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| ‘Gemini Nebula’ by Takashi Murakami, who will be one of more than 2,000 artists on show at ABMB |
As the art world nervously looks to Florida ahead of next week’s prestigious Art Basel Miami Beach fair (ABMB, December 3-6), some commentators are pulling no punches about the prospects for the Sunshine State’s art event scene. Alexis Hubshman, the founder of Scope, a satellite fair launched in 2002 alongside the first ABMB, says “This is a very real test of the vitality of the Miami art fair market in particular and, really, the art fair industry in general. Honest reports from all Miami organisers will show everyone down at least 20 per cent [in profits], whether as a product of fewer exhibitors or lowered stand prices.”
This winter, 60 exhibitors from last year’s ABMB have dropped out, according to The Art Newspaper (one such dealer, Matthias Arndt of Arndt & Partner in Berlin, stressed the need to go on an “art fair diet”), and only 16 satellite art fairs are clustered around the mothership event, down from 22 last year. So has the Florida art juggernaut finally come to a halt? Not so, says the fair’s co-director Marc Spiegler: “The layout of the Miami Beach Convention Center has been redesigned, adding 20 per cent more exhibition space across all four halls. This will allow us to have larger booths in the main art galleries area, where 85 per cent of the dealers have come back. Last year, there were 265 stands in total. This year there are 270.”
So where have all the new dealers come from? The multitude of satellite fairs evidently means a musical chairs of gallerists in Miami; some dealers who have previously shown at the veteran NADA fair, for instance, which opens this year at the Deauville Beach Resort with 80 booths (December 3-6) have graduated to ABMB.
“Every year, new galleries come in after previously applying. This year, there are galleries that are long-timers at Art Basel [the Swiss sister fair held in June], including Artiaco of Naples and Silverstein Gallery of New York. Many of the ‘new’ galleries are simply rejoining the fair after a year or two away,” says Spiegler, who confirmed that stand fees are up in the art galleries section. “People still have faith in ABMB, and there is definitely a market for high-quality art. For example, the number of museum groups set to visit this year is on a par, if not higher, than in 2008, while serious collectors are back in force.”
And what about prices? Paris gallery Emmanuel Perrotin is offering a Takashi Murakami acrylic (“Warp”, 2009) for $1.5m, a Duane Hanson sculpture (“High School Student”, 1990, pictured right) for $425,000 and a photographic print by Paola Pivi (“Untitled”, 2009) for $33,000; first-timer Edward Tyler Nahem of New York will show a room of paintings by Bilbao-born Alejandra Icaza priced at $35,000 each, while Kamel Mennour of Paris will present a neon work by Claude Lévêque at €26,000. New York’s Jack Shainman Gallery will be selling a Gordon Cheung painting at $46,000.
Last year, the Florida fair provided commentators with the first opportunity to assess how much life remained in the market after the meltdown. The pace was slower and prices were lower, but long-term collectors did indeed turn out to support galleries. Gallerist Jeffrey Deitch of New York even said that the 2008 fair recalled an era “before the period of irrational exuberance. It is ... like an art fair 10 years ago.”
New York-based art adviser Todd Levin, director of Levin Art Group, estimates that prices have dropped by “about 40 per cent in three years” and also touches on the pre-bubble age: “We’re seeing a move incrementally back to what the Art Basel brand used to be over 30 years ago: a professional trade fair. We’ll see much less of the fashionista crowd this year who don’t purchase works or contribute in any meaningful way to the art world.
“Before the slump, the market was unrealistic and overblown. It has stabilised now, but keep in mind that the market is made up of many different strata,” he says, pointing to the recent contemporary art auctions in New York, which are “being trumpeted as a return to stability”.
The art world was generally heartened by the “solid” results posted by Sotheby’s and Christie’s evening sales, with the former fetching $134.4m for 55 lots and the latter bagging $74.2m for 39 lots. “But two years ago,” Levin adds, “when both auction houses made over $300m each at their winter New York auctions, figures like those would have been seen as a generation-scarring tragedy.”
Some Miami-based art entrepreneurs nonetheless believe that the economy has bottomed out. Local collector and property developer Craig Robins says that “the big test was last year during a time when transactions had basically halted. Today the [art] market, while not as strong as it was at the peak, is vital and consistent. Transactions have gravitated generally toward more established art, which probably makes sense anyway. At Design Miami [the fair he founded in 2005], we expect a great turnout.”
Nick Korniloff, director of the satellite Art Miami fair (December 2-6), agrees that buyers will be on the lookout for “quality works of art that are fresh to the market and well priced. I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ve turned a corner.”
Against the backdrop of a real estate glut – a two-bedroom condo on sale in Miami’s financial district for $450,000 18 months ago now fetches around $300,000 – but with hotel bookings holding up, new large-scale selling exhibitions are opening their doors. The Sushisamba restaurant chain is confident that the “timing is perfect” for its Graffiti Gone Global project, a street-art event (December 3-6) featuring 18 artists, with prices ranging from $400 to $90,000.
Such fledgling schemes show that Miami, with its head-spinning circuit of hot ticket parties, VIP services and complementary cultural events, is still an essential art calendar fixture. This year the must-see stops include a new 28,000 sq ft museum in the Design District devoted to the contemporary art holdings of Miami collectors Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz. Over at the Bass Museum, pieces from the 2,000-strong contemporary collection of the Mexican fruit-juice billionaire Eugenio López Alonso go on show for the first time in the US (December 3-March 14 2010).
The Mexican link is no coincidence; both Spiegler and Hubshman underscore the importance of the city as a magnet for visitors from Latin America and the de facto art capital of Latin America on US soil. “I expect plenty of the usual suspects to travel to Miami, such as the ebbing generation of coolly austere Euro collectors. But the city has a distinct geographical advantage: proximity to South and Latin America, both of which boast major pockets of real economic power, but more to the point, a collector population that is sophisticated, has money and travels internationally,” says Hubshman. A new crop of Chinese, Indonesian and Indian collectors are also expected, he adds. And his final thoughts before the circus hits town? “This year, I hope for a contracted, consolidated art fair market with a strong euro against the dollar, collectors out for a bargain and less background noise.
