On Monday night, Craig Robins opened the doors to the headquarters of his real estate development company, Dacra, to kick off Miami Art Week. Located in the Miami Design District—home to the Miami Institute of Contemporary Art and many of the city’s galleries—Dakla’s offices are filled with John Baldessari, Mikalyn Thomas, Francisco Goya, and Kai Altov The works are all from Robin’s own collection.
Robbins played a key role in bringing Art Basel to Miami in 2002, working with collector and luxury retailer Norman Braman and the show’s then-director Sam Kaye Cooperated with Sam Keller. At the time, the three talked about wanting the city to have cultural appeal beyond its party scene. More than 20 years later, since the start of the pandemic, that ambition appears to have been realized. robbins told art news Cities are becoming denser, property values are rising, and more visitors are visiting art spaces year-round. “COVID has put Miami on the map,” Robbins said.
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The 22nd Art Basel opened at the Miami Beach Convention Center on Wednesday morning, and the atmosphere was enthusiastic. Nydia Gaynor, a collector in Florida, tells us art news She is using art fairs to find new artists, particularly from Latin America, and emphasizes the ability of art fairs to bring together a large number of artists and galleries into one space.
“This is the closest thing we have to a floating museum,” she said.
As of the end of VIP Day on Wednesday, several major and blue-chip galleries were reporting strong sales, in line with cautiously optimistic marquee sales last month.
David Zwirner reported the sale of 24 works, 13 of which were paintings, for a total of $12.9 million. The most sold work was Yayoi Kusama’s “Infinity Nets” painting in 2017, which sold for $3.5 million. Other top works sold included a painting by Noah Davis, which sold for $2 million, and two new paintings by Lisa Yuskavage, which sold for $1.4 million. and $600,000; two new paintings by Elizabeth Peyton, $1.1 million and $900,000; and two paintings by Josef Albers, $80 million and US$600,000. The gallery also sold works by Oscar Murillo, Raymond Pettibon, Wolfgang Tilmans, Andra Ursuza Works by Andra Ursuşa and Katherine Bernhardt sell for between $180,000 and $400,000.
At the same time, Hauser & Wirth said that a total of 20 works were sold in this exhibition, with a total price of US$15.16 million. Top sellers include a 2014 canvas and tarp work by David Hammons, which sold for $4.75 million; and a 2024 acrylic on linen by George Condo , priced at $2.5 million. The gallery also sold works by Rashid Johnson, William Kentridge, Avery Singer, Jeffrey Gibson and Firelei Baez, among others works, priced between US$375,000 and US$750,000.
In Pest, the total was reported at $4.16 million, with the top works being a painting by Sam Gilliam, which sold for $1 million, and a work on paper by Robert Longo, which sold for $1 million. $550,000, a new “Black Dada” painting by Adam Pendleton, which sold for $450,000, and a painting by Emily Kam. Kngwarray for $450,000, and a 9.5-foot gilded bronze piece by Elmgreen & Dragset for $425,000. The gallery also sold works by Leo Villareal, Kylie Manning, Alejandro Piñeiro Bello, Li Hei Di and Genesis Belanger for between $25,000 and $125,000, as well as 11 small-scale nipple paintings by Loie Hollowell for $80,000 each Dollar.
Thaddaeus Ropac reported that their booth grossed $12.2 million, with Georg Baselitz’s bronze sculptures and Robert Rauschenberg’s brass works combined accounting for the majority.
Greg Lulay, partner at David Zwirner, said in an emailed statement art news There’s been a noticeable change in the atmosphere in Miami, which is a marked improvement compared to the other lackluster shows he led a few weeks ago in the fall. Hauser Chairman Marc Payot echoed those sentiments, saying in an emailed statement, “After a dark and intense season, it feels like the dark clouds have lifted and Miami is perfect. The blue-sky weather reflects the mood of the art world – vibrant and engaged, minus the frenetic energy of the past.”
(It’s worth noting, though, for those keeping score that during last year’s VIP Days, Hauser & Wirth sold Philip Guston’s “The Night Painter” (1979) for $20 million, David Zwirner sold Marlene Dumas’s “The School Child” (1986-87) for $9 million (will have to wait to see if a sale of this magnitude occurs before the show ends).
Medium-sized galleries benefit as well. At the Lisson Gallery in New York, 15 works were sold for a total of $4.5 million, and Xavier Hufkens’s total sale price was $2.2 million, with a painting by Nicolas Party being the most expensive, selling for $600,000. Sprüth Magers Gallery, which has branches in Berlin, London, Los Angeles and New York, reported that of the 12 works sold, more than half were collected in the United States, with booth revenue reaching $1.5 million. Los Angeles-based Michael Kohn Gallery reportedly took in $239,000 from three works, including works by Lita Albuquerque and Nir Hod.
Nevada art consultant Michele Quinn said art news Prices suggest things are returning to reality. Quinn said that while there has been a slight correction in prices for contemporary artists and the pace of sales has slowed in recent months, it is not comparable to the 20% to 30% price drops that were common in 2008. Quinn said the number of artists’ works has dropped by 30 to 50 percent in the past year or two, and there is a sense at the fair that some artists are re-showing works by late artists from the 1960s, whose prices are more stable.
“It’s a safety net. There’s no question of value. With young artists becoming famous too quickly, what are we really selling,” she said
Some argue that mid-century works are not as overlooked by emerging contemporary artists at the Miami fair as one might think. Andrew Schoelkopf, whose eponymous New York gallery focuses on American art, tells us art news He’s seen an increase in new buyers, with the number rising from 10 to 20 percent last year to nearly 30 percent so far this year. Many of these new collectors are from South Korea, he added.
“Collectors who came here a few years ago looking for a new young artist are now coming back to Andrew Wyeth,” Scherkopf said of the taste of Miami collectors so far.
Welancora, a decade-old gallery housed in a Brooklyn brownstone, returns to Miami for the fourth time this year. Owner Ivy Jones told art news By the end of the first day of the fair, the gallery had sold about $60,000 of art on opening day, a metric that left Jones cautiously optimistic about the week ahead. The gallery sold two photo-based works by Deborah Willis, and Ivy presented the historian’s work to new collectors for the first time in 2020: an American filmmaker and an Photography collector of works by black photographers such as Kwame Braithwaite and Tyler Mitchell. A deal is also pending with the Taguchi Collection, a private museum in Tokyo founded by the owners of Japanese manufacturer Misumi Group.
“It’s a good start for us, especially on the photography side. Compared to some of the price points for Paris Photos, it’s a solid result. I’m a little surprised,” she said.
About four hours into the show, as things calmed down, New York gallerist Jack Shainman (who opened his own gallery in the 1980s) still had the interest of two collectors—one already famous, the other The bit is just getting started. Everyone asked about El Anatsui’s wall paintings and Barkley Hendricks’ photos, which were published after El Anatsui’s death in 2017. Sherman told art news Last year’s show in Miami felt slower and this year it was back to life. “It feels like it was before,” he said.
