Art Basel has restructured its management team to put Marc Spiegler at the helm of the fair’s three editions in Basel, Miami Beach and Hong Kong in 2013. He will oversee the four-member Art Basel executive committee. This comprises Spiegler, as chairman, Annette Schönholzer, who previously co-directed the fairs alongside Spiegler, Magnus Renfrew, who was brought into the fold when the fairs announced their acquisition of ArtHK in 2011, and a new director of resources and finance, to be appointed in early 2013.
The reorganisation is an indication of the sheer size of the art fair business today: until 2007, Art Basel was run by Sam Keller, now the director of Basel’s Beyeler Foundation, alone. “The expectations of Art Basel are higher than they ever were,” Spiegler says.
Schönholzer was appointed alongside Spiegler when the pair—together with Cay Sophie Rabinowitz, who resigned as artistic director after less than a year—took over from Keller in 2007. She is now charged with developing initiatives to extend the fair’s brand outside the fair calendar, although she says it is too early to be specific about what these are.
Renfrew was the founding director of ArtHK (the fair’s controlling ownership by Art Basel takes full effect in 2013). His formalised role as a director of the fair’s Asia business will please the art market’s major players, who credit him with much of the international success of the Hong Kong event.
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Spiegler in sole charge of Basel'