Paul Housley Lord of Experience Cardboard, 27 x 19 x 22 cm, 2011
VOLTA8 Basel JUNE 11th -16th , 2012
Thin crowd at VOLTA8 but the quality shines through with good sales.
As stated by Artistic Director Amanda Coulson:
“It was an extremely strange year for us in terms of the usual traffic and therefore unpredictable. Whether this was because of the heavy and exhausting stack of previous events – Frieze NY, the re-branded Hong Kong fair, Manifesta 9 and dOCUMENTA (13) – or the newly split VIP days at the main fair is hard to say, but instead of fizzing crowds followed by slow moments it was rather a constant, slow but steady trickle that added up to significant attendance but that lacked the normal rhythm. Sales came through, however, so at the end of the day, it was a successful fair if lacking the usual energy of Art Basel week.”
Poppy Sebire
‘We are exhibited work by Paul Housley and Roger Andersson at Volta8, both of whom have a show at our gallery before the end of the year, so the fair was good for building international interest in our program at home. Attendance at the fair was noticeably down but the quality of people I have met and sold to was high.’
www.poppysebire.com
UNTITLED, 2011 Ink and watercolor on paper 22 x 21 cm 8 5/8 x 8 1/4 in
Nathan Englebrecht
The crowd was thin, especially with Art Basel’s two-day VIP opening. But that said the quality of people that came through was very good. All the big name collectors came through, plus a lot of institutes and foundations. For us, that meant really great sales, especially with William Bradley’s work, and because the quality of collectors was high, it meant that the fair was successful for us in financial terms and status and career terms for our artists, who are now included in some prestigious collections.
www.ebandflowgallery.com/
Finally there was Smash137, the Basel-based graffiti artist whose towering, multihued tag blossomed across a building near the Dreispitzhalle. It was a week-long work in progress, considering Tuesday and Wednesday’s rain, but at completion the vibrant transformation of a graybrick wall to evaporating tonal gestures acted as a beacon on the Münchensteinerstrasse, and echoed smashing successes at VOLTA8.
