The Economist bucks the trend toward viewing art collecting as an investment with a reasoned and well-reported article on what collectors actually say about their experience buying and selling art. The data was collected at ArtBasel, the Mecca of Collectors:

The sociability of the fair contributes to the aversion that collectors have to going home empty-handed. Jay Smith, an investment advisor at CIBC-Wood Gundy and an important donor of art to museums, admits, “When I don’t buy anything, the fair feels dull. Buying makes you feel connected to what is going on.”

Buying art doesn’t just offer a sense of community, it engenders feelings of victory, cultural superiority and social distinction. Some say that it even fills a spiritual void. The term most commonly used by collectors, however, is that buying art gives them a “high”. George Economou, a self-made shipping tycoon whose art collection in Athens is open to the public, bought several works at Basel this year, including a wooden sculpture from 1924 by Hermann Scherer for over €1m. He distinguishes between buying at auction, which he says feels “more exciting, more vibrant, more alive”, and buying at an art fair, which may have a longer-lasting thrill.

However sweet the chase of buying, the Economist points out that selling, even at a massive profit is a fleeting victory:

Joel Mallins, a New York collector,[...] sat at the back of a Sotheby’s auction in London five years ago, watching two telephone-bidders scrap over his Damien Hirst pill cabinet, “Lullaby Spring”. It fetched a record £9.6m ($19.2m) in June 2007. He had paid well less than $1m for the wall sculpture, which dates from 2002. Speaking at a seminar during Art Basel, Mr Mallins admitted that he doesn’t expect ever to repeat the jubilant experience.

Many sellers suffer a measure of remorse when they sell an artwork. They feel “conflicted” and even “guilty”.[...] Several factors fuel the sense of regret. First, selling art has a long association with debt, death and divorce. No one wants to look like they need the money. Second, collectors are exceedingly hesitant about selling works before they have realised their full value, so much so that they often don’t end up selling them at all.

Why Buy Art? (Economist)

Our intrepid art fair habitué, Kenny Schachter, takes on the big daddy of art fairs, ArtBasel. The subject is so vast, so intriguing that he keeps on having more to say. So check back often for his periodic updates:

Got off to an early start this year prior to the onset of the ART Basel fair(s), at 5am very early, and headed off to Zurich for a jump on the proceedings. I received more .pdf’s offering pre-fair fare than on any prior occasion, which can’t foreshadow a good thing for sellers now or in the near future. At a recent lunch, a London property developer showed me agent emails predicting a slowdown for much touted high-end residential on the horizon. Could this all be a red flag for things to come, an indication of distress looming? I doubt it. But here was a prospect even scarier: longtime 1980′s art dealer Tony Shafrazi announced he returned to making art after retiring his spray-can decades ago following his unprovoked vandalism attack against Picasso’s Guernica in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, threatening to show his hand at the fair, and what a hand it was to be (more on that to below).

Basel is the big daddy of international art fairs, though at 43, it’s not the oldest that would be Cologne, which is now on life support. As an attendee at Basel, you even feel compelled to dress differently, like entering a place of worship, where all are dolled up in their Sunday best. But at the same time, many of the characters in and around the art world are smug and righteous who feel both superior and envious to those contributing to drive the art market. Auction and art fair aesthetics may not be definitive, but there is always a degree of underlying logic to a market as broad and far-reaching as art. The New Yorker critic Peter Schjeldahl recently stated: “Our age will be bookmarked in history by the self-adoring gestures of the incredibly rich. Aesthetics ride coach.” Sorry but I beg to differ as life isn’t as straightforward and simple as us against them (or them against us, depending where you situate yourself).

The VIP opening (has such stupid, vapid terminology any meaning or relevance anymore?) was stretched out over two days in order to avoid a relapse of last year’s billionaires stampede which rivaled a 1970s Who concert in the near death carnage. But everyone still finds reasons to complain about everything—there were too many people, there were not enough people, there was no longer any impetus to make snap, spur-of-the-moment decisions as there was no longer the mad rush of having to pull the trigger prior to the admittance of the hoi polloi. Back to the art market: when you look at the macro macro-economic picture, extrapolating from the bigger trends at large, all the pieces still seem firmly in place to keep this monster fed and roaring for the near future, despite the constant prognostications to the contrary.

