre-Basel briefing
with your collectors on
what to keep an eye out
for?
RF: With Basel, no,
because some trustees go,
but the majority do not. Art
Basel/ Miami Beach is a
J. Isler
But Art Basel keeps some of its founding themes, despite the noise
around the contemporary art on view
Master of the Modern and a founder of Art Basel, Ernst Beyeler
Another wonderful Miró,
Femme devant le soleil,
(1938) is on view at Krugier,
along with Max Ernst’s
Portrait d’une fille avec
boucles d’oreilles mexicaines,
from about 1946, on an
immensely strong stand.
Thomas Gibson and his son
Hugh, exhibiting at Art Basel
for the first time, have brought
a number of interesting pieces
including a Giacometti plaster
that was never cast, Tête
d’homme (about 1950, $1.25
Paul Klee, Überbrücktes,
1931. With Robert Landau
million) as well
as a
small,
early drawing
by
Lucian
Freud of a
naval gunner,
about
1950,
$1.25 million
(the
current
Freud show in
Venice has integrated his early,
almost botanically precise
work in with
his characteristically impastoed works) and
Schiele’s 1910
Female nude
($750,000).
Great Schieles
and Klimts are Juan Miró, Femme devant le soleil, 1938.
also on show With Jan Krugier
with newcomer
immensely elegant Grau mit
Richard Nagy.
Achim Moeller has a radi- Schwarz, 1940.
It is impossible to cite
ant Klee, and Robert Landau
is also showing two, Über- everyone or everything; many
brücktes, (1931, $5.25 mil- other galleries at the fair offer
lion) and Kleine Komödie auf great works. Prove the
der Wiese (1922, $575,000), Harvard professor wrong and
as well as Kandinsky’s go on a study tour. G.A.
he Columbian painter Fernando Botero is known worldwide for his rounded figures and generally pleasant
themes. But politics have rarely entered his work until
recently, when he started a series of paintings based on the
reports of the torture perpetrated by US troops upon Iraqi prisoners. Yesterday the first show of works from this series opened
in Rome at the Palazzo Venezia. It will travel to the Würth
Museum near Stuttgart and the National Gallery in Athens,
among other venues. The artist has a concurrent show of older
work at J+P Fine Art in Zurich. Speaking to The Art Newspaper,
Botero explains the sudden change of themes and the ensuing
critical reactions.
I was shocked and furious when I first read about the torture at
Abu Ghraib. The more I read about it, the angrier I became.
Finally, I was in a plane and I asked the steward to give me some
paper and I started doing sketches.
I studied the news photos to get a sense of where the tortures
happened, but I didn’t actually copy any images. Instead, I visualised the scenes based upon reports in the US press. One should
give credit to the US for having the freedom of expression that
allows journalists to actually describe these crimes.
For the time being I am completely involved in the Abu Ghraib
project—I have painted nothing else for six months. These works
have only been revealed to the world by chance, I mentioned my
project to a friend who runs a very small magazine in Colombia.
Once he published the images, reporters started calling me from
all over the world. Museums also called and I have accepted
most invitations to exhibit the work because it’s very important
to me that these paintings be seen by many people.
Even some US museums want to show the Abu Ghraib paintings
—and again this is to the great credit of America. And I am very
excited to show them there. Yes, I know it’s possible there will be
some fanatic who might have aggressive reactions. But if you start
worrying about things like that, you will never do anything in life.
So far, I’ve done 20 oils and 40 drawings. I could go on for
another three or six months, but I know the subject matter is limited. When I’m done, I will not sell these paintings, but instead
donate them to museums, because it’s not proper to make money
from such painful situations.
Some people say, “Why doesn’t Botero also paint the people
throwing bombs in Baghdad?” But that’s different. Torture is a
barbaric tactic, like something out of the Middle Ages. So I was
shocked to see it coming from the US, which presents itself as a
country of compassion and civilisation. I am not naïve; I know
what the US government has done in Latin America, but torture, especially with such sadism and perversity, is another
matter altogether.
Interview by Marc Spiegler
❏ “Fernando Botero: the last 15 years” is now on view at the Palazzo Venezia, via del
Plebiscito 118, Rome ☎ +39 06 328 10 (Tues-Sun 10am-7pm, until 25 September).
Harald Szeemann remembered at Art Basel
BASEL. At the memorial celebration on Wednesday in the
Luzern Room for the life of curator Harald Szeemann, his
friend of many years, Guido Magnaguagno, made the address.
The principal contribution of Szeemann—of making the role of
the curator an art form in itself—is well known, said Mr
Magnaguagno, and he went on to remember a trip together that
gave a more intimate sense of the man. In 1982, he and Mr
Magnaguagno were in Berlin, where they passed a “nuit
blanche” and then flew to Brussels. As they arrived, one of the
airport warehouses was burning merrily: “That’s what it’s like
in Belgium—always slightly unusual”, said Szeemann appreciatively. Later, he insisted they drive to Waterloo (site of the
defeat of Napoleon by the British) for dinner. On the way back,
the taxi turned turtle and finished upside down in a cemetery,
reinforcing his earlier comment.
How US museum curators buy at fairs
different situation entirely.
There is a collectors’ group
associated with the museum, and since Miami Basel
started the number of people in that group going to
Miami has doubled and trebled. There is a significant
number of younger collectors from Minnesota down
in Miami, and they are
becoming
increasingly
interested in refining their
own collecting. They’re not
going to change the fortune
of any one dealer, but for
us it’s very heartening.
