Recession Creeps Up on Basel

Switzerland's Galerie Gmurzynska parted with Alexander Calder’s vivid gouache "Striped Man: Striped Sweater" (1953) for just under $200,000.
Courtesy Galerie Gmurzynska

More reports from Basel.

This one is from ArtInfo.

Enjoy!

BASEL—Dealers at Art|40|Basel continued to rack up sales on day two, but gone was the early euphoria of opening day that came with the realization that the art market hadn’t died.
“It’s fine,” said David Nahmad of London and New York’s Helly Nahmad, strolling out of the stand’s solo display of late Joan Miró works, “but I think business is a little bit quiet.”

The gallery sold one painting, Femmes et oiseaux dans la nuit (1968), for $6 million, according to Nahmad — an enormous sum for that period Miró — “to a known but anonymous client in the first minute of the fair.”


Pausing in thought, Nahmad added, “Maybe it’s difficult to sell, but it’s much more difficult to buy in this market because there’s very little material around.”

That sounded odd, standing in the midst of acres of paintings and works of art by the world’s best modern and contemporary artists, but that’s what one notable secondary-market guru felt.

Another one-person exhibition just down the aisle from Nahmad was at Madrid’s González gallery, which showcased six Donald Judd wall reliefs, “Progressions - 1960’s/1970’s.” Only one of the works had sold — the largest, a stainless-steel Untitled (1976), for more than $1.5 million, according to dealer Fernando Mignoni.

“We have to take into account,” said Mignoni, “how things are right now and how things have been over the past two years. This is a business, and we have to be realistic. The bottom line is, we’ve done that, so we’re happy.”

That more somber take was also evident at Chicago/New York dealer Richard Gray’s stand, which was rich in secondary-market works by modern and contemporary masters, including a major David Hockney canvas, The Conversation (1980), and Pablo Picasso’s La Famille du Jardinier (1965) and Femme ecrivant (Marie–Therese) (1934).

Paul Gray declined to give details on any of the gallery’s transactions, other than citing sale prices ranging from $15,000 to $5 million. “I’m reasonably pleased, but we’re certainly down from last year, though not depressingly so," he said. "None of the significant sales are things I want to publicize, and the reason is, we have these things because the sellers want to be discreet.”

As Gray observed, “There are things we have this year that we wouldn’t have had last year [from consignors], because the auction houses no longer hold the advantage by throwing money at consignors. We have the advantage now.”

But when pressed for details on gallery sales, the usually affable Gray grew testy and said, “I’m not feeling so cooperative today. All the headlines that the market is back are just wrong. It’s not doom and gloom, but there’s a lot more nuance now that doesn’t play well in headlines.”

The recession seemed to lie heavily on everyone’s mind, and both dealers and collectors seemed to be working hard at playing fair in a tougher climate.

“Collectors aren’t asking for 30 to 40 percent off on asking prices,” said Natalia Sacasa of New York’s Luhring Augustine. “It’s more like 10 to 15 percent. It’s a discussion not fraught with what kind of deal you can get in a recession.”

The gallery had already sold a new Christopher Wool painting from 2009, Untitled (P575) in enamel on linen, to a European collector for $370,000 and several untitled works at $18,000 and $24,000 by 33-year-old gallery artist Josh Smith, currently showing in the New Museum’s “Younger Than Jesus” exhibition. It also sold Albert Oehlen’s large abstraction Nachthimmel (2006) for approximately $250,000.

Sacasa said a lot of pieces went from the stand’s “backroom” closet, adding that she and her colleagues had begun to joke among themselves that next year they would build a giant closet and no booth, since collectors seemed to prefer what wasn’t on the walls.

Please read more about it here:
http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/31710/recession-creeps-up-on-basel/?page=2

Miami Art Basel

This is how I felt after 4 minutes at Miami Art Basel and not singing Maddonna's song

Artist Doug Aitken always sets the tone with the right words!

Attention K-Mart shoppers...there are leftovers from 2007 being pedalled in the room for sale!

This how I felt after being at Miami Art Basel for 15 minutes...LIKE A CAGED ANIMAL!

Christina Caputo and Kellie McLaughlin from Aperture Foundation wanted to let you know...

I know ...some of us misbehave when we head South!

ARTmostfierce was a bit disappointed with Miami ART Basel. The mood was sort of desperate, with some buyers more interested of matching the possible artwork purchases with their room decor than being interested on making a good investment and getting to know who is the artist and its mission statement...weird right?

Specially during these current economic times when everybody is watching how they spend money!

