VOLTA13BASEL'S ART FAIR FOR NEW INTERNATIONAL POSITIONS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASELUCKY WEATHER AND PASSIONATE PRESENTATIONS

BASEL, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21: The VOLTA team dubbed their 2017 edition in Basel “Lucky 13”,going against the grain of superstitious qualities around the number, which simply did not quantifywhen considering the staying power of an international art fair, particularly a satellite to the mighty ArtBasel. Likewise, maintaining a high level of consistency and quality while introducing a growingclientele to an ever broader international contingent of new positions is not simply “luck”; it is sheerwillpower, effort, and passion by the seven-member team and the 70 galleries who constituteVOLTA13.

“We are always appreciative of the effort our galleries and the artists put into every edition, but this yearwas truly a standout,” Amanda Coulson, VOLTA Artistic Director, praised the 2017 Basel participants.“Perhaps the spectre of the mighty ’13’ compelled galleries to create especially good juju. We hadwonderful projects and an audience who was responsive and engaged. Most of the dealers reportedlong, intense, and fulfilling conversations, leading to solid sales — and, for the first time in many years,it didn’t even rain!”

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image: Mauro Piredda (second from left) and Silvia Borella (seated, co-owners of PRIVATEVIEW, Torino) discusses their

solo project of Ted Larsen with collectors

New discoveries equalled immediate success for galleries throughout Markthalle. In their Baseldebut, PRIVATEVIEW (Torino) presented a stark and minimal installation of 10 mixed-media wallsculptures by mid-career American artist Ted Larsen, featuring reclaimed metal and other objectsrendered in elegant geometric arrangements. By Thursday the gallery had sold out the booth, plus,according to co-owner Mauro Piredda, “Many people optioned for other pieces from the catalogue!”Added co-owner Silvia Borella, “We’ve had a great reaction and met many nice and seriouscollectors.” “Many Nordic people!” added Piredda, “kindly and young in mind!” Reflecting on theweek, Borella said “Many collectors have been telling us that they leave the other satellite fairs behind.VOLTA is the next parallel fair after Art. It’s not overly experimental, but it is quite clean and concrete.And we agree!” Next door, VOLTA veteran Galerie Heike Strelow (Frankfurt am Main) enjoyedconsiderable attention throughout the week for her, shall we say, more colorful than usual booth.Beyond the three Florian Heike paintings, rendered in the Frankfurt artist’s signature black onuntreated cotton, the gallery debuted and nearly sold out of Venezuelan wunderkind Starsky Brines,moving all of his works on paper and all but one painting to an avid international clientele. “He’s in areally hot spot here!” commented Strelow. “We’ve had an amazing quality of collectors this year. It wasalready always good, VOLTA, but this year it’s even better.” Reflecting in Winter/Hörbelt’smassive Pixelbild mirrored work dominating the floor, the gallery recorded a commission from anAustralian private collection for the German duo. Across the Halle, The Hole (New York) were verypleased in visitors’ reactions to young American artist Drake Carr, selling six of the young artist’s 10cut-canvas painted dancers to all new clients from Switzerland, Germany, and the United States. “Thisis Drake’s first time showing his art, really,” noted owner Kathy Grayson, not counting the gallery’s bigdebut with him in group show Post-Analogue Painting II this past spring, “and he’s been super wellreceived.” “It’s been an amazing fair,” said Tomas Umrian, director of SODA gallery (Bratislava), takinga pause from his busy week receiving guests around three distinct positions, between contemporarytalents Lucia Tallová and Jaro Varga and the late great Slovakian all-star Stano Filko. All told, thegallery recorded multiple sales of Filko’s crucial works from the ‘70s, including an additional 20 workssituated at the gallery, plus Umrian noted intense interest from guests, including an Italian collector

specializing exclusively in works from the 1970s, who came up on the booth 15 minutes past closingtime earlier in the week and returned the next morning, ready to buy. “So let’s say it’s been fabulous!”

