By Nancy Nesvet Starting the day in the beautiful Botanic Garden for the press conference before the press and VIP opening for Art Basel Miami Beach 2017, we heard about the number one art event attended by United States collectors, with 180 cultural institutions represented and 70,000+ people expected to attend. The news that a seven-year contract was approved for Art Basel Miami Beach’s stay each year at the Miami Beach Convention Center was announced by the UBS representative sponsoring the fair. Banyan trees, palms and art made the morning. Artscope went on to preview Art Basel Miami 2017, noting a high percentage of work by hot, contemporary artists. We observed that the numbers were reversed with about 60/40 hot younger artists to older, established artists or those no longer practicing, here as opposed to Art Basel 2017 in Switzerland with the 60 percent being older, … [Read more...] about ART BASEL MIAMI 2017: THE FAIR
Art Basel 2017
The Art World Returns to Miami; Artscope’s 2017 Art Basel Miami Beach Preview: Part One
By Nancy Nesvet I hope you all read Artscope’s preview article of Art Basel Miami Beach 2017 in our November/December 2018 issue. If you didn’t, refer back to it because this Artscope writer was right on the pulse of this Art Basel. Not only is the world of the artist becoming self-and community-centered, but it is now becoming territorial, the buzzword and title of the Public sector. Although outside, territorial is the name and the game, with each installation concerned with its own world, and content within its borders. According to Philip Kaiser, curator of Public, each installation artist lays claim to part of the beach. Whoa! So, we have gone from cooperation between artists in common projects and restaurants at the last Art Basel (in Basel, Switzerland, in June 2017) to demarcation and territorialism. This doesn’t say a lot to dismiss selfishness in the art or greater world. … [Read more...] about The Art World Returns to Miami; Artscope’s 2017 Art Basel Miami Beach Preview: Part One
ARTSCOPE’S GUIDE TO BASEL ART FAIRS 2017
by Nancy Nesvet In the wake of nations attempting to close their borders, the Basel Art Fairs have expanded the world of art and art’s very definition to become the most inclusive ever in art’s history. Including not only ideas but the process by which those ideas are expressed, these shows amaze in the variety of sensual experience, including sound, vision, physical feeling, taste (and I don’t mean the food kind) and more. Art Basel, Basel’s oldest and best Art Fair, includes eight sectors; Unlimited, shows 76 projects, unlimited in size and scale including interventions, installations and other non-scaled pieces. Parcours, from the French meaning "journeys", offsite at the Cathedral Square and throughout the old city of Basel, offers current work of contemporary living artists including installations, guided journeys, interventions and repurposed sculpture. The Film Sector offers … [Read more...] about ARTSCOPE’S GUIDE TO BASEL ART FAIRS 2017
ARTSCOPE AT ART BASEL SWITZERLAND: DAY TWO
by Nancy Nesvet TUESDAY, JUNE 13, 2017 Day two at Art Basel. In this wonderland of art, I am still totally at play, seeing the installations at Parcours, in the cathedral square and down by the Rhine River, but coming around to reality via some installations and sculpture at "Unlimited" in the city square called Messerplatz. First confronted by Al Wei Wei’s “Iron Tree” (2016), which changes patina as it ages, it also brings nature and the manmade relationship with nature into perspective. That relationship seems a theme of Parcours, curator Samuel Leuenberger’s brilliant trek through the city through the following of artwork installations. Reza Aramsh recreates Michelangelo’s “Slave” in resin, but tiesits hands behind his back with a rope, making him captive and towering on a plinth over the river. Katinka Bock’s “Parasite Fountain” (2017) creates ametal fish that draws water … [Read more...] about ARTSCOPE AT ART BASEL SWITZERLAND: DAY TWO
ARTSCOPE AT ART BASEL SWITZERLAND: DAY ONE
by Nancy Nesvet MONDAY, JUNE 12, 2017 With Art Basel, in Switzerland and The Venice Biennale and Documenta in Kassel, in Germany and Athens, Greece respectively, happening all at the same time, it is the trifecta for art shows, and so far, I’m betting on Art Basel. Having seen all of the Liste show yesterday, when it opened, and Art Basel Design, I can tell you the art aficionados are coming out for art, beauty and fun. Done with the hard-hitting political landscape of last year’s work here, and taking a breather, maybe literally, everyone’s happier seeing fewer political statement or in your face art. A lot is concentrating on the process, the materials and the bringing in of concrete, beads, aluminum screening and more for innovative treatments of material. Watch Artscope’s Instagram and Facebook pages for Prem Sahib’s Concrete Lion reproductions (of the originals in front … [Read more...] about ARTSCOPE AT ART BASEL SWITZERLAND: DAY ONE