Richmen Gathering Art Basel

The doors to Art Basel, the annual contemporary art fair here, opened promptly at 11 a.m. Tuesday(6.12), and 10 minutes later Ms. Mosseri-Marlio, a collector from Basel, looked distraught. Works by artists like Kelley Walker, Sherrie Levine and Rudolf Stingel had already been sold.

Steven P. Henry, director of the Paula Cooper Gallery in Chelsea, seemed just as surprised. “People literally ran and were here by 11:01,” he said.
There’s nothing like competition. In this overheated market the collectors who lined up to be first through the door at this invitation-only opening day knew that if they spotted something they liked, there was no time to dillydally, or someone else would snap it up.

In the lexicon of modern and contemporary art fairs, collectors recognize Art Basel as the biggest and the best. By the time the fair ends on Sunday some 60,000 visitors will have flocked here to see an international array of some 300 galleries showing more than 2,000 artists. Many will also peruse art in the coinciding smaller art fairs and institutional exhibitions here.

But not everyone is upbeat. Dealers are complaining that it has become difficult to sell great works. Collectors are grumbling about the scarcity of top-quality art.

“There are some good things, but not as many as there used to be here,” said Donald L. Bryant, a Manhattan collector and trustee of the Museum of Modern Art. “The market is so hot, and the demand is so great, it’s getting harder to find great art.”

Yet it’s not just about shopping. There is a certain lifestyle involved, focused on a month of nonstop travel. Many of the collectors, curators and dealers here began the journey last week at the Venice Biennale. Some are headed to Germany, first to see the Documenta art fair in Kassel and then Sculpture Projects in Münster. From there London beckons, with the Impressionist, modern and contemporary art auctions and a bevy of museum and gallery exhibitions.

Along the way are endless parties and many trips on private planes. Officials at NetJets, the private aviation company, said they expected to fly more than 200 planes into the Basel airport by the time the fair ends Sunday.

Watching people is part of the fun. Among those perusing the fair’s booths Tuesday were the financier Henry Kravis and his wife, Marie-Josée, who is president of MoMA; the publishing magnate Peter Brant; the Baroness Marion Lambert and her husband, Baron Philippe, of the Belgian banking family; and Jennifer Stockman, president of the Guggenheim Museum. Museum directors were on hand, including Norman Rosenthal from the Royal Academy of Art in London and Glenn D. Lowry from MoMA. The artists Lucian Freud and Takashi Murakami were looking around too.

Irving Blum, a seasoned dealer and collector from Los Angeles who has sold several paintings at auction recently, said: “If you’re a collector, and you have something to sell, your first impulse is to go to the auction houses — not the dealers — because the prices they’re getting are unimaginable. It makes it difficult for the dealers. They can hardly get to smell the material.(Editor:Xie Mu)