image: Hisa Abe (left, of Tyler Rollins

Fine Art, New York) presents works by

Sopheap Pich to collectors, based on

a body of work developed by the

Cambodian artist for his concurrent

participation in the 57th Venice

Biennale]

image: partially hidden by a show-

stopping Folkert de Jong bronze,

Sam Dukan (right, owner of Galerie

Dukan, Paris/Leipzig) discusses

works by Karine Rougier and Yigal

Ozeri with collectors

The presence and importance of artists participating in this year’s Venice Biennale, or in years prior,was not lost VOLTA’s keen-minded visitors. Situated near the front, Tyler Rollins Fine Art (New York)enjoyed considered institutional attention to Sopheap Pich’s solo presentation, which related directlyto the artist’s new body of work in Viva Arte Viva, the Main Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale. “Thiswas a good location for people who had seen the work in Venice,” commented gallerist Hisa Abe,noting great collectors like Uli Sigg had come by to spend time with Pich’s works. Over at GalerieDukan (Paris/Leipzig), dealer Sam Dukan was ebullient after selling all six of Karine Rougier’s intenseand surreal paintings on wood panel between a French collector and a prominent Swiss privatecollection, concurrent with the young artist’s co-representation of Malta at their national pavilion thisyear. “it’s been superb for Karine!” noted Dukan, who also recorded sales of four of Alexander Tinei’srecent large-scale paintings, as well as focused interest from three parties in the duo of Folkert DeJong bronze life-size sculptures. Anca Poterasu (of her namesake Bucharest gallery) sold OliviaMihălțianu's cyanotype on canvas celluloid dress Blueprint, based on a dress made of film which theartist created when she was 14 years of age, to a new collector. Following the young Romanian artist’sacclaim in Venice two years ago, as part of Reflection Center for Suspended Memories: An Attempt,the gallery also recorded interest in her Lightbox series Trousse Beauté. Likewise, Poterasu sold frompainter Iulian Bisericaru to new clients, including the large composition Diebenkorn’s Light, of anAlvar Aalto-designed home, to an important collection in Austria. Poterasu noted the painting wasextremely well received through its early sale, including — coincidentally — by the owner of the house.Basel first-timers Art Front Gallery (Tokyo) enjoyed a strong first impression, as director HideyukiShoji recorded sales of Tadashi Kawamata’s intense mixed-media “plans for sites” to new collectors.Kawamata’s international career, which included the third Skulptur Projekte Münster and the 1998

Sydney Biennial, was launched in Venice at the Biennale in 1982. Along with the elder artist, thegallery moved neo-Nihonga compositions by Masatake Kouzaki and interest in Kouzaki Ono’s eye-catching 100-layer ink on aluminum ombre compositions. Beyond the eleven figurative paintings byBritish artist Lisa Wright, which went to a Belgian collector six times over and another two to aTaiwanese private collection, Coates & Scarry (London) were proud of Australian preeminentceramicist Penny Byrne, who was featured prominently in Glasstress Gothika in collaboration with theHermitage Museum at the 56th Venice Biennale and enjoyed critical acclaim in Basel this edition. Thegallery moved three of Byrne’s reclaimed ceramic works, which featured deft and socially relevantinterventions by the artist (refugee blankets here, heavy artillery there), to new clients, including theCharlie Hebdo inspired Mightier to a Paris collector. “We were really happy about that,” noted co-owner Chippy Coates. “It’s the right place for the work to go!”

