Art Basel, the world’s largest art fair, launched its 2024 VIP preview days on Tuesday. Approximately 285 galleries were present, including 22 first-time major, statement and specialty galleries including Karma, Tina Keng Gallery, Madelyn Gallery, Mayoral, Yates Art and Parker Gallery.
Maike Cruse, who became Swiss Fair director last year, said: “Our global collection continues to expand as new buyers enter the market and ensures essential support for the business and a core audience of ongoing collections. “At the same time, we are also aware that The art market is going through a period of readjustment… There is clearly a degree of caution in the market at the moment, however, I would say that given the energy in the hall today, the art market is still here and very strong.
The show opened with huge crowds and big sales seemed to follow. An untitled work by Ashile Gorky from 1946-47 sold for $16 million at the Hauser & Wirth booth. Meanwhile, a Yayoi Kusama sculpture on display at David Zwirner in the Unlimited section sold for $5 million.
Museum directors and collectors such as Charles Carmignac, Emma Lavigne and Fabrice Hergott were spotted walking past Agnes Denis New version of Agnes Denes Wheatfield – a confrontation (1984). The work was first exhibited in New York’s Financial District, and then reappeared at art fairs in the form of a rectangular piece of wheat straw. Visitors to the fair can walk through a path leading to Dennis wheat fieldcaused a stir from the start.
Here are the best artworks on display at Art Basel 2024, which runs until June 16.
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Wael Shawky at Sfeir-Semler Gallery
Photo credit: Sebastiano Pellion of Persano
“We want to bring sunshine to Basel because we are in Hamburg all year round,” joked a spokesman for the Sfeir-Semler gallery, pointing to Marwan Rechmaoui’s sun-shaped wall sculpture. Nearby are a vibrant grid painting by Lebanese-American artist Etel Adnan and an acrylic by Palestinian-American artist Samia Halaby, a pioneer in abstract painting Paper mache bas-relief.
But the real stars of the stall were the ceramic versions of the grotesque masks that Wael Shawky showcases in his films, which touch on subjects ranging from 19th-century Egypt’s nationalist Uraby revolution against imperial influence to 12th-century Egypt. Century Crusaders invaded the country. (The former theme is the basis for a new work currently on display in the Egyptian pavilion of the Venice Biennale.) Each work on display at Art Basel evokes stereotypes from Greek mythology and commedia dell’arte.
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Lisa Brice at Sadie Coles headquarters
Image credit: Courtesy of the artist and Sadie Coles Headquarters
Gustave Courbet fans will recognize in this painting the depiction of his famous 1866 canvas the origin of the world, here rendered in Lisa Brice’s signature cobalt blue. But the South African-born, London-based artist’s interpretation of Courbet’s close-up of a female vulva is a subversion of the work. Rather than simply recreate Courbet’s image, Blaise depicts his model gazing down at her waist and painting herself. It’s all part of Bryce’s ongoing effort to challenge well-known images in Western art history, in which women look like passive objects. Blythe’s latest paintings reveal a powerful female painter driven by her own desires – she paints what she sees, and how she wants it to be.
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Jean-Michel Othoniel of Perrotin
Photo credit: Claire Dorn/Courtesy of Perrotin
With three floors and perhaps the largest booth at Art Basel, Perrotin felt like a mini-fair within a larger fair. The French gallery expanded the last mezzanine on the second floor of the Herzog & de Meuron building to create a so-called “sculpture park” that houses works by Claire Tabouret, Johan Critten Creten and Takashi Murakami. Also of interest are the exquisite paintings by Ali Banisadr, a new member of the gallery’s roster.
However, the most beautiful piece of art Perrotin brought to the show was actually outside of this booth. In the adjacent cabinet area there are works by Jean-Michel Othoniel, whose sculptures employ the concept of “emotional geometry”. His “Wild Knots” sculpture is the result of a 10-year collaboration with Mexican mathematician Aubin Arroyo; they also referenced Jacques Lacan’s theory of Borromean knots, which the figure represents How humans perceive the world. Within the Kabinett, Otoniel also presents a large-scale abstract painting based on his fascination with the symbolic potential of plants and flowers. Similar works can be found in his current exhibition at the Sarahilden Museum of Art in Finland.
