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Art Basel's Miami fair feels brush of recession

Photo : AFP

MIAMI (AFP) - One of the world's premier international art fairs has seen prices plunge back down to earth amid increasing economic woes, but collectors at Art Basel Miami Beach have refused to let a US recession stop them from snapping up competitive deals.

The 2008 show, the sister event of Art Basel in Switzerland, does not release official figures, but curators here report sales have fallen -- in some cases dramatically -- compared with recent years.

"We had some golden years, with lots of sales, but now there is another reality and we are feeling it," said curator Cristobal Riestra of Mexican gallery OMR, which has attended every annual Art Basel Miami Beach (ABMB) since the debut in 2002.

OMR's sales haul this year: about 100,000 dollars, compared with three times that in recent years, Riestra said.

The gallery's top sale in the December 4-7 event was the money-themed installation "Fortune 5" by Mexican artist Pablo Vargas Lugo, which went for 35,000 dollars.

"Without doubt this is not the best time to be selling art, but it's not the fault of the artists, it's the economy," he said.

The timing was indeed miserable. The 250 galleries from 33 countries in Asia, Europe and the Americas debuted works at ABMB barely 48 hours after the US government announced the country was in the grips of recession.

Art analysts and experts predicted sales would plummet by 30 to 50 percent.

"The art market cannot remain immune to the financial meltdown," said Gerd Harry Lybke of Germany's Galerie Eigen+Art Leipzig/Berlin.

Stephanie Jeanroy of Galleria Continua in Paris said things were far calmer this year than in previous Art Basel shows here, when a feeding frenzy often saw the majority of works snapped up on opening day.

"Prices are going down. Maybe there are less people," said Jeanroy, who nevertheless unloaded a new sculpture by Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto for 440,000 dollars.

Experts say it's a correction that was a long time coming, financial crisis or not.

That spells opportunity for some of the ABMB's 40,000 visitors, said consultant Avi Spira, director of Art Ventures International.

"It is a time to be a buyer. There's a lot more room," Spira told AFP, adding that the economic crisis is forcing dealers to "go back to old-style art dealing."

"Over the last four or five years there was a rush. Almost anything with any wall power sold," he said. "Those times have definitely changed."

Others said the art market was essentially returning to normal after an "irrational" period of frantic purchasing and sky-high prices.

"We didn't come with great expectations this time," said Greg Lulzy of New York's David Zwirner gallery.

"It could have been much worse. In the end, the hit was not so hard," Lulzy said.

"We are looking forward to better times next year."

Some were hailing ABMB as a success primarily because they were expecting a dramatic shift towards austerity in the art market.

"The sales have been remarkable -- shocking in fact," Don Rubell, one of the biggest art collectors in Miami and founder of the Rubell Foundation, told AFP.

"Because people were expecting the worst," added his wife Mera Rubell.

Despite a current of pessimism evident in the show's first few days, when sales were slow, some experts were confident that the bottom would not fall out of the art market.

"I think for three-quarters of the galleries things went fine," Galleria Continua's Jeanroy said. "The real collectors are not going to stop buying."

Art Basel Miami Beach is the American version of the annual Swiss staple of contemporary art that has been held in Basel for 39 years.

The two fairs, in summer in Europe and winter in the United States, attract masters and novices alike, both in the artists themselves and in the collectors.