The 2018 Edition of Art Basel has come to an end! So it’s for My Design Agenda to review the best that this art show had to offer and what were best exhibitors that participated.
One of the biggest highlights of this 49th edition of Art Basel was the giant, exhausting, and fantastic Bruce Nauman retrospective “Disappearing Acts” at the Schaulager Museum. This exhibit is so exciting that will move to New York in October to take up a home at the Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1—has a bit of commerce to go along with it.
Sperone Westwater sold Nauman’s new Contrapposto Split, a 3-D video projection that turns the exhibition space into an extension of the artist’s studio, and Leaping Foxes, a new hanging sculpture with foam-formed wild animals stacked acrobatically. The video piece sold to an anonymous buyer for a seven-figure sum, while the large sculpture that you can see in the image above went (also for seven figures) to the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation.
Another highlight of Art Basel 2018 was Simon Lee London and Perrotin Paris. The pair utilized their adjoining position at the fair and the special architecture of their booths to create a shared space over two floors dedicated to major works by French painter Bernard Frize.
Galerie Gmurzynska, the innovative and leading international gallery, which has locations in Zurich, St. Moritz, New York, is a must-see at each Art Basel exhibition and is always considered one of the major booths to visit. This year they didn’t disappoint either. Known for their innovative ideas and creative collaborations, this year’s gallery presents two specially curated cabin exhibitions: One is an homage to the pop-icon artist Robert Indiana (1928-2018), who became famous for his LOVE paintings and sculptures.
Other stand out of Art Basel was the Foundation Beyeler, whose stand at this year’s Art Basel was devoted to Pablo Picasso, the emblematic artist of the 20th-century. The selection of works on show concentrates on Picasso’s multifaceted image of a woman, with three major paintings and a large bronze sculpture of the artist’s lover and muse Dora Maar.
London’s Victoria Miro gallery also had a great Art Basel. They went for a three-person booth, with work on view by Yayoi Kusama, Sarah Sze, and Adriana Varejão. The same goes for 47 Canal, an art gallery which calls New York’s Chinatown home, had a very popular booth that supported a piquant melange of gallery artists including, Janiva Ellis, Antoine Catala, Josh Kline, and Stewart Uoo.
When it comes to scrappy elegance, it’s hard to beat this year’s outing from Cologne’s Galerie Gisela Capitain. The works of Charline von Heyl, Martin Kippenberger, and Seth Price were at display in the space of this gallery that represented the best of the German Art World! As always, Art Basel was a show stopper with incredible artworks and the highs were a lot superior to the lows.
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