We’ll have a sit-down with
these collectors who are
affiliated with the museum
and go over what we know
will be at the fair, advise
them how to navigate it,
how to negotiate, etc.
TAN: Do you think the
presence of curators lingering on stands and talking to dealers has an effect
on the market? Or is it the
collectors who have that
impact?
RF: I think it’s a combination of both. Increasingly,
whether it’s the Venice
Biennale or the Art Basel,
there is a large number of
people going through well in
advance of the vernissage.
Those people are racing
through unfinished installations in Venice or stands still
being put together. It’s a big
problem, because they are
setting opinions early on. It
used to be the press who
were the first in, but now the
press is way down the list in
terms of priority.
TAN: So it’s a matter of
access: the people who go
through and put red dots
on the walls are the ones
who are saying what’s hot
and what’s not?
RF: Yes, because this horrible thing spreads, whereby
all the best material is
already sold, so the second
wave of people comes feeling cheated. And then
you’ll see art advisors,
curators, museum directors
going through with an
entourage and they’re talking louder than anybody
else—in many case there’s
this desire to be seen doing
business. That creates
another wave of gossip:
“Did you see who was
doing selling to so and so
over there?”
TAN: When did you first
start going to the Basel
fair?
RF: I started going in the
mid-80s and I was dumbstruck; there was so much art
and it wasn’t in an edited
context. So often you go
from Venice to Basel and in
Venice everything you see is
the product of the thinking
of curators. It’s kind of like
climbing Mt Everest with a
team of fabulous sherpas
who help you up there. Then
you arrive in a place where
nothing has been ordered to
make a point, other than one
about inventory. Obviously
dealers try to make their
works look as seductive as
possible, but somehow it’s
easier to look at work that’s
in an intellectual context.
TAN: Tell me something
wonderful that has happened to you at the fair.
RF: When I was working
on the Arte Povera show, I
walking onto a stand and
saw a sculpture by Pino
Pascali called The decapitation of sculpture, which
my team and I had been
trying to find for ages. It
was like striking a vein of
pure gold.
But there are other good
things about the fair.
People who are new to the
game can come in and see a
huge amount of material
that would never be available to them in their local
museums. The only problem is when they don’t
understand that this is a
place for doing business
and not graduate school.
Interview by
Jason Edward Kaufman
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A V A I L A B L E E X C L U S I V E LY F O R P R I V A T E V I E W I N G A T S E L E C T E D B U L G A R I S T O R E S W O R L D W I D E
ART BASEL DAILY NEWSPAPER • FRIDAY 17 JUNE 2005
6 • THE ART NEWSPAPER
Today’s suggestions: photography
The Art Newspaper gives an entirely subjective and uncomprehensive selection
N3
Robert
Mapplethorpe,
Photographs of Robert Sherman, an
installation of 15 photographs taken
between 1978 and 1984, gelatin silver prints, edition of 10. Xavier
Hufkens ($9,000-$25,000).
The spirit is more sculptural than
erotic in this room full of images of
the hairless model with the milkywhite skin who was one of
Mapplethorpe’s most photographed
subjects.
K1 Sol LeWitt Portfolio, 2004, 28
pure pigment ink jet prints. Fraenkel
Gallery. ($36,000).
An exquisite serial image of a sphere
lit from the top and four sides using
finely calibrated combinations of
angles and light sources—yet again
proof positive of LeWitt’s ability to
extract aesthetic and intellectual
riches from the most rigourous of
sources.
Delacroix’s classic Revolutionary
image of Liberty on the barricades,
Morimura piles on the cultural references by posing as all the protagonists and adding a cross-dressing
female hero from a popular cartoon
magazine into the mix.
X2 Wolfgang Tillmans, The Bell,
2002, unique inkjet print and one
artist’s proof. Maureen Paley,
$20,000.
Only Tillmans can make the wellused trough of a steel urinal, dotted
with air fresheners and cigarette
butts look like a votive shrine while
actually depicting it exactly as it is.
D12 Robert Beck, Apart from the
whole (communion), 2005, 11 chromogenic prints, edition of six,
U5
K1
U1
S4
T4
T4
X2
N3
D12
P1
P3
P3 John Coplans, Self portrait
reclining body #3, 2000, silver gelatin print, edition of six. Galerie
Nordenhake (€22,000).
Coplans’ self deprecating yet also
celebratory images of his gnarly
body manage to be funny, poignant
and monumental all at the same
time.
Upper level
Stephan Friedman (£18,000).
Mounted in thick card like an old
fashioned photograph album and
depicting glimpsed fragments of an
event in faded Kodak colour, this is
truly the stuff of memory.
P1 Shirin Neshat, Untitled from
Rapture series, 1999. Meier,
($28,000).
The chador-clad women, huddling
with their hands upturned, seem to
be surrendering in the brilliant sunlight.
Brazil
3
Mexico
2
Ireland
1
Canada
China
Denmark
Neth
Sweden
3
3
3
3
3
Poland
South Africa
Australia
Finland
Greece
2
2
1
1
1
Monaco
Norway
Portugal
Russia
1
1
1
1
Other
11%
Austria
3% (8)
girls appear like actresses on the
stage of their parents’ ambition.
A5 Anastasia Khoroshilova, Dima,
2004. Laurence Miller ($3,000).
A remarkable portrait of a child
whose vulnerable expression belies
the tough-kid clothes he is wearing.
