«Art Statements»: Investing in the future of art
13 - 16 December 2001
Art Basel Miami Beach
«Art Statements»: Investing in the future of art.
Full information at www.ArtBasel.com
Art Basel Miami Beach will make its debut from December 13 to 16, 2001 in Miami Beach, Florida. This new art event incorporates a multi-faceted and innovative concept of art promotion. Art Basel Miami Beach also takes «Art Statements» on board, a platform which has been run successfully since 1996 in Basel and which has gained worldwide recognition. Through «Art Statements», Art Basel Miami Beach provides galleries with a platform, at a greatly reduced rate, to introduce young artists to the international art world via one-person shows. Visitors will make exciting discoveries and be thrilled by encounters with art works of the latest generation of artists. Nineteen one-person shows will be on display at the International Art Show Art Basel Miami Beach. The selection committee chose from among 125 applicants.
The promotion of contemporary art enjoys a long tradition at Art Basel and the same will be rigorously pursued in Miami Beach with «Art Statements». Since 1996, Art Basel has offered, through «Art Statements», a platform for cutting edge galleries to present their artists by way of one-person shows at reduced rates. Over the years, Art Basel has become the international indicator of current positions and trends. Gallery owners and artists know: whoever receives one of the coveted sponsored booths, enjoys the undivided attention of the art public. News travels quickly when works of art are purchased for well-known collections or when exhibitions are arranged at well-known museums and art galleries. It was here where artists such as Mariko Mori, Vanessa Beecroft, William Kentridge, Pierre Huyghe, Elisabeth Peyton, Gregor Schneider, Jorge Pardo, Ugo Rondinone, Kara Walker, Manfred Pernice, Ernesto Neto, Ghada Amer and many others appeared to a greater public for the first time, before they became art celebrities.
Of course, promotional programs rely heavily on the support and commitment of sponsors. The main sponsor of Art Basel Miami Beach is the UBS Financial Services Group. UBS, as a Financial Services Group, has a special interest to promote art and culture. This follows the bank’s philosophy already well known for their commitment to the arts. Since 1994 UBS has been the main sponsor of Art Basel in Switzerland, the worlds most important fair for modern and contemporary art. During these seven years of working together the partnership has proven to be a very successful one. UBS has a strong tradition of sponsorship in which both the sponsor and the project owner act as partners to develop common ideas and grow together. UBS wants to combine the financial with a cultural commitment and to take on longterm responsibility in projects that are meaningful to the society. Sharing strong sustainable values such as teamwork, high standards of quality, dedication and innovation, Art Basel Miami Beach is pleased to have UBS as main sponsor for the new international art show.
The selection committee, consisting of renowned art dealers Jane Corkin (Jane Corkin Gallery, Toronto), David Juda (Annely Juda Fine Art, London), Dr. Ursula Krinzinger (Galerie Krinzinger, Wien), Lawrence Luhring (Luhring Augustine, New York), Mary-Anne Martin (Mary-Anne Fine Art, New York), Lucy Mitchell-Innes (Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York), Tim Neuger (neugerriemschneider, Berlin), Shaun Caley Regen (Regen Projects, Los Angeles), Angel Samblancat (Prats/Polígrafa, Barcelona), Frederic Snitzer (Frederic Snitzer Gallery, Miami), and Luisa Strina (Galería Luisa Strina, Sao Paulo), chose 17 artists and 2 artist duos from among 125 applicants for «Art Statements» at Art Basel Miami Beach. Above all, the committee set its sights on artists who are not yet well known and artists whose ideas are not easily conveyed. There are five artists from the USA, four from Great Britain, three from Switzerland, two from each of Germany and Japan, and one artist from each of Denmark, Norway, Nigeria, Brazil and Spain.
The examination of political, social, economic and personal realities is picked out as a central theme in the sociologically oriented work of several young artists. While video art, installations, multimedia works and process art are in the foreground, various currents in postmodern painting, as they appear at the beginning of the new millennium, are also on display in Miami Beach.