image: Chippy Coates (co-owner of

Coates & Scarry, London) presents

Penny Byrne’s ceramic Mother Russia

vs Uncle Sam to a collector

image: foreground: Robert Walden

and Henry Chung, co-owners of

Robert Henry Contemporary

(Brooklyn) present Pancho

Westendarp’s solo project to

collectors; background: Richard Koh

and Jessica Ho (both of Richard Koh

Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur) discuss

works by Anne Samat and Yeoh Choo

Kuan with a client

First-time VOLTA Basel exhibitors enjoyed critical attention from a global audience. Following theirdebut at VOLTA NY this past March, Richard Koh Fine Art’s (Kuala Lumpur) clean and symmetricstand was a constant source of energy and vitality at Markthalle. A trio of Yeoh Choo Kuan’s meter-tall “fleshing abstraction” compositions went to a German client’s private collection in Switzerlandearly in the week, and dealer Koh noted the client “couldn’t decide which to buy, so after coming backthree times to spend time with the paintings, he opted to buy all three.” The gallery recorded a furthertwo Yeoh paintings sold, plus both of Anne Samat’s Tribal Chief mixed media “armored”compositions, which anchored the presentation and were comprised of pattern-drafted weaving plustraditional and mass-produced materials. “This collector from Belgium liked Anne’s works as a pair,”added Koh. Galerie Ramakers (The Hague) sold several of Willy de Sauter’s sublime monochromaticpaintings to a major Dutch private collection, said director Catalijn Ramakers, whose focus is onminimalism from the 1960s to the present day. “This collector bought from Art as well but then theycame here to buy, which was really great.” She also noted the sale of Michael Johansson’s major

sculptural assemblage 180° - ØKS, comprised of brooms, pallets, concrete blocks, and othermaterials, to a private Belgian collector for 20,000 EUR. Montoro 12 Contemporary Art (Rome)moved two of Faig Amed’s handmade and show-stopping rugs to a private museum in Seoul,including the new work Secret Garden, plus Ahmed’s other new waterfall-like tapestry Guatama to amajor New York collection. Continuing the thematic stand of “equilibrium”, the gallery sold severalof Emmanuelle De Ruvo’s iron and mixed-media sculptures, including two to a familiar client fromBrussels and another to a new contact in Spain. “It’s a good pace here,” noted Odetti Tsui of GalerieOra-Ora (Hong Kong), as to visitor reactions to Peng Wei’s immersive solo installation at the fair,featuring contemporary ink compositions based on composers’ personal letters. “At other fairs like inHong Kong, people are impatient. Peng Wei’s works take time. They’re not something I can explainquickly. Collectors here are grateful for that time.” From Berlin, Magic Beans were very pleased intheir Basel debut, moving several of Giuseppe Gonella’s fantastical and colorful paintings to newbuyers from the United States, Denmark, and Switzerland; coupled with complimentary boothartist Seungwoo Park’s stainless steel mesh sculpture, the gallery recorded sales over 60,000 EUR.“It’s been a good mix this week,” noted dealer Christian Efremidis. “An international mix!”

image: A VOLTA VIP photographs

Faig Ahmed’s new handmade

tapestry Secret Garden, presented by

Montoro 12 Contemporary, Rome

image: Francesco Giaveri (near right,

of ADN Galería, Barcelona) discusses

works by Carlos Aires and Kendell

Geers with a collector

Longtime VOLTA galleries were enlivened by the week. After a thoughtful start to their typicallysociopolitical stand, ADN Galería (Barcelona) received firm results, selling all ten of AvelinoSala’s 21st Century Icarus series of inkjet prints on duck pens of Google-sourced captures of WorldTrade Center victims to the 21c Museum (Louisville, KY); as well as a Eugenio Merino sculpture to anAlbanian collector; Carlos Aires’ new Christ from behind bronze Punished; and a brand-new KendellGeers fetish sculpture to Lugano. The Flat – Massimo Carasi (Milan) sold three of PaoloCavinato’s Wings sculptures, plus several pieces from the artist’s signature “fishing line” ContinuousCity series, including a statement composition in black (9,000 EUR) to a Turkish collector who hadseen the work in Artsy’s fair preview. Carasi added a commission to Cavinato’s upcoming plans, andas well sold one of Michelangelo Penso’s Colonne sonore hanging ceramic sculptures to Tel Aviv