T4 Tina Barney, The daughters,
2002. Mitchell-Innes & Nash,
($15,000).
Tina Barney specialises in family
groups and here her perfect little
ART BASEL GALLERIES BY COUNTRY
Belgium
3% (8)
Ground level
B5
B5 Yasumasa Morimura: The power
to dream (appear in history, disappear in history), 2004, C-print
mounted on aluminium panel, edition of three Shugoarts (Price undisclosed).
In this photographic paraphrase of
Japan
2% (5)
U2 Roger Fenton, The boulder
stone, Borrowdale, 1860, albumen
print, Hans P. Kraus ($150,000).
The 19th century was obsessed with
geology and would have been fascinated by this great boulder, with the
rickety ladder propped against it and
another collapsed one to the left of
the composition. To modern eyes the
image is evocative of Arte Povera,
with its use of natural materials, so
the picture works both ways: then
and now.
United States
22% (69)
Spain
3% (10)
Italy
6% (17)
UK
10% (29)
Germany
17% (55)
France
10% (30)
P6
Switzerland
13% (41)
The new
BMW 3 Series
www.bmw.com
Sheer
Driving Pleasure
Illustrations: Tara Russo
P6 Aaron Siskind, New York, 1950,
vintage print. Robert Mann Gallery,
($25,000).
Siskind gave his friend Willem de
Kooning a version of this haunting
image of a piece of crumpled, oil
stained paper which hung in the
painter’s studio. Its influence can be
seen in the first of the monumental
Women paintings that De Kooning
began in 1950.
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ART BASEL DAILY NEWSPAPER • FRIDAY 17 JUNE 2005
8 • THE ART NEWSPAPER
EXHIBITIONS, EVENTS & ATTRACTIONS
Basel
Schaulager: Jeff Wall
Ruchfeldstrasse 19, Münchenstein/Basel, Tel: 061 335 32
32. Tue 10-6pm, Wed 12-6pm, Fri-Mon 10-6 pm. Tram No.
11, bound for Aesch, from Basel SBB sation to Schaulager
stop, around 20 min.
Since 1978 the Canadian artist Jeff Wall (b.1946) has made
around 120 large-scale transparencies mounted on aluminium
boxes and back-lit. Many of these have compositional elements or motifs that refer to painting, especially to works
by Manet and Delacroix. This is a selection of 70 of these
works, surveying his entire œuvre (until 25 September).
Haus zum Kirschgarten: Karen Kilimnik
Elisabethenstrasse 27-29, Tel: 061 205 86 00. Tue-Fri, Sun
10-5, Sat 1-5, closed Mon.
The naively painted oils and watercolours of Philadelphiaborn artist Karen Kilimnik transport the viewer into a fairytale world of Gothic forests and castles, where wide-eyed
princesses in ballet dresses rub shoulders with the likes of
British supermodel Kate Moss.
Kunstmuseum: Simon Starling
St. Alban-Graben 16, Tel: 061 206 62 62. Tues-Sun 105pm, Wed 10-7pm.
British artist Simon Starling, shortlisted for this year’s
Turner prize, is known for his complex sculptural installations, often inspired by local geography or ecology. His
reputation is so strong that the Kunstmuseum Basel has
chosen to inaugurate its newly refurbished galleries with an
exhibition of his work (until 7 August).
Fondation Beyeler
Picasso the surrealist
Baselstrasse 101, Tel: 061 645 97 00. Mon-Sun 10-6. Wed
10-8pm.
Picasso and the poet Apollinaire coined the term “sur-réalisme” to describe the artist’s 1917 stage design for the ballet
“Parade”. This survey of the artist’s relationship to the
Surrealist movement, unites over 200 paintings, sculptures,
drawings, prints and manuscripts from 1924 to the outbreak of
the Spanish Civil War in 1939. It is curated Anne Baldassari of
the Musée Picasso in Paris (until 12 September).
Fondation Herzog: L’autre—das Andere
Oslo Strasse 8, Dreispitz, Zollfreilager, Tor 13, Tel: 061 333
11 85. Tues-Fri 2-6pm, Sat 1.30-5pm. Tram No. 10, 11 from
Basel SBB train station to Dreispitz, on the way to the
Schaulager, around 20 min.
An exhibition of images drawn by 19th-century photography expert, Marc Pagneux, from the 300,000 collection put
together by Ruth and Peter Herzog since the early 70s.
Their focus has been on the 19th century, and on content,
not names: ethnology, ethnography, natural history—“all
the scientific disciplines”. The exhibition space, in the
freeport of Basel, was designed by his brother, of Herzog &
de Meuron fame.
Ausstellungsraum Klingental ARK
In search of identity
Kasernenstrasse 23, Tel: 061 681 66 98. Tue-Fri 3-6pm,
Sat-Sun 11-4pm. Tram No. 6, 8, 14 to Kaserne, bus No. 34
to Rheingasse.
The work of two photographers, Julian Salinas and Michael
Greub, are featured in this exhibition (until 10 July). Julian
Salinas’s Global players focuses on the clothes and codes of
conduct of young people from different social groups in
Berlin, Paris, Tokyo and Switzerland. Michael Greub’s Alltag
Palästina (Everyday life in Palestine) is a long term project
about Palestine on which he has been working since 1999
when Yassir Arafat attempted to declare a Palestinian state.
