BASEL, SWITZERLAND.- From June 18 to 23, 2003, Art 34 Basel takes place in Basel (Switzerland). The renown of Art Basel as the world’s most important fair for contemporary art and the classics of the 20th century is based on the high quality and unique variety of the exhibited works. The exhibits range from works by young and yet-to-be-discovered artists, selling for a few thousand euros, to rare museum-quality masterpieces with price tags in the millions. A survey conducted by the Show Management revealed that 27% of the works shown by the galleries at Basel cost under 5,000 euros. This demonstrates clearly that the range of high-quality works of art at affordable prices has an important status at Art Basel, and that Art Basel also confirms its position as a highly attractive marketplace for art-lovers with smaller budgets.
Art Basel is the world’s largest and most important marketplace for contemporary art and the classics of the 20th century. Here, every current form of artistic expression can be seen and purchased. The repertoire stretches from paintings, drawings, original prints, sculptures and installations, through to photography and performance, video and digital art. Visitors can expect a broad range of high-quality exhibits in every price category - from works by young, yet-to-be-discovered artists costing a few thousand euros through to rare museum-quality masterpieces by classic artists of the 20th century with price tags in the millions.
A survey conducted by the Show Management last year among all the participating galleries revealed that 27% of all the works they show in Basel cost under 5,000 euros. At this year’s Art Basel, too, art-lovers with smaller budgets can rejoice at the rich selection of high-quality art at affordable prices. Among them are not only the works offered by the 19 leading publishers of original prints, who are showing prints or multiples by young artists in the "Art Edition" sector, but also works from any of the 270 galleries from every continent, who are showing contemporary art and classics of the 20th century. What’s more, no other art show in the world has such a broad range of works of art in the middle price segment as Art Basel.
The works described below show that high-quality art needn’t be expensive. This is a small selection from the great wealth of works on sale at Art Basel for under 5,000 euros.
The Englishman Darren Lago (Annely Juda Fine Art, London) born in 1965, draws his inspiration from everyday objects, much like the master of the "ready-mades", Marcel Duchamp. Lago focuses on the daily dialog with the objects that surround us: be it the chair we sit on, the car we drive or the clothes we wear. In "Sparrow" - a garden spade with three handles - he refers directly to a work by Marcel Duchamp, who once exhibited a snow shovel entitled "In advance of a broken arm". From the master, Marcel Duchamp, himself, the small work "Bouche Evier" ("Sink Stopper", 1964) will be on sale at the booth of the Paris gallery "1900-2000". On this occasion, Duchamp did not simply present a real sink that he found somewhere, but produced a metal sculpture of a sink. The Swiss Sylvie Fleury (Art of this Century, New York/Paris) is famous for her interpretations of glamour, fashion and luxury goods in the modern commercial world. While at first glance her works seem to be a clear affirmation of the values in the consumer society, Fleury always includes a subtle commentary on the seeming beauty. In the multiple entitled "Dream" (edition of 25), a small trash can (35x32x28 cm), albeit upgraded with 24-carat gold, Fleury comments on the short-lived nature and transience of luxury goods and status symbols and how soon they may turn into trash. With his "usefully useless" orthopedic inventions and sports apparatus, the Brazilian Alexandre de Cunha (Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo) explores the fragility and limitations of the human body.
The sports apparatus series includes his 2000 piece "Stretcher". Eastern aesthetics combined with western techniques form the basis for the art of the 31-year-old American Gajin Fujita. In his dazzlingly colored works, Fujita mixes western graffiti, classic Japanese erotic prints, pop art and tattoos. The work "Study of Side Dragon", which Gajin Fujita created in 2003, will be on sale from the L.A. Louver Gallery of Venice.
The subtle drawings by the Canadian Marcel Dzama (David Zwirner, New York) are from an entirely different world of their own. Painted in Indian ink and watercolors using pastel colors with a shade of red, Dzama presents bizarre figures from an unreal, childish world of fairy tales. "Untitled" from the year 2003 shows five such figures that seem familiar, and yet alien.
The manifold use of photography as a medium developed by artists over the past forty years - be it as a portrayal of reality, for documentary purposes, or as ’staged’ photography - can also be seen in the works presented here. In his work "Corbeau" (1988-2000), the Swiss Balthasar Burckhard (Catherine Putman, Editions, Paris) combines a black-and-white photograph of a raven with a red surface, thus enhancing a photograph to produce a poetic image. In his work "Invernadero VII", the Spaniard Soto Monserrat (Galeria Helga de Alvear, Madrid) took pictures of makeshift greenhouses put together from plastic sheeting. The black-and-white photography of the Swede Anders Petersen (m Bochum) falls somewhere between nude and documentary photography. The photograph entitled "Sanae" shows a naked woman in an intimate scene as she sits on the bed. The photographic work by Padraig Timoney (Raucci/Santamaria Galeria, Napoli) plays with the attraction of reflections in a shop window. His photograph shows a woman passing by a shop window containing a wire mannequin with a pearl necklace.
Self-portraits provide the 32-year-old German Jonathan Meese (Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin) with a recurring means of self-expression. Meese appears as ruler, saint, despot, cowboy, Christ or artist. In the somber self-portrait "Pharao de Mees", which is expressively painted in black-gray tones, the artist appears as an Egyptian ruler who aggressively confronts the onlooker with his burning eyes painted in bright orange.
An entirely different basic atmosphere can be seen in the paintings of the old master of minimal art, Sol Lewitt (Crown Point Press, San Francisco), and of David Reed (The Lapis Press, Los Angeles) and the German Helmut Dorner (Galerie Vera Munro, Hamburg). In "Horizontal Bands (More or Less)" from the year 2002, Lewitt follows the simple, minimalist language of forms developed by him over the past forty years. How does the onlooker perceive which formats of images? - That is the starting point for the paintings of David Reed, whose motifs vacillate between abstraction and reality. Reed prefers a long, slim format that cannot be perceived as a whole. "When you look at an isolated part of my long horizontal paintings, the other parts, which you see out of the corner of your eye, seem to move, because peripheral vision is especially sensitive to movement." This idea is also the basis for the multi-part work "Untitled" (2001). The shapes and colors of Helmut Dorner’s watercolor painting "o.T." are committed to an abstraction that is both delicate and light-handed, not to mention lyrical.
In her sculptures, the German sculptor Julia Mangold (Studio La Città, Verona) arranges groups of rectangular elements that are welded together. Similarly, in "O.T. 21.2.00" - a wall sculpture - she follows a strict geometrical language of forms that correspond to her intuitive sense of proportion and balanced harmony.
UBS, a leading international financial institution, celebrates this year its 10th anniversary as the main sponsor of Art Basel. This ongoing relationship was expanded last year to include the inaugural Art Basel Miami Beach. Art Basel is a cornerstone of UBS’s commitment to fostering the arts worldwide, which also includes the renowned UBS PaineWebber Art Collection.
Art 34 Basel is open daily from June 18 to 23, 2003, from 11 am to 7 pm (to 6 pm on the last day). The Vernissage for invited guests takes place on the evening of the opening, on June 17. Day tickets cost CHF 30 (permanent pass CHF 55), students and pensioners pay CHF 15, evening tickets can be purchased from 5 pm onwards for CHF 10.