and Sauro Cardinali’s statement multilayered, two-meter-long lacquered beech wood floorsculpture Nestore (30,000 EUR) to a Belgian collector. Over at Pablo’s Birthday (New York), dealerArne Zimmermann balanced a constant flow of visitors singlehandedly, all week long, selling in total allfour of the Thorsten Brinkmann large-scale photographic works he brought to Basel, plus fourminimal compositions by Michael Rouillard, one of Angelika Schori’s painted geometric reliefs, allthree of Eckart Hahn’s surrealist paintings, and six of Pius Fox’s minimalist paintings, ranging from A4scale to meter-tall. “It’s been a really good fair for me,” noted Zimmermann. In their fifth consecutiveBasel edition, Tezukayama Gallery (Osaka) mounted an ambitious approach by pairing severaldecades’ worth of mid-career artist Moriyuki Kuwabara’s compass-drawn ink compositions on paperand canvas against two younger artists, Tets Ohnari and Satoru Tamura. Of the elder Kuwabara, thegallery was extremely successful, as dealer Ryoichi Matsuo counted a dozen sales of the artist’spaintings to an international base of new clients, as well as Ohnari’s carved book sculpture dear no. 4.Zavier Ellis, owner of Charlie Smith London, was introspective in his fifth consecutive Basel fair.Going over sales for the week for his multi-artist booth Interiority, the gallerist counted three salesfor Florian Heinke and Wendy Mayer each, plus five for Hugh Mendes, seven for John Stark, onefor Gavin Nolan, six for Kiera Bennett and a sold-out showing (seven all told) for — no relation— Emma Bennett, following the artist’s success at VOLTA NY “I am pleased with an amazingperformance for Kiera in her debut here, and I am delighted by the sales and equally so about thequality of collectors. It’s been a really great fair, without a doubt one of the best we’ve done.”

image: The Flat – Massimo Carasi (Milan) presenting (visible, from left) sculptures and wall works by Paolo Cavinato and

Sauro Cardinali’s floor sculpture Nestore

Thematic presentations, whether solo or multi-artist, underscored the fair’s curatorial focus. LongtimeVOLTA gallery V1 (Copenhagen) were impressed by visitor reception to Geoff McFetridge’s solo,immersive, interdisciplinary installation Stoner Forest II (Poem for the Literates), all a new body ofwork. Josephine Fity from the gallery noted sales of four large-scale paintings, a plant-shaped steelfloor sculpture, a steel leaf sculpture, and a “photographic painting” — whereupon McFetridgephotographs a blank canvas, prints the composition, then hand paints on the printed canvas — tocollectors from America and throughout Europe. “The ‘photographic paintings’ are an entirely newdirection for Geoff,” said Fity, “as this relation of object to painting to image is very important to him.”