Kunsthalle Basel: Tomma Abts
Steinenberg 7, Tel: 061 206 99 00. Tue/Wed/Fri 11-6pm,
Thu 11-8.30pm, Sat-Sun 11-5pm
Tomma Abts will show her latest small paintings (until 29
August) in her solo Swiss exhibition, building on the success of her exhibition at the Van Abbemuseum in
Eindhoven last year.
Museum für Gegenwartskunst
Covering the real: art and press
pictures from Warhol to Tillmans
St. Alban-Rheinweg 60, Tel: 061 206 62 62. Tue-Sun 115pm.
Presenting some 20 works by artists such as Warhol,
Richter, Polke, Demand, Tillmans and others, this exhibition emphasizes the interconnections of painting, photography, video, the internet, installation art and TV news since
the 1960s (until 21 August).
Museum Jean Tinguely
Moving parts: kinetic forms
Paul Sacher-Anlage 1, Tel: 061 681 93 20. Tue-Sun 117pm. Tram No. 2 to Wettsteinplatz, switch to bus No. 31;
from Badischer Bahnhof, bus No. 36.
This exhibition (until 28 June) jointly organised by the
Kunsthaus Graz and the Museum Tinguely, is concerned
with the relationship of machinery to art and the link
between man and machines at the beginning of the 21st
century. It investigates the importance of kinetic art for
contemporary artists.
Puppenhausmuseum:
Original mechanical Steiff showpieces
Steinenvorstadt 1, Tel: 061 225 95 95. Fri-Wed 11-5 pm,
Thur 11-8 pm. Tram No. 8 or 11 to Barfüsserplatz.
As well as handmade mechanical dolls and cuddly animals
in the permanent collection, this exhibition (until 9
October) features eight mechanical toys made by Steiff,
the well known German teddy bear brand for display purposes between the 1950s and the present day.
Near Basel
Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts
Lausanne: Collection Pierre Huber
Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Palais de Rumine, Place
de la Riponne 6, Lausanne, Tel: 021 316 34 45. Bus No. 1,
2 to rue Neuve; bus No. 5, 6, 8 to Riponne, around 2 hrs.
Genevan dealer Pierre Huber amassed a collection of several hundred works of contemporary art. Yves Aupetitallot,
the director of the contemporary art centre “Le Magasin” in
Grenoble, has made a selection of these (until 11
September). Among the artists on show are Cindy Sherman,
Art Conversations
10.30-11am, Messe Basel, BVLGARI Pavilion, Hall 4.
Architecture for art: artists and museum architecture, hosted by James Rondeau, curator of contemporary art, the Art Institute of Chicago, with Vito
Acconci,architect and artist; John Armleder, artist; and
Andrea Fraser, artist.
Art Lobby
Art Lobby in Messe Basel, Art Unlimited, Hall 1.
1-2.45pm: Due diligence in art transactions hosted
by Dr Peter Mosimann, attorney, with Dr Marc-André
Renold, attorney and co-director of the Art-Law
Centre in Geneva; Dr Karl Schweizer, attorney and
managing director of UBS Art Banking in Basel; Mr
Julian Radcliffe, director of the Art Loss Register in
London; and Dr Georg von Segesser, attorney.
4-4.30pm Artist books talk and distribution of Fivefoot shelf of books, with Allen Ruppersberg, artist and
Michèle Didier, editor.
5-5.30pm Featured artist: Ryan Gander hosted by
Samuel Herzog, journalist, with Annet Gelink of
Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam.
Art Film
10pm to midnight, Stadtkino Basel, Steinenberg 7
Films showing:
Yan Duyvendak, Œil pour œil, 2002
Andrea Bowers, Nonviolent civil disobedience training,
2004
Fernando Sanchez Castillo, Arquitectura para el caballo, 2002
Korpys/Löffler, World Trade Center, 1997; United
Nations, 1997, Pentagon, 1997
Christoph Büchel, AC-130 gunship video, 2004
Sean Snyder, Gate 2 Street, Okinawa City, 2004
Jeremy Deller, The Battle of Orgreave, 2001
Art Club Bar, Lounge, Disco
11pm-3am Kunsthalle Basel, Campari Bar, Steinenberg 7
Richard Prince, Thomas Ruff, Candida Höfer, Thomas
Struth, Paul McCarhty and Jim Shaw. The timing of the
exhibiton is apposite as Pierre Huber was also one of the
founders of Art Basel.
Kunsthalle Zurich: Sarah Lucas
Limmatstrasse 270, Zurich, Tel: 044 272 15 15.
Tue/Wed/Fri 12-6pm, Thu 12-8pm, Sat/Sun 11-5pm. Driving
time around 1 hr.
Sarah Lucas was one of the leading Young British Artists of
the 1990s. Characteristic of her work is the use of everyday
materials and objects to create ironic and provocative
works. Her work consists of photography, collage, sculpture, installations, and drawings. Fifty works are on show,
until 15 June. The exhibition and catalogue have been coproduced in collaboration with the Kunstverein, Hamburg
and Tate Liverpool whither the show travels later this year.
Kunstmuseum, Bern, Holderbank
Zurich Uli Sigg Collection
Hodlerstrasse 12, Bern, Tel: 031 328 09 44. Tue 10-9pm,
Wed-Sun 10-5pm. Driving time around 1hr.
