I Love This Beautiful World

Modern Work The big boys of the show, those whose pieces are worth tens of millions of dollars are generally in the galleries that have modern work. The quantity of Andy Warhol pieces at this show is staggering. His Brillo boxes, Prints, Painted Prints, you name it. Everyone wants one for their collection. I don't know whether there is a saturation of his work because he had a prolific career, if it was actually his place in art history or some other market value scheme that I'm not privy to, but Warhol madness is in the collecting crowd this year. I could never collect art simply as an investment. I don't like Warhol's work and would never desire to own it especially with an $80 million dollar price tag. According to my tour guide there was a Francis Bacon Painting worth $60 million and a Picasso worth $30 at Galerie Krugier & Cie from Geneva. Among the artists who sold pieces for over $2 million were Mark Rothko, Maurizio Cattelan, Anish K...

I'll start first with the less consumer driven areas. Art Statements and Art Unlimited are sections of the fair that are reserved for projects of more emergent artists and well-known artists whose work is only appropriate for site specific and museum settings. In my opinion this area (Hall 1) was like a sampler platter of large scale and conceptual work. The work presented is not salable. It can be commissioned by an arts board, public institution or non-profit but no one will have this in their home or small private gallery. Art Statements There are 10 artists juried into the Art Statements area. They each have a gallery representing their work and do a project proposal as their submission. Each is given a decent space to work with and construct their vision. I'll discuss a few of the diverse pieces. An aspect that I found true in many of the projects is their assumption of Dadaism. The movement nearly 100 years ago rendered any object art as...

Armed with about 1.5 hours of sleep and three German words of no consequence (Zwiebel- from a trip to Germany 12 years ago when I learned how to ask for it on my pizza, Shinken- my grandmother's derogatory nickname for me, and Weiss- as in Edelweiss from the Sound of Music), I headed on the tram to the Messeplatz (Event Hall) where Art Basel is primarily held. To say the least it is a bit overwhelming. There are thousands of people. The extremely well organized event is a flurry of activity to me. It' a little like Disneyland. Each person is a character that plays a roll. From the fleet of Art Basel VIP black BMW's lined up to whisk whichever high roller to their 5 star hotel to the seating area full of lounging socialites between the two main halls. The seating area is constructed of trees, fake grass (not the cheap-o stuff, but what you'd find on a football field) that covers the ground and geometric "hills" made for lounging with your $6 coffe...