Returning for her second Basel outing with an ambitious group presentation around Yuval NoahHarari’s masterwork Sapiens, Kristin Hjellegjerde (of her namesake London gallery) was enlivened byvisitor reactions and sales, moving half the brand-new works on view to new and familiar clients alike,including Sverre Malling’s new pencil on paper work Yucca Man and Ephrem Solomon’s statement10-meter scroll painting Life + Reflections 2. From their solo presentation of young Italianartist Tindar’s mixed-media works referencing the refugee crisis and human interconnectivity, GalerieT&L (Paris) added an ace to their week, moving the 3.5-meter-wide booth centerpiece Untitled –Triptych [Root, Bible, Quran, Torah], composed of an enormous pencil rendering of tree roots spreadacross old book pages of religious texts, to a new client from Asia. “An intense week!” said co-ownerLéopold Legros. “Indeed,” chimed in co-owner Tancrède Hertzog, “we have made many goodcontacts from all over the world.” Four-time Basel veteran Patrick Mikhail (of his namesake Montréaland Ottawa spaces) was likewise aglow, selling Thomas Kneubühler’s large-scale photographicprint Twilight (9,000 CND) and several smaller prints, plus an embossed edition by Natasha Mazurka,to new collectors. He was particularly happy with reception to Amy Schissel, his first VOLTA artist,whose wall installation at this fair (valued at 66,000 CND) was on reserve to a Miami consultant whohad been interested in Schissel’s conveyance of digital media since her introduction in 2014. “Shesaid, ‘it’s time — after staring at these beautiful works, to do something about it’,” remarked Mikhail,who added that the sales and the engagement with guests has been strong. “I’ve accumulated morebusiness cards in these six days than I would have at the gallery in one year — and these are seriousclients.” Of their sociopolitical four-artist booth, RoFa Projects (Potomac) received much criticalinterest, including a possible commission for Mauricio Esquivel’s hand-cut coins wallintervention Displacement Line and immediate sales of Santiago Veléz’s brand-new Dignity series,referencing Doctors Without Borders and the familiar gold blanket, to Swiss collectors. Musing onartist Dana Dal Bo’s site-specific and interactive installation self-less, which was partially staged in theMarkthalle restrooms, dc3 Art Projects’ (Edmonton) director Michelle Schultz was introspective. “It’sbeen a very successful first Basel fair for us. We made contacts with new people and reconnectedwith people we knew from New York. People have been responsive and recognized Dana’s works afterseeing them in the W.C..” She added that there had been good curatorial attention and approachtoward Dal Bo’s project, adding, “For us, being in Basel was important, to build these relationships.”

Between meetings with clients at Art Basel, atdinners, and at his annual Rhine-side apéro,Alfred Kornfeld, owner of four-time VOLTABasel stalwart Galerie Kornfeld (Berlin), wasenergized. “I need a base — I need to buildsomething up here,” he indicated, gesturing asmuch to Markthalle as to the city of Basel itself.“I don’t want ‘just’ a project booth at the bigfair, and then the next year I don’t have thatbase again. I like being here, because VOLTA’sa good fair.” He noted several salesof Franziska Klotz’s large-scale paintings,based on photographs of social conflict andstrife, as well as two of HubertusHamm’s Molded Mirrors, for a week-end netsales of 145K EUR. Overat HilgerBrotKunsthalle (Vienna), directorMichael Kaufmann sold a pair of AssuntaAbdel Azim Mohamed’s large-scale andhyper-detailed ink on paper figurativecompositions to a Swiss collector new to the

artist.

image: Dana Dal Bo (left, presenting a solo installation with dc3 Art Projects, Edmonton) immerses with VOLTA guests in