Swiss art collector Uli Sigg is one of the most active collectors of Chinese contemporary art in the world, with over
1,200 works from the 1970s to today. The biggest ever loan
of works from his collection goes on show this month in
two venues (13 June-16 October). At the Kunstmuseum, the
exhibition is so large that the museum has cleared out some
of its permanent collection to make room for the 350
works. The Holderbank warehouse near Zurich houses
works that are too large for the Kunstmuseum’s galleries.
Don’t miss
Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein
Charles Eames Strasse 1, Weil am
Rhein, Germany, Tel: +49 (0)7621
702 3200. Tue-Sun 11-6pm, closed
Mon. By car: take Autobahn A5
north, exit at Weil am Rhein. By
train: from Basel, Badischer Bahnhof
take bus number 55; from the train
station in Weil am Rhein about 15min. walk to the museum.
Diehard design junkies should head
across the border to Germany to the
small, unremarkable town of Weil am
Rhein, 10 kilometres north of Basel,
which is home to the Vitra Design
Museum, a shrine to industrial and
domestic furniture design.
Opened in 1989, the institution was
founded by Rolf Fehlbaum, chairman of
the Swiss company Vitra, to house his
collection of early, Vitra-produced, serial furniture pieces by Charles and Ray
Eames, Verner Panton and George
Nelson, among others. The collection
has since grown to include more than
1,800 pieces of furniture, the majority
of which are chairs. The works in the
collection date from 1820 to the present
and focuses on Modernist designs of the
1920s and 30s.
The main museum building, designed
by Frank Gehry, is typical of work by
the US architect with its bold shapes and
Cubist-inspired forms. The neighbouring factory site also includes a conference pavilion designed by the Japanese
Events today
Galerie Kornfeld, Bern: Print sale
Laupenstrasse 41, Bern, Tel 031 381 46 73. Daily until
15th of June, 10-6pm. By car: take Autobahn A1 towards
Lausanne, exit Bern-Forsthaus, driving time around 1 hr.
Galerie Kornfeld’s annual June sale of 19th- and 20th-century
art is internationally renowned, especially for German
Expressionism. This year’s sale is timed to coincide with the
Basel art fair (16-17 June), and includes works by artists
such as Picasso, Matisse, Macke, Kirchner and Kandinsky.
Thomas Ammann, Zurich
Pablo Picasso
architect Tadao Ando (1993) and an
award-winning fire station (1993) by the
Iraqi-born, UK-based architect Zaha
Hadid, complete with a vehicle hall,
washrooms and a fitness room.
The Vitra Design Museum is also a
leading research centre into the restoration of furniture items made from plastic, which its conservators claims are
deteriorating faster than expected.
On show at the museum is the exhibition “The sound of time” (until 8
January 2006) which was previously
at this year’s Milan Triennale. It sur-
veys the career of the Italian architect
and designer Gaetano Pesce, who
often revisits favourite themes such as
the dual function of objects and architecture, the political dimension of
design, the use and development of
new materials, and what Pesce
describes as the “feminine” aspect of
architecture. The exhibition, made up
of nine thematic parts with intriguing
titles such as “Malformation and
canons of beauty” and “Personalisation
of mass production”, reflects the
designer’s cerebral approach. ■
Restelbergstrasse 97, Zurich, Tel: 044 360 51 60. Driving
time around 1 hr.
Thomas Ammann Fine Art’s annual summer exhibition is
“Pablo Picasso: heads, faces, bodies” (until 30 September)
which consists of 12 paintings of the human form by the
Spanish artist made between 1935 to 1972. Not all of the
works are for sale.
Hauser & Wirth, Zurich
Michael Raedecker
Tue-Fri. 12-6 pm, Sat 11-5 pm. Limmatstrasse 270, CH8005. Tel: + 41 (0)44 446 80 50. Driving time around 1 hr.
Organised with The Approach gallery in London, this show
of new works by the Dutch-born, British-based artist
includes his melancholy thread-and-paint paintings.
Chloe Piene, Black Mouth, 2004. Collection of Ninah and Michael Lynne, New York
GETTING
EMOTIONAL
MAY 18-SEPT 5, 2005
How do contemporary artists deal with the subject of
emotion, and what does this reveal about the role of
emotion in our lives?
Thirty-two international artists explore the expression
of feelings through painting, photography, sculpture,
film, and video.
The Institute of Contemporary Art
955 Boylston Street, Boston U.S.A.
www.icaboston.org / 617-266-5152
ART BASEL DAILY NEWSPAPER • FRIDAY 17 JUNE 2005
10 • THE ART NEWSPAPER
Kurzfassungen gesponsert von
So besucht ein Konservator die Messe
S.1)
RF: Ich begann Mitte der Achtzigerjahre hierher zu kommen
und war verblüfft, dass es hier so viel Kunst gab. Häufig
kommt man von Venedig nach Basel und in Venedig ist alles
arrangiert, um eine Reihe von wichtigen Punkten zu verdeutlichen. Dann kommt man hier auf der Messe an, wo nichts
nach einem bestimmten Motto geordnet ist, ausser um zu
zeigen, was die Händler haben, obwohl die Händler natürlich
versuchen, ihre Werke so verlockend wie möglich erscheinen
zu lassen.
Es gibt jedoch auch andere positive Aspekte [der Messe].
Leute, für die alles ganz neu ist, können hierher kommen und
sehen eine Unmenge von Material, das sie in ihren Museen
daheim niemals zu Gesicht bekämen. Ein Problem ergibt
sich nur dann, wenn sie nicht verstehen, dass dies ein Ort ist,
an dem Geschäfte gemacht werden und keine
Weiterbildungsveranstaltung.
