The Internal fair of Basel, which opened on June 15th 1999, promised to be a great success thanks to recent boosting auction sales of contemporary and modern art in London and in New York. Observers said they felt the speculative wave of the late 1980's was back again especially as some 800 galleries, inclusing many from the U.S, had sent their applications for this year's edition whereas there could be only 271 lucky candidates.
They also noted the presence of several newcomers from Asia and Latin America and a reinforcement of the U.S contingent (37 against 33 last year). A monumental wood sculpture by British artist Henry Moore was notably offered at US $ 6,5 million by Pace Wildenstein while Tony Shafrazy from Soho has been exhibiting a 1991 triptych by Francis Bacon priced at US $ 9 millions.
Several sales took place during the opening of the fair with Damien Hirst's Anarchy sold at US $ 300,000 by Gagosian and a painting by the same artist, I Love this life (1999) at US $ 220,000 by Jopling. Warhol's self-portrait was sold by d'Offay at US $ 800,000 while his Hammer and Sickle of 1976, offered by Thomas Ammann, went for about US $ 400,000.
Swiss dealer Bischofberger from Zurich sold all his watercolours by Francesco Clemente at US $ 25,000 each the smallest while several buyers rushed on the works of Sylvie Fleury who has transformed Chanel perfume bottles, Nike sneakers and Kelly bags into art objects.
Seven out of eight of these bags were sold at US $ 15,875 each.
Benefiting from the good climate prevailing in auction rooms, many dealers have been exhibiting works by some contemporary art sales stars.
A Charles Ray photographic work, Plank piece 1-2 (1973), produced in an edition of seven sold at US $ 125,000 almost instantly while an assemblage by Christopher Wool went at US $ 175,000 following his auction record of
US $ 425,000 for his work titled Trouble (1999). Photographs by Thomas Struth, Nan Goldin and Cindy Sherman also sold well.
Many galleries were about to conclude sales notably Anthony Offay who has been negotiating with a museum for Gerhardt Richter's Seescape of 1998 or Gmurzynska with a private collector concerning Yves Klein's ANT 118, circa 1960.
Visitors also admired some great works by Miro, Mondrian, Kandinsky and Fernand Léger and discovered also some promising talents such as Alain Bublex, Spencer Tunick or Wang-Du for his sculptures, notably a memorial he made for the Kosovo war with piles of newspapers with the busts of presidents Clinton and Boris Eltsin on top with hundreds of small planes and helicopters flying above it.
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