her site-specific and interactive project self-less

“First view, first love, first choice,” noted Kaufmann. Adding that the young Egyptian-Austrian artist’sfirst sculptural intervention, 12 Gifte, was in serious discussions, Kaufmann also recorded a majorwall-sized commission work for a Belgian collector, following Mohamed’s diploma exhibition atHeilingenkreuzerhof. Rutger Brandt Gallery (Amsterdam) sold both of Enrico Freitag’s paintings to aChinese collector for their new museum collection, planned for Shanghai in 2019, as well as a sold-outperformance for young Spanish painter Carlos Sagrera, following the artist’s major showing with thegallery at VOLTA NY 2017. Jerome O Drisceoll, owner of Green On Red Gallery (Dublin) receivedmany guests interested in Alan Butler’s interdisciplinary body of work, referencing fictional plantssourced from video games. He sold four of Butler’s two-meter-tall pigment prints as well as twotrompe-l’oeil “tape” paintings by Caroline McCarthy to a Viennese collector. In their Baseldebut, Gabinete de Arte k2o (Brasília) mounted an ambitious and international booth by four mid-career minimalists, Brazliians Galeno and Almandrade contrasted with Belgian Gauthierd’Ydewalle and Surinamese-Dutch artist Roland Gebhardt, to superlative returns. “It has beennonstop!” remarked owner Karla Osorio, in a rare moment when she was not speaking with a client orfollowing correspondence on her laptop. “Tell him!” she indicated to artist d’Ydewalle, who wasstanding by and present for much of the week. “Yes, this has been a strong experience,” he agreed. “Iam very happy.” All told, the gallery sold five of d’Ydewalle’s compositions, with a further two onreserve, plus six geometric abstractions on wood by Galeno (following the artist’s solo debut in NewYork this past March), as well as four of Gebhardt’s compositions and several of Almandrade’s worksto museum and institutional collections. “The action has been well divided, as we have been selling allartists, and all of them to major collections and to institutions,” added Osorio, noting further reservesfor Almandrade from Swiss, Belgian, and French institutions. Around the corner, YOD Gallery (Osaka)had sold out of Hidehito Matsubara’s acrylic on hand-appliquéd paper on panel compositions, aswell as six of outsider artist Hebime abraded and psychedelic paintings, plus several statementkinetic works by Masakazu Fujiwara, including the artist’s major work Capsule Bugs (Creep) to a newZúrich client. Across the corridor at Galerie Thomas Fuchs (Stuttgart), dealers Fuchs and AndreasPucher tallied an exceptionally keen attention to Jochen Hein’s enigmatic large-scale paintings,equally hyperreal and vibrantly abstract and all priced at an average of 16K EUR apiece. The paintingswent to a variety of international clients, many of whom were entirely new to the gallery, and one inparticular with a collection of contemporary masterpieces including Gerhard Richter. “What a fair,”said Fuchs, “by Saturday we had sold the thirteenth work of Jochen Hein during VOLTA13. This fairreally was a lucky one for us!”

image: Karla Osorio (center, owner of Gabinete de Arte k2o, Brasília) discusses Galeno’s colorful oil on wood compositions

with collectors

A distinguished coterie of VOLTA VIPs and institutions visited the fair’s thirteenth edition during ArtBasel Week, including: Jean Pigozzi (Geneva); Barbara and Jules Farber (Marseilles); RüdiSutter (Basel); Marcos and María Amazia León de Jorge (Dominican Republic); Galila Barzical-Hollander (Brussels); Susannah Hagen (London); Laura Lee Brown, Steve Wilson, and Alice GrayStites (21c Museum, Louisville KY); Cornelia Dietschi Schmid (Basel); Bailey Sachs (SantaFe); Heike Suetter (independent curator and former longtime curator for the European CentralBank); Marianne Corp (director, National Art Gallery of Copenhagen); Christoph Oswald (curator,Museum of Concrete Art, Zürich); J. Luis Tranche (FCDP, Malága); Knight Landesman (Publisher,Artforum international); representatives from the Sander Collection (Zürich/Berlin/Amsterdam);representatives from Museum Helmond (The Netherlands); Curators from FondationBeyeler (Riehen/Basel); curators from the Tate (London); curators from the Metropolitan Museum ofArt (New York); curators from the Centre Pompidou (Paris); trustees from the GuggenheimMuseum (New York); trustees from Museum of Art and Design (New York); representatives fromthe Centre Ponce de Leon (Puerto Rico); representatives from the Ulmer Museum (Ulm, DE);Curators from the Netherlands Ceramics Museum; as well as many other art-lovers.

“While there was a certain lazy summer mood — the intense heat slowed us all down — and the city ofBasel felt emptier than recent years (whether that was because everyone was swimming in the Rhineor were elsewhere on the ‘Grand Tour’ of biennales and the like), we were thrilled that this did notimpact the fair negatively,” Amanda Coulson noted. “We observed both consistent visitor numbers andconsistent sales as well as an increased institutional presence, which showed us that, at 13 years ofage, we have the respect of the audience — both locally and internationally — that our galleries andartists deserve.”

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