Interview von
Jason Edward Kaufman
Basel. Richard Flood ist ein alter Hase in der Welt der Kunst.
Er wurde soeben zum Chefkurator des New Museum of
Contemporary Art in New York ernannt und ist seit vielen
Jahren Chefkurator des Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
Gestern Vormittag leitete er die Diskussion zum Thema «Die
Kunst des Sammelns: wer sammelt was – Künstler und
Kunstfachleute» im Rahmen der von Bulgari gesponserten
Reihe «Art Conversation». Wir sprachen mit ihm und fragten
ihn, wie er als Kunstfachmann mit Kunstmessen umgeht.
The Art Newspaper: Wie gehen Sie an eine so gewaltige
Messe wie die Art Basel heran?
Richard Flood: Als Kurator wird man bereits im Vorfeld von
einer Reihe von Händlern angesprochen, die einem wissen
lassen, was sie ausstellen werden. Wenn die Messe die erste
Gelegenheit ist, ein Werk zu sehen, gehe ich dort zuerst hin,
meistens folge ich aber einfach dem Messeplan.
Es ist unvermeidlich, dass man am ersten Tag Hunderte –
wirklich Hunderte – von Leuten trifft, die man lange nicht
mehr gesehen hat, so dass man sich auf dem Weg durch die Martin Creed: Künstler oder Musiker?
Messe quasi durch ein Konversationslabyrinth hangeln (S.2)
muss. Am zweiten Tag beginne ich noch einmal, und dann
sehr viel effizienter.
Art und Musik gehen heute häufig Hand in Hand: Alle
TAN: Was hat für Sie Priorität, die Kunstwerke zu sehen Mitglieder von Franz Ferdinand waren auf der
oder Händler und Sammler zu treffen?
Kunsthochschule, Pulp trat vor einigen Jahren auf der
RF: Die Prioritäten ändern sich von Besuch zu Besuch. Als Biennale in Venedig auf (der Leadsänger Jarvis Cocker auch
ich an der Arte-Povera-Ausstellung arbeitete, ging ich als auf der letzten) und die New Yorker Band Scissor Sisters
Erstes zu den Händlern, bei denen es am wahrscheinlichsten spielte auf der letzten Art Basel/Miami Beach. Beim Turnerwar, dass sie Material von dieser Gruppe von Künstlern hat- Prize-Gewinner Martin Creed ist das etwas anderes. Er proten, und in vielen Fällen fand ich Arbeiten, von denen ich duziert Musik, die ebenso konzeptuell ist wie seine Kunst.
nicht einmal wusste, dass es sie gab, oder von denen nicht Glücklicherweise kommt sein Sinn für Humor auch in seinbekannt war, wo sie zu finden sind.
TAN: Kaufen Sie eigentlich auf der Messe ein?
RF: Nur wenige [Kuratoren] können einfach
hingehen und sagen «Das nehme ich», da alles
zunächst einmal dem Beschaffungsausschuss
vorgelegt und von diesem genehmigt werden
muss. Wenn es sich also um ein sehr wichtiges,
sehr teures Kunstwerk handelt, kann sich der
Händler aussuchen, wem er es verkauft, und er
müsste wirklich den Wunsch haben, das Stück
an ein Museum zu verkaufen, damit die Sache
reibungslos über die Bühne geht. Das ist der
Grund. Mich und viele [Museums-] Kollegen
zieht es eher zu Werken auf Papier, weil man
weiss wie hoch der Etat für Stücke mit definierter Preisangabe ist.
Fernando Botero, Abu Ghraib triptychon, 2005
TAN:
Einige
Kuratoren
oder
Museumsdirektoren haben Mäzene in ihren Kuratorien, die er Musik durch – eine Erleichterung für alle, die der Ansicht
es sich zur Aufgabe machen, Werke für das Museum zu sind, dass sich die Kunstwelt selbst viel zu ernst nimmt.
erwerben. Einige kaufen die Werke für ihre privaten Eines der Stücke von Creed beginnt mit dem bekannten
Sammlungen, um sie später zu stiften, und einige finanzieren Einzählen «One, two, three, four», geht dann jedoch weiter
die Neuerwerbungen des Museums. Gibt es beim Walker mit « five, six, seven, eight», bis hinauf zu 100. Die grosse
Center solche Leute, die Sie auf die Messe begleiten?
Frage zur Musik dieses Künstlers ist, wie man an sie
RF: Es gibt sie, aber sie begleiten uns nicht zur Messe. Wir herangehen soll. Ist das Kunst oder Musik? Creeds Musik
stellen eine langfristige Liste für Neuerwerbungen zusam- erfährt man am besten, wenn man sie mit den Auftritten
men, sie wissen daher sehr gut, was wir suchen. Es ist wirk- anderer Performancekünstler vergleicht. Und wenn man sich
lich kein System, das sich für Impulskäufe auf einer Messe zunächst nicht vorstellen kann, dass die Single «Fuck off
eignet.