This type of interaction was quite predominant throughout the fair. I heard several times and left me in total state of disbelief.

I thought that was kind of interesting some urban signage art and installations kind of set the mood of the fair. So let the photos give you an idea of what the fair (more like a car show) is all about this years.  Off course I will not post photos of many (and I mean a lot !) of art that I saw at Miami Basel 2007 still doing the rounds on 2008 and even adorning the same walls. More about MAB later . Please read article by Art-info below!

Right now, I am partied out !

MIAMI BEACH—Amid dire predictions that the contemporary art market has fallen off a cliff, the opening hours of today’s Art Basel Miami Beach V.I.P. preview showed that collectors are a stubborn bunch set on shopping for bargains.
Forget the jockeying for position, the noontime mini-dramas, and the famous one-hour holds on coveted works of art — they’re all things of the past now. Instead, what was weighing on discerning collectors’ minds in the early moments of the fair was the question of where the market is going.

“I look at this downturn as opportunity time,” said seasoned Miami collector Norman Braman. “I’ve had works of art that have been offered to me that are very exciting, but no one knows how serious the downturn is. As I told one dealer, ‘The problem is, I don’t know what the bottom is, so I don’t know what’s reasonable.’”

And make no mistake, it’s not just the atmosphere and prices that have changed.

“People seem more chained to their desks,” said one blue-chip exhibitor, commenting on the underwhelming preview attendance, “and don’t have the luxury of flying off to an art fair.”

But for those who did show up, that might be a blessing. “We can’t be as rude [to clients] as we’ve been for the past three years,” said another dealer, admitting to a new friendly approach from dealers who, in the art market’s boom days, became used to tough bouts of one-upmanship.

But it felt almost like the old boom times, at least for a minute, at New York’s PaceWildenstein, when an American collector snapped up an Alexander Calder sterling silver necklace from 1941 for $450,000 as soon as she tried it on. “She put it on and owned it right then and there,” said the gallery’s Jennifer Joy.

Is it art or jewelry? Right now, who cares?

While a number of multi-million-dollar works were on view — including Rene Magritte’s Les Graces naturelles, from 1948, for $11.5 million at Montreal’s Landau Fine Art, and Ed Ruscha’s Standard Station on Fire, from 1966, for $8.5 million at New York/London/L.A./Rome’s Gagosian Gallery — commerce was mostly taking place at decidedly more modest levels.

Chicago/New York dealer Richard Gray sold at least three new works by David Hockney in color inkjet print on paper from an edition of 25 for $9,500 apiece. Bearing titles like Rainy Night in Bridlington Promenade and Cardigan Road Bridlington, the works are expressive plein air compositions of the artist’s hometown in Yorkshire.

Palm Beach/Southampton collectors Ted and Ruth Baum were seen busily studying a rare abstract work titled Auge (Eye), (1963–64) by Zero Group member Otto Piene — done in oil, fire, and smoke residue on canvas — at New York’s Adler & Conkright Fine Art before taking the plunge and buying it somewhere below the asking price of $85,000.

“It’s underpriced,” said Ted Baum, delighted with his purchase. “The red is always a premium price, and it’s the right year.”

Ruth soon reminded her husband that they needed to return to New York dealer Barbara Mathes’s booth, which is devoted to works by Joseph Cornell and Yayoi Kusama, to decide on a rare 1981 Kusama box, Sea, and tore around the corner to see it again.

Tagging along with a determined and consummate art-collecting couple for a mini buying spree seemed a reassuring way to pass the time in the sparsely attended preview, so I followed along. In little time, the couple had purchased that piece as well, for a figure in the $100,000 range.

“This one was a little tougher negotiation. It’s really a rare thing,” said Ted. “We have just the right place for it.”

Sounding momentarily contrite about their spending, he added, “Yeah, we’re terrible, but there’s great stuff for our collection here.”

There was also early activity at London/Zurich's Hauser & Wirth, which sold Jason Rhoades’s One-wheel wagon-wheel chandelier (Moot, Overnight Depository, Stuffed Stocking) from 2004 for $250,000, Mary Heilmann’s abstraction Mateo from 1996 for $550,000, and an untitled Wilhelm Sasnal painting from 2008 for €60,000 ($76,000).

f the preview was a mostly sober affair, some signs of the exuberance of Art Basels past were evident. It occurred to me, for instance, that the pricey Ruscha offered at Gagosian for $8.5 million had sold at Christie’s New York in November 2007 for $6,985,000 (est. $4–6 million).

“It’s much, much admired,” a gallery staffer said. “But it is a big price at this moment.”

