image:Ruud Van Empel
Silent but deadly is probably the best summary of SCOPE I’ve heard so far. We’ve had traffic, yes; we’ve had sales, yes; but on the ground it feels abit slow, a bit understated, a bit… deadly.
The first couple of days SCOPE certainly delivered the calibre of visitor that we all came here to find, and they came and spent and went, but now, five days in, the initial furore having calmed down, a lot of galleries are starting to pace the boards, slowly developing cabin fever. There’s the usual grumbling andgriping that accompanies all but the most obscene feeding frenzy fairs:where are the collectors? Why aren’t they spending like they used to? Why is my aisle quieter than everybody else’s? As the hours tick beneath the cocoon of the marquee, it’s much like standing in a very long ticket queue–
the one next to you always moves faster.
Collectors, collector, collectors. Nobody ever just buys a piece of work in Basel (or in any German speaking country in my experience): they’re a “collector”. Say it with a Wossy German accent for maximum effect. In the general run of life a collector is usually viewed as an acutely boring person, an anorak, a Norman. Philatelists, lepidopterists, or any other obsessives are, it could be argued, just variant types of trainspotter. And yet here in Basel, they are the elixir of the fair’s life, as bejewelled, rarified and auratic as befits any magical mystical Grail. And, like said Grail, they are notoriously difficult to get a drink out of.
But drink we have over the past few days, and at a crowded Campari bar at the Kunsthalle on Wednesday, watching rich white people dance badly to poor black music, I heard from the Art Newspaper’s photographer that Brad Pitt was actually quite polite when she asked if she could take his photo – “I appreciate it,” he said. “No-one normally asks”. Words from the demi-Godhimself, still making news three days on for having bought a painting at an art fair.
There are, as you can imagine, many many other glamorous socialites swarming around Art Basel. The vernissage (that’s the French word the Germanics use for opening night) was so thick with people enjoying the free cigarillos and 70-quid bottles of champagne that you would struggle to see a work you liked, let alone buy it. The only respite was in the open-air terrace, a cylindrical cavity of open air acting as a spoke for the rest of the fair where layers of luvvies looked down from the balconies and name-spotted amongst the drinkers down below. I had little time, and less inclination after spending most of my waking hours inside one art fair, to go around trying to glean names, prices, titles and buyers at Art Basel, so if you want a run down on that read Judd Tully’s pieces at Artinfo.com (that’s what I’m doing). Sorry, but it’s just easier that way. It’s a longweek.
Meanwhile, back at the Sportsplatz, the Formula One pedigree punters from the first couple of days have, by Friday, given way to Sunday drivers – not the kind of “collectors” everybody’s looking for. I even had someone say today that they needed to think of where they would hang a painting, a sure sign of lack of commitment and a paucity of serious collectorliness. Fromwhat has sold at the fair, they go from the sublime (Ruud Van Empel’s exquisite digital photo montages from 18K are hefty but inexplicably enchanting) to the ridiculous (I’m not going to name names, but imagine spraying Styrofoam onto a board, then spraying it the cheapest gaudy blue that Homebase provides – then imagine asking 125 grand for it – then imagine selling it), and with a certain amount of gradation in between,although not as much as we might have been used to in recent years. Let’s see what the weekend brings.
One more thing. If you do come to Basel in the summer, there is the most superb new bar on the ninth floor of the car park on Messeplatz. You have to go up in the parking lift, and exit onto the open air final floor, but
the view, the swimming pools, the sandy football field, and the curiously reasonable prices have made this a choice place to get battered after business for a large part of the dealers in Basel. We recommend it.
