Some complain of high prices as Art Basel opens

According to the Miami Herald, patrons raved about the museum quality of the art at Art Basel's kick-off Wednesday at the Convention Center in Miami Beach, but red dots indicating sold works seemed fewer than the first day last year.

Many showgoers could be heard complaining about high prices, and Karl Schweizer, chief art investing advisor at fair sponsor UBS, confirmed that fewer deals had closed by the end of the first day than last year.

''Last year it was a crazy atmosphere,'' Schweizer said. ``This year there is a little slowdown. There's less spontaneous buying. A lot of people are hesitating. The prices are too high, too marked up.''

Part of the problem: Many works here come from European galleries and are priced in euros, trading at an unprecedented high of $1.50 per euro. But Europeans aren't necessarily finding bargains on works priced in dollars, Schweizer said, because many galleries trade on both continents.

''It's a global market,'' he said.

The glam factor, however, was in high gear.

First Look -- the official preview that only very very important people are invited to attend and where celebrities like Lance Armstrong and author Tom Wolfe (in his signature white suit) were spotted -- opened a fair that is supposed to run from Thursday through Sunday, but really began as early as last Friday.

It's said that this official preview is when all the major art deals are made, deals with so many zeros on the end that they would make most people swoon.

But thanks to a Chinese artist, cheap art was to be had.

All you had to do was head to the ShanghART Supermarket -- one of the fair's hottest spaces. The mixed media installation by artist Xu Zhen, known for his work ''chopping off'' (in a believable virtual stunt) the top of the Himalayas, invited fair goers to shop in aisles stocked with American goods labeled -- including the cost -- in Chinese.

Folger's coffee $1.20, a Heineken beer $1.14, and a best-selling item, a 12-pack of condoms for $4.50. Although all packages were actually empty, the cash register didn't stop ringing all day.

''Everyone is talking about the China effect, but [the artist] is talking about the American effect on China,'' said Francine LeFrak from New York City, who bought a pretty carton of cigarettes, Huggies diapers and condoms. ``For there to be a Chinese effect, there was an American effect first, and he is commenting on the impact of American culture on the Chinese. It's a circle.''

In the more serious business of opening day, organizers laid out the fair's outlook: About 40,000 visitors expected, 200 galleries from around the world, press from every continent except Antarctica.

But this year's conference quickly morphed into a Sam Keller lovefest, as speaker after speaker praised the outgoing Art Basel director, who is credited with the Miami Beach fair's creation and success.

Collector Norman Braman, chair of the event's host committee, called Keller ''the individual most responsible for the fair's success'' and credited Keller and the fair with increasing home sales, sparking expansion of the Miami Art Museum and Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, revitalizing the Design District and Wynwood and raising South Florida's arts community's profile worldwide.

Miami Beach Mayor Matti Herrera Bower awarded Keller the city's Medal of Honor, its highest award, and named Wednesday ``Sam Keller Day.''

Keller, who will become director of the famed Beyeler Foundation, said he hasn't had time to think about the future. ''The show is opening and I'm just focusing on that,'' he said. ``I'll think about all the other in January.''

For the first time in the fair's six-year history, a Florida governor made an official appearance at Art Basel Miami Beach.

''Norman called and I was smart enough to say yes,'' said Gov. Charlie Crist.

Crist noted the importance of culture to quality of life -- he supported special license plates that help raise funds for the arts in Florida -- and the economic impact.

''Art Basel potentially has a greater impact than a Super Bowl,'' said Braman, former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles. ``The Super Bowl comes and goes; the fair has had a great long-lasting effect.''

Though Crist walked through the fair, he said he wasn't shopping. ''I don't think I can afford anything,'' he said.

When he and Braman stopped for a photo op, he asked photographers to bypass one booth for another. The closest one featured a full-length Helmut Newton nude of a woman wearing only army boots. ''Perhaps we can find some place else,'' he said.

Miami artists, reveling in the higher profile that Art Basel is bringing to them this year by leading VIP studio tours, were walking around the convention center and basking in the Basel glow. Among them: José Bedia, Robert Chambers, Wendy Wischer, and Mette Tommerup.

Miami gallerist Fredric Snitzer's booth included a small curated exhibition titled José Bedia: Muzidi Nkuyu by the Cuban-born Miami artist. Bedia created three large works on paper around an African figure from the Bembe culture of Africa. ''They believe that in this figure a spirit of an ancestor has been reincarnated,'' the artist explained. ``So I reinterpreted that in my paintings my way.''

Only 22 of the 220 galleries exhibiting at Art Basel presented this sort of small, curated exhibition, known as Art Kabinett. Snitzer, one of three Miami gallerists exhibiting inside the convention center, said giving Bedia his own space was important for the artist's career and the gallery's other, younger artists.

''It puts him in a context with other important international artists'' who also are subjects of Art Kabinett exhibitions, Snitzer said.

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