The Last Days of Basel--and the Art Boom?

Robert Goff* submits from Art Basel Miami Beach: This year at Miami Basel is different. Despite protestations to the contrary, the art market is changing.

On Saturday afternoon, after a day at the pool, I went with a few "civilian" friends to the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) fair. NADA and Pulse are hands-down the only consistently good satellite fairs to Art Basel. There had been a lot of buzz about a young painter named Melissa Gordon, so I found the booth that showed her--and was not impressed by her paintings. But next door at KS Art, a small but very interesting Manhattan gallery, I was stopped dead by a new Lucky DeBellevue painting that incorporated a sculpture. DeBellevue is not some 20-something supposed wunderkind--like this dull painter next door perhaps--but a serious and unique voice in contemporary art. He's one of those artists who has had a long and distinguished career and who, though not terribly fashionable right now, could one day be the subject of retrospectives and "rediscoveries." At NADA, this great painting sat unsold for $6000. I immediately called a client and, at the time of this writing, have it on reserve.

I asked the owner of the gallery, Kerry Schuss, how the painting was still unsold. He shrugged and said that the fair wasn't like past years in terms of traffic or buyers. We wondered if it was the economy and, in particular, the rumblings in the mortgage industry having an effect across other sectors. Or, it might be that the art fair circuit in general, and the 20-plus art fairs in Miami right now, are crushing the market. NADA and Pulse are better than the other satellite fairs by far--but do people understand that? Are new buyers unwittingly being siphoned to lesser fairs and buying what is, overall, inferior stuff?

Meanwhile, in the last week Oliver Kamm gallery, a young and very high-quality Chelsea venue for emerging artists, announced that it would be closing. I spoke to Oliver at the NADA fair and he seemed to be in good spirits, with his legs kicked up on his table, playing a Gameboy. His solo exhibition of Kamrooz Aram drawings and collages was nearly sold out. But overall, he couldn't make enough money in his gallery to justify the expense and difficulty of managing a dozen artists' careers. Yesterday, Baerfaxt, an art world insider newsletter, announced that Emily Tsingou Gallery in London is closing its doors. Here's another very serious gallery, which has represented famous and now very expensive artists like Karen Kilimnik, tossing in the towel--and it's safe to assume it's not because they were making too much money.

When the art market crashed in 1989-1990 it was dramatic and shocking. Dozens of galleries closed overnight. The economic changes that seem to be happening in the art world now are of a different sort--it's a war of attrition. I don't think it will be as dramatic or as nasty as the previous market downturn. But you'd have to have your head in the sand to say it's not happening. Which doesn't mean all is lost--corrections can have salient effects, especially if you are a savvy collector. Go buy a Lucky DeBellevue.

* Robert Goff is owner of Goff + Rosenthal, a contemporary art gallery in New York.

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