So, the seven-year-old fair is still ticking. Even better, some announcements made just before the preview point toward its long-term health. Main sponsor UBS has reportedly signed up for a multi-year renewal of its patronage, and, perhaps more important, fair organizer MCH Swiss Exhibition Ltd. has booked another three years at the sprawling Miami Convention Center, wiping out persistent rumors that the southern Florida venue might be jettisoned for one in southern California.

Is Art Sponsorship Going Out of Style?

Photo-A Must Have~!
Richard Prince designs for Louis Vuitton














ART + Fashion+Design+ Architecture=???


We here at ARTmostfierce feel like some of these relationships(sponsors) at times can be a success for both parties but also, it can work against the artist diminishing and commercializing the artist work value.
It is a good way for artist to become a brand and I guess, the best example of it is Takashi Murakami. The nature of his art flirts appropriately with mass production and commercialism in a quite similar but never as successful as the only master of it ...Andy Warhol!
Please read an article by ArtInfo throwing more light into the topic.

Enjoy!



NEW YORK—When Palestinian artist Emily Jacir accepted the 2008 Hugo Boss Prize last week, the champagne-sipping crowd at the Guggenheim Museum radiated all the glitter expected at a confluence of the fashion and art worlds. But that glitter, given the present economic state, also gave the event the indulgent feel of a relic from a bygone gilded age.
While partnerships between fashion brands and the arts are part of a longstanding, mutually beneficial game of glamour marketing, it’s not clear that such a strategy would still be effective in today’s economy. But that would depend on the brand’s goals. While companies from Louis Vuitton to Gap use art-world collaborations to create and move merchandise, an approach that is prey to fluctuations in consumer spending, Hugo Boss’s strategy — to create long-term associations with art and arts institutions in buyers’ minds — is less susceptible to tough times.

For Hugo Boss, involvement in the arts is based on a somewhat traditional model. “Our arts sponsorship emotionalizes the brand,” said Hjördis Kettenbach, Hugo Boss’s head of corporate communications and arts sponsorship.

Since 1996, the German fashion label has partnered with the Guggenheim Foundation to award the biannual Hugo Boss Prize, which recognizes a mid-career contemporary artist with a $100,000 award and a solo show in the New York museum. Hugo Boss is also a major supporter of other exhibits at the Guggenheim — including, coincidentally, the museum’s current exhibit “theanyspacewhatever.”

But for all of Boss’s sponsorship efforts, equally significant is what it doesn’t do: cross-promote its own products through the arts. There will be no Hugo Boss scarves with prints designed by Emily Jacir, nor T-shirts with the artwork of Jacir and her fellow nominees. The reason for that is based on a firm belief in boundaries. “This is the art world, and what we do is fashion,” Kettenbach said. “If you mix it too much, it gets too commercial. We don’t want to lose our good reputation with the art world.”

Of course, commercial tie-ins have certainly worked for Louis Vuitton, which boasts an enthusiastic dialogue between artists and fashion design. In 2003, Takashi Murakami created a wildly popular series of handbags for the brand; last year, as part of the artist’s retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Vuitton sponsored a shop containing Murakami’s designs that was controversially located within the exhibition itself.

Richard Prince, too, was invited by Louis Vuitton artistic director Marc Jacobs to design a series of handbags for the spring 2008 collection; at the runway show, the bags were presented on models dressed to look like the subjects of Prince’s “Nurse” paintings. In January, the company hosted a party to celebrate the bags at the Guggenheim, which was hosting a survey of Prince’s work at the time; the bags were available for pre-order at the event.

On the mass-market end of the fashion spectrum, Gap entered the fine-art mix earlier this year with T-shirts designed by artists included in the 2008 Whitney Biennial. And on the occasion of this year's presidential election, the brand invited artists including Kara Walker and John Waters to design “Vote” buttons that sold for $5 each.

But Hugo Boss is having none of it: no sales, no crossover merchandising, no discernible spike in receipts at its Manhattan stores after the award ceremony at the Guggenheim, according to Kettenbach. “This is not our aim,” she said. “It’s more for the image and the brand.”

That image is meant to attract a shopper who has an interest in luxury, clothing, art — and most important, in aesthetic values. Someone who cares equally about what’s on the body, the table, and the walls, but doesn’t need to shout about it. The Vuitton customer, on the other hand, is more interested in communicating to the world that she knows the work of Prince and Murakami — she wants it on the wall and on her shoulder, too.

To read more about it please click on link below!

http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/29515/is-art-sponsorship-going-out-of-style/?page=2