Although, seen in a broader art-historical context, the painting of the Swiss artist Hanspeter Hofmann (Tony Wüthrich Galerie) is admittedly based on organic abstraction, Hoffman breaks with the classical panel tradition by playing slyly with the radical formfinding typical of the end of modernist art, and lets the completely mediatized symbols float freely on the surface of the picture. The painting of the Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugito (Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery) looks to be an abstract image when viewed from a distance. It is only upon closer inspection that one makes out the dreamlike sequences of images and references to childrens drawings. «A color is one thing, the name of it is another» postulates the American Peter Wegner (Griffin Contemporary). In his work «Remarks on Colors», he examines the problem of assigning names to the colors of industrially produced paints. Chris Finleys (Jack Tilton Gallery) fresh, outsize figurative images captivate with their visual energy and attitude. They cast a spell on the viewer with their visual power, placing the viewer in the world of video game images, cut up and put together again by Chris Finley in postpop cubist style. In his sponsored booth, the Swiss artist Lori Hersberger (mezzanine) shows a multimedia installation with a wall painting in fluorescent luminous colors, neon light and a broken mirror. The art duo Tim Noble and Sue Webster (Modern Art), who place seemingly randomly chosen piles of household garbage in a dark room and illuminate them with a bright light, creating perfect silhouettes of the artist duo, may also be considered as related to the field of painting. For «Art Statements» the two artists are suggesting an ambitious 360º installation. The German artist Jonathan Meese (Contemporary Fine Arts) dabbles in forensic work as regards painting. His project for Art Basel Miami Beach pays homage to the painter Balthus who died in February 2001. The installation will include a photo collage, images and small sculptures, all dedicated to Balthus.
The German Björn Dahlem (Luis Campana) and the Brazilian Franklin Cassaro (Galeria Baró Senna) are at home in the realm of the readymade, the objet trouvé. Dahlems installations of great presence testify to an almost obsessive tendency to use found objects such as shingles, styrofoam and cloths. Franklin Cassaro on the other hand, in his «piles» often originating from performances, focuses on the relationship of form, on the typicality of the individual object.
The Scot, Jim Lambie (The Modern Institute), exhibits an installation based on posters of deceased rock stars. The portrait, the human face, is also the topic of the video art of the English artist Dryden Goodwin (Stephen Friedman Gallery), whose portraits, removed from their original context, seem to exist outside of real time. Thus, they remain open to the most varying of interpretations and associations. In his video art for «Art Statements», the American Amir Zaki (James Harris Gallery) focuses on the behavior of three children reciting a text given to them by the artist. The children, who do not understand the demanding content of the text, act as naïve mediators. In their work, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset (Tanya Bodakdar Gallery) work with the «white cube», the exhibition venue that was the cause of the most sensation in the 20th century. In his sculptures and installations, the American Tony Matelli (andréhn-schiptjenko) takes a look at the unexpected cultural and at the same time artistic boundaries in a world characterized by globalization. Globalization, specifically the globalization of the working world, is the topic of the spectacular performances/ actions of Santiago Sierra (Galerie Peter Kilchmann), a Spaniard residing in Mexico. Sierra picks up on the most perverse forms of remuneration by renting the «workforce» for his performances as cheaply as possible, as is commonly the case on todays globalized market. This performance, taking place during the opening of Art Basel Miami Beach, will be filmed and photographed by the artist. This video and photos of earlier performances will be shown in the sponsored booth during the course of the show.
The dissection of differing cultural norms also becomes clear in the work of the Japanese artist Tam Ochiai (Tomio Koyama Gallery) and the Nigerian artist Odili Donald Odita (Florence Lynch Galllery). While the Japanese artist transforms his great interest in western culture, film, literature, the world of fashion, and advertising into an installation, the Nigerian artist in his multimedia work manipulates cultural boundaries, exposes cultural imperialism, and plays with stereotypes of western culture.
In their sponsored booths, the Swiss artist Costa Vece (Galleria Franco Noero) and the English artist Mark Handforth (Gavin Browns enterprise) will present new works of art, specially conceived for Art Basel Miami Beach.
International contemporary art at Art Basel Miami Beach is not only to be discovered in the «Art Statements» sector, but also on the «Art Positions» platform, where 20 galleries will present their avantgarde programs in shipping containers that have been converted into exhibition spaces. In addition, numerous galleries will be showing new art works at their booths at the Miami Beach Convention Center.
PM5/Art Statements, October 2001
Information on Art Basel Miami Beach can be obtained from:
Art Basel Miami Beach, P.O. Box, CH-4021 Basel, tel. 41 61 686 20 20, fax 41 61 686 31 30, e-mail: MiamiBeach@ArtBasel.com, www.ArtBasel.com
For the USA:
US Office Art Basel Miami Beach: FITZ & CO, Sara Fitzmaurice, 526 West 26 Street #916, USA-New York, NY 10001, tel. 1 212 627 1531, fax 1 212 627 0654, e-mail: usoffice@ArtBasel.com
For Florida:
Florida Office Art Basel Miami Beach, Garber & Goodman Inc. 301 41st Street Miami Beach, FL 33140, tel. 1 305 674 1292, fax 1 305 673 1242, e-mail: floridaoffice@ArtBasel.com
Media information on the internet:
Media information, photos and logos can be downloaded directly from www.ArtBasel.com. Media representatives can also subscribe to the media mailing list in order to receive information and invitations to Art Basel Miami Beach automatically in future.
