Art Basel 2016, with an attendance of more than 95,000 coming to see the works of 4,000+ artists across 6 days, proved that the contemporary art market is more than resilient enough against the current economic climes. This 47th edition, featuring 286 of the world’s leading galleries from 33 countries, reigned supreme above all the other contemporary art fairs so far in 2016.
With sectors like Galleries, Statements, Feature, Unlimited, Parcours, and Film there was something there for collectors, whether private or institutional, and curators focused on seeing the best in Modern and Contemporary art to discover.
One of my favorites of the Art Basel sectors, regardless of the show location, is the Conversations and Salons series which brings together people from all over the art world and beyond to engage in enlightening, entertaining and sometimes very provocative discussions.
This year’s topics in Basel included 100 years of Dada, the COBRA group, the longer view of the impact of looting, race & justice and the challenges creating art in communities. Luckily for us who weren’t able to attend in person, we can watch these talks on YouTube .
This year’s show also included the announcement that Art Basel will be partnering with UBS to produce a new annual art market report, which makes perfect sense considering the years of Art Basel has been staging premier art shows.
The new ‘Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report’ will be an objective and independent study authored by Dr. Clare McAndrew and her Dublin-based research and consulting firm Arts Economics. Covering the main macro-economic trends and delivering fundamental data on the art market as a whole, the first ‘Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report’ will be published in March 2017 to coincide with Art Basel’s Hong Kong show.
Hopefully, next year will be the year I finally get to attend Art Basel in Basel!
