The Venice Biennale opened last month generating the usual extensive media coverage. From special sections in art magazines to the culture pages of the daily newspapers, the “Olympics of art”, as the event is often dubbed, has been reviewed ad nauseam. Compare the acres of newsprint with coverage of Art Basel, the commercial art fair that took place immediately after the opening of the Biennale, and which hardly registered on the radar screen of most media. And yet, both events were attended by the same art world crowd; all the dealers and their clients were in Venice, many curators and artists were in Basel. From the curatorial point of view, many who attended both events felt that Basel’s Art Unlimited section was much better than the curated sections of the Biennale in the Arsenale and Giardini: less curatorially ambitious, less sprawling, better focused, easier to navigate.
Art Unlimited, held in a large exhibition hall, displays large-scale works; essentially it shows the best artists and works that galleries can muster. It is just one of the reasons why Art Basel has established itself as the top contemporary art fair in the world. This is achieved through a stringent selection procedure and because little escapes the vigilant eye of fair director Sam Keller, and his team of six selectors. Every morning, at 8am, they tour the whole fair, looking at every single booth; all are photographed or videoed for future reference. Galleries which fail to make the grade are not allowed to re-exhibit the following year, a sanction that has both commercial and critical repercussions.
For those who would argue that it is unacceptable to allow business to set the critical agenda, the response is that Venice is in fact, all about business. As we report on p.49, Venice was where the trading really started, a week before Art Basel opened. In Venice, one of the world’s most powerful dealers, Larry Gagosian, had placed two of his artists in prime spots at the Biennale: Ed Ruscha in the American Pavilion, and a huge installation by Rachel Whiteread bang in the middle of Maria de Corral’s The experience of art in the Italian Pavilion. Meanwhile, Mr Gagosian was brokering deals poolside at the Cipriani. Throughout Venice, dealers were inviting their top clients to parties. Elsewhere gallerists were busy filling up their order books for works by artists featured in the Biennale and which would subsequently go on sale in Basel. “All the dealers and collectors are here, and all the deals are done here”, Jérôme Sans, co-director of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, told The Art Newspaper in an interview held by the British Pavilion in the Giardini (showing Gilbert & George, whose dealer Jay Jopling threw a party there, as well).
The market for contemporary art is awash with money; not only was it not dented, it was actually stimulated, by the 11 September terrorist attacks. With the subsequent drop in stock prices, a new generation of young, very rich financiers has been investing in contemporary art. It may be no accident that the rise in hedge funds is paralleled by a rise in this market. And dealers, as we report on p.50, are encouraging new buyers such as the Chinese to come and “be educated” in contemporary art; for “educate” read “teaching them to believe in art as a viable commodity”. Investment is a powerful trigger in the Far East, as those who know the area will attest.
All of this is not totally unconnected with the number of biennials, triennials and exhibitions that are mushrooming throughout the world. In the non-commercial world, these events provide employment for a new breed of “independent curator” and bring “cultural tourists” (the biggest spenders) to out-of-the-way places. In the commercial world, participation in these non-commercial events bolsters an artist’s resumé and helps persuade prospective buyers that because A has exhibited at the Fukuoka Triennale she is a bankable artist.
So does all this mean that there is no difference between the Venice Biennale and Art Basel? No. Venice offered the opportunity to see work by artists from small countries who would not have otherwise received the international exposure. But look at the list of established artists shown in Venice (some of them dead)—Gilbert & George, Bacon, Ruscha, Modigliani, Bourgeois, Gursky, Guston—and you have to wonder what they are doing there apart from boosting their market for their respective galleries.
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'The convergence of Venice and Basel'