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Eva Koťátková by Meyer Riegger
Image credit: Courtesy of the artist and Meyer Riegger
Meyer Riegger’s booth was filled with blue textiles, a Sheila Hicks linen piece contrasting with a pair of jeans borrowed from one of Alexandra Bachzetsis’s shows. Likewise, there is an installation composed of a table covered with fabric, scissors, spools of thread and a sewing machine by Eva Koťátková, whose art appears in Venice, Czech Republic In the Biennale Pavilion. This work is called Dreaming about more skin (2022), can be interpreted as a metaphor for Kotakova’s wider practice, as she often combines textiles and performance. Her artwork can also be seen in the Parcours area, where she is exhibiting My body is not an islandan installation filled with crates, costumes and sculptures brought to life through performance, text and sound.
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Nour Jaouda by Union Pacific
Image source: Courtesy of Art Basel
At this Venice Biennale, Nour Jaouda’s textile works, which suggest forms of perseverance, are particularly memorable. Art Basel’s Manifesto section is dedicated to emerging artists competing for Art Basel’s Baloise Art Prize, and the young Libyan artist has another noteworthy work: a new installation that draws on her early interest in architecture ’s interests merge with a recent fascination with natural landscapes. She turned to nature after reading a poem by Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish, which reminded her of the olive trees in her beloved Libyan grandmother’s garden. Installation, titled shadow of every tree, consists of vibrant textiles suspended behind majestic metal doors, whose patterns refer both to Islamic motifs and to the architectural heritage of the French and British colonizers. “I wanted to create a liminal space that would disrupt the movement of the audience and question our relationship with borders,” she said in an interview. “I think our cultural identity is a process of formation. Plants don’t rely on one root. Likewise, we grow from different experiences.
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Mona Hatoum at Galerie Chantal Crousel
Image credit: Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Chantal Crousel
Mona Hatoum’s installation art Fossil Folly (Set 2) IV Coming straight to this booth from last year’s Sharjah Biennale. The work consists of two red barrels, slightly damaged, and covered with plant-shaped elements (resembling agave, aloe and thistle) cut directly from the top and sides of these barrels. The Palestinian artist believes these plant extensions function like ghosts resurrected from dormancy.
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William Kentridge at the Goodman Gallery
Image credit: Courtesy of the artist and Goodman Gallery
This is the 40th time that the leading South African gallery is participating in Art Basel, showcasing never-before-seen works such as a tapestry created specifically for the fair by El Anatsui. The bronze sculptures of South African artist William Kentridge became the most dazzling focus in the booth. His bronze sculptures have been sold to a private foundation in Belgium for US$600,000, and there are also works for his upcoming exhibition in July. Latest paintings created for the opera performed at LUMA Arles. Also on display is a new painting by Zimbabwean artist and activist Kudzanai Chiurai, who imagines a speculative history of the Union of African Nations’ rise to political dominance.
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Heitor dos Prazeres in Almeida & Dale
Photo credit: Courtesy of Almeida and Dale
In its selection of 20th-century works, Almeida & Dale in São Paulo presents for the first time the work of the Brazilian master Heitor dos Prazeres, who still lacks recognition outside his home country. Dos Prazeres, a shoe shine boy from a Rio de Janeiro favela, started out as a clarinetist, singer and composer before teaching himself painting. His works from the 1950s and 1960s reflect the reality of Brazil’s black community through colorful everyday scenes. Beginning in 1964, Brazil was under a military dictatorship that prohibited playing music or dancing in the streets, so Prazeres came under censorship for depicting these festive moments. Today, his art serves as a form of resistance.
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Omyo Cho from Wooson Gallery
Image credit: Courtesy of the artist and Wooson Gallery
Welcome to the future, where the world has been overrun by jellyfish-like creatures that carry our memories with them and think they are human. This is the story told by Korean artist Omyo Cho in her dystopian novel memory searcher (2022), will be published in full next year. The plot of the book is based on memory transfer, where memories can be shared or traded with another person. After studying the phenomenon with neuroscientist Haeyoung Koh, Cho decided to transform some of her sci-fi characters into sculptures; they are on display in the Statements section of Wooson Gallery. They have glass-blown bodies and are perched on stainless steel legs. It’s not hard to imagine that these legs would begin to move once humans instinctively move. Ominous indeed.