Fuck off Fuck off Fuck off Fuck off Fuck off» in den
TAN: Halten Sie vor Basel mit Ihren Sammlern eine Art von Mainstream-Charts einen guten Platz einnehmen würde,
Besprechung ab, um zu klären, nach was man Ausschau hal- muss man nur an einige Nummer-1-Hits der letzten Zeit
ten sollte?
denken. Es könnte die am schnellsten verkaufte Single aller
RF: Für Basel nicht, denn einige Kuratoriumsmitglieder Zeiten werden. Katherine Hardy
gehen hin, aber die meisten nicht. Bei der ArtBasel
MiamiBeach ist das eine ganz andere Sache. Es gibt eine
Sammlergruppe in Verbindung mit dem Museum, und seit Botero spürt sein Gewissen (S.4)
die Miami Basel abgehalten wird, hat sich die Zahl der Leute
in der Gruppe, die nach Miami fahren, verdoppelt und ver- Der kolumbianische Maler Fernando Botero ist in aller Welt
dreifacht. Mit diesen Sammlern, die mit dem Museum für seine rundlichen Figuren und seine angenehmen Themen
assoziiert sind, setzen wir uns zusammen und gehen durch, bekannt. In der letzten Zeit begann er jedoch mit einer Reihe
was unseres Wissens auf der Messe zu sehen sein wird, und von Gemälden auf der Grundlage von Berichten über die
helfen ihnen, sich zurechtzufinden, geben ihnen Tipps für Bedingungen, unter denen die Häftlinge im Abu-GhraibVerhandlungen und so weiter.
Gefängnis zu leiden hatten. Gestern wurde im Palazzo
TAN: Glauben Sie, dass die Präsenz von Kuratoren, die um Venezia in Rom die erste Ausstellung von Werken aus dieser
den Stand herumstehen und mit Händlern sprechen, eine Serie eröffnet. Im Gespräch mit The Art Newspaper erklärt
Auswirkung auf den Markt hat? Oder sind es nur die Botero den plötzlichen Themenwechsel und die darauf folSammler, die ins Gewicht fallen?
genden kritischen Reaktionen.
RF: Meiner Ansicht nach ist es eine Kombination aus bei- Als ich das erste Mal über die Folgerungen im Abu-Ghraibdem. Gleich ob es sich um die Biennale in Venedig oder die Gefängnis hörte, war ich schockiert, empört und wütend. Je
Art Basel handelt, ist immer häufiger festzustellen, dass viele mehr ich darüber las, umso zorniger wurde ich. Schliesslich
Leute schon lange vor der Eröffnung der Vernissage durch sass ich in einem Flugzeug und bat den Steward, mir etwas
die Ausstellung gehen. Diese Leute – und es sind sehr viele Papier zu geben, und begann zu skizzieren.
– eilen in Venedig durch unfertige Installationen oder hasten Ich studierte die Nachrichtenfotos, um ein Gefühl dafür zu
hier an Messeständen vorbei, die erst noch aufgebaut wer- bekommen, wo die Folterungen stattgefunden hatten, und
den. Das ist ein grosses Problem, weil sie sich vorzeitig eine visualisierte die Szenen anhand der Berichte in der USMeinung bilden. Früher war es die Presse, die zuerst herein- Presse. Man sollte es den USA wirklich zugute halten, dass
gelassen wurde, aber inzwischen ist die Presse auf der die Meinungsfreiheit würdigen und den Journalisten damit
Prioritätenliste ganz schön weit nach hinten gerutscht.
ermöglichen, über diese Verbrechen zu schreiben.
TAN: Es ist also eine Frage des Zugangs: Die Leute die Im Augenblick widme ich mich voll und ganz dem Abudurchgehen und rote Punkte an die Wände kleben, sind Ghraib-Projekt -- ich habe seit sechs Monaten nichts
diejenigen, die bestimmen, was angesagt ist und was nicht? anderes gemalt. Ich erwähnte mein Projekt gegenüber einem
TAN: Wann kamen Sie zum ersten Mal auf die Messe in Freund, der in Kolumbien ein ganz kleines Magazin herausBasel?
gibt, und sobald er die Bilder veröffentlicht hatte, begannen
To make a vision come alive,
it takes two.
mich Reporter aus aller Welt anzurufen. Die meisten
Einladungen, diese Arbeiten in Museen auszustellen, habe
ich angenommen, weil es mir wichtig ist, dass diese Bilder
von vielen Leuten gesehen werden. Sogar in den USA wollten einige Museen die Abu-Ghraib-Bilder zeigen -- auch in
dieser Hinsicht gebührt den USA alle Achtung.
Bisher habe ich 20 Ölgemälde und 40 Zeichnungen gemacht.
Wenn ich fertig bin, will ich diese Gemälde nicht verkaufen
sondern sie statt dessen Museen stiften, da es nicht richtig
ist, an solchen schlimmen Situationen Geld zu verdienen.
Einige sagen: «Warum malt Botero nicht aus die Leute, die
in Bagdad Bomben werfen?» aber das ist etwas anderes.
Folter ist eine barbarische Methode, etwas aus dem
Mittelalter. Deshalb war ich schockiert, dass so etwas aus
den USA kommen konnte, die sich selbst als Land des
Mitgefühls und der Zivilisation präsentieren.
Fernando Botero sprach mit Marc Spiegler
Die Moderne ist nun Geschichte, sagt
ein Professor (S.4)
Basel. Kürzlich beklagte sich Yves-Alain Bois, Professor für
moderne Kunst in Harvard und selbst ein Experte für das 20.
Jahrhundert, auf den Seiten des Art Newspaper über die
Tatsache, dass sich die meisten Studenten heute nur noch mit
Kunst nach 1945 befassen wollen. Kann es sein, dass die
Grössen des 20. Jahrhunderts für die heutige Generation
ferne Kunstgeschichte sind? Und dennoch nennen wir die
Werke aus der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts immer noch
«Modern», aber modern heisst heute natürlich «zeitgenössisch». Die Art Basel, die im Jahr 1969 gegründet wurde, ist
schon immer für ihre klassischen Werke der modernen Kunst
bekannt. Man braucht nur in die
Fondation Beyeler zu gehen, um die wunderbare Kollektion klassischer moderner
Kunst zu sehen, die einer der
Gründungsmitglieder der Messe, der
Kunsthändler Ernst Beyeler zusammengestellt hat. Die laufende Messe enttäuscht in dieser Hinsicht nicht. Ohne
grosses Getöse werden hier an prominenter Stelle Werke der grossen Meister zu
Preisen präsentiert, die (nicht immer so
deutlich angezeigt) natürlich mit ihrer
Einmaligkeit und dem Ruhm ihrer
Schöpfer im Einklang stehen. Daher sollte
man schon der lehrreichen Erfahrung
wegen hingehen. Einige Vorschläge für
Dinge, die man sich ansehen sollte, sind
etwa Helly Nahmad, Krugier, an einem sehr beeindruckenden Stand Thomas Gibson und sein Sohn Hugh, die zum
ersten Mal auf der Art Basel ausstellen, ebenso wie der
Newcomer Richard Nagy. Achim Moeller hat einen brillanten Klee, und Robert Landau zeigt zwei weitere. Es ist
unmöglich, alle oder alles aufzuzählen, diese Liste ist daher
bei Weitem nicht erschöpfend. Beweisen Sie dem HarvardProfessor, dass er Unrecht hat und gehen Sie auf Studientour.
G.A.
Neue Strategie für die Art Basel: Mehr
Thematisierung, weniger Zufall
Basel. Während sich der erste Kaufrausch auf der Art Basel
legt und die Kunsthändler ein gemächlicheres Tempo
anschlagen, blickte Direktor Samuel Keller gestern schon
voraus auf die nächste Ausgabe der Art Basel/Miami Beach,
wo die Messe Schweiz ein «Art Cabinet» vorstellen wird, ein
Programm, das die Galerien dazu anhalten soll, mehr zu tun,
als nur Arbeiten zum Verkauf aufzuhängen und statt dessen
einen Teil ihres Stands einem kuratorischeren Zweck zu widmen.
Keller erklärt, dass die neue Initiative «Galerien dabei helfen
wird, aussergewöhnliche Arbeiten von Künstlern und
Besitzern zu bekommen, da diese Stücke besondere
Aufmerksamkeit erhalten. So wird die Messe durch einen
kulturellen und lehrreichen Aspekt bereichert. Ausserdem
wird die Messe dadurch auch visuell etwas Anderes.»
Beispiele von Projekten im Stil des «Art Cabinet» wären
unter anderem der gesamte Raum, den der Kunsthändler Per
Skarstedt aus Manhattan im letzten Jahr der Fotografie
«Spiritual Amerika» von Richard Prince widmete, und der
schwach beleuchtete Raum, den Thomas Ammann Fine Arts
einrichteten um einen Satz von «Diamond Dust»-Gemälden
von Andy Warhol auszustellen.
Keller erläutert: «Statt vielen Minishows für junge Künstler
wird Art Cabinet vermutlich mehr historische Kunst bieten.
Ausserdem könnten hier auch mehrere Künstler involviert
werden, solange ein starkes kuratorisches Konzept dahinter
steht. Das grösste Problem ist, dass die Galerien mit ihren
Ständen meistens eine kommerziellere Haltung einnehmen.
Das Komitee war der Ansicht, dass wir den Leuten eine
Motivation geben müssen, um etwas Besonderes auszuprobieren. Ohne diesen Anreiz würde viele jedoch das Risiko
nicht eingehen.» Marc Spiegler
You and us and Art Basel.
Bernard Jacobson Gallery presents
Larry Bell
Lee Krasner
Morris Louis
Robert Motherwell
Ben Nicholson
James Rosenquist
Robert Rauschenberg
Pierre Soulages
William Tillyer
Marc Vaux
At Hall/Stand 2.0/H2
++41 61 699 5226
Bernard Jacobson Gallery
6 Cork Street
London W1S 3EE
Telephone +44 20 7734 3431
Facsimile +44 20 7734 3277
Email [email protected]
Website www.jacobsongallery.com
James Rosenquist Ceci n’est pas un Pistolet 1996
oil on canvas 191.6 ⫻ 191.6 cms
MARLBOROUGH
Art 36 Basel
Stand No E1 Hall 2
The Fisherman, (Triptych), 2005
Marlborough Fine Art (London) Ltd.
6, Albemarle Street London W1S 4BY
T:+44-20-76295161 F:+44-20-76296338
www.marlboroughfineart.com
Paula Rego
Marlborough Galerie GmbH
Spiegelhofstrasse 36
8032 Zurich Switzerland
T:+41-1-2688010 F:+41-1-2688019
by appointment only
At the Waterfall by Marina Abramovic
To make a vision come alive, it takes two.
Communication is the key to art, conveying visually what cannot be put into words. Of equal
importance to this process as the artist’s creation is the viewer. You. It takes interaction. The
same applies in the global financial world. At UBS we devote considerable time and energy
to engaging you in a personal dialogue, in order to understand your investment vision and
bring it to life. It’s why we’re the main sponsor of Art 36 Basel. You and us and Art Basel.