Checking into my hotel, the very first person I laid eyes on was a dealer who I had recently concluded a multi-million dollar deal with who then evaporated without a trace for months like a puff of smoke (maybe he was smoking something himself and forgot, but unlikely). Funny the art world manner of doing business, or lack of manners I should say. Such a fortuitous hotel lobby encounter with the New York deadbeat dealer was met with a dumb and sheepish shrug by the offender (who might have ginger hair), which was about all he could muster. Call that misadventure a roadmap for the way in which the unregulated art business is frequently conducted: miscommunications on top of misrepresentations by misfits.

At a lunch before things kicked off, I was going in and out of consciousness during a speech by sculptor David Smith’s daughter when she dropped the most poignant bomb: that her father refused to teach drawing, disallowed coloring books (or anything within an outline) and would not permit the use of crayons. She related that he said, “You need to find your own line.” I thought that just about encompassed the key to the meaning of life. After I explained what I do professionally to the woman seated next to me, she replied that the exclusive party she was due to throw was exclusively for collectors specifically excluding those involved a commercial capacity in art. So like Smith’s daughter, I discovered my own line, which might have involved spinning a few lies, till an invite was presented.

The most coveted dinner invite is not even in Basel but rather Zurich, where the thrower is so reticent each year about hosting the shindig she swears it off every time until succumbing and staging it once again as per usual. Though I bagged an invite I did a quick runner for despite the unimaginable beauty of the setting and plentitude of food, it’s still a meal peopled by hoards of dealers and a smattering of collectors, so how much fun could that be? Answer: not very much, indeed. The following night was an even better story and perfectly exemplifies the questionable high jinks of the art world. How do I dance around this without putting my foot in it—but I can’t help but try. Let’s say I facilitated a show for someone at a prestigious gallery, for which I subsequently received no credit. Over the years, the gallery continued to pursue the relationship, leaving me by the wayside, though the loyal artist always acted impeccably. When the publication from our exhibit was finally premiered at a Basel dinner, not only wasn’t I invited to the launch, but I was also unsure my essay would even appear in the book. None of which stopped me from crashing the party of course.

Art Unlimited opened before the main attraction—a portion of the fair meant for unwieldy, non-commercial scaled art installations, in a world where snot is monetized, that’s a laugh. And let me tell you, in no uncertain terms, this show was an argument writ large for small, dispelling once and for all the concept that bigger is better. The exhibition lowlight was comprised of a mid-sized black Labrador lying prone on a carpet gasping for air directly positioned under a pounding spotlight in an otherwise dark and over-crowded space. Let the artist lie under a scorching light in an enclosed room being gawked at by a countless, never ending stream of VIP’s (Very Insensitive People).  Yes, you didn’t know if the animal was dead, alive or animatronics, and it was certainly startling when the dog was startled back to life by its trainer for a breather. But it was atrocious nonetheless. Are the oh-so-clever art masses thus entertained? I wish they’d have asked me; I’d have selflessly volunteered one of my horrific toy poodles for the hapless job.

With no booth, my business often occurs in the cracks of the fair—the streets, trains, aisles and restaurants of Basel (substitute Cologne, Hong Kong, Miami, London, or New York). In one such instance, a perfect illustration of the inefficient nature of the art market, which makes it such an alluring place to be, was the following. My feet were burning with pain (chronic fair fatigue, a newly acknowledged syndrome) so I plopped myself down on a bench between two dealers I know, an indication of the extent of my suffering. One of them turned to me, interrupting his conversation and stated emphatically: “Let’s do a deal right now.” He proceeded to show me a painting by an artist he knew I admired and quoted a figure he figured to be the retail price (he obviously hadn’t checked for a while—wink, wink) and asked me make an offer from there. I went lower than low and he met me nearby and I was able to scoop up a masterpiece (relatively speaking) for a masterfully cheap price. And so it goes.

No matter your feelings on art fairs, the majors are filled with great art across a vast expanse. And despite widespread skepticism, concern and even mistrust, I am certain the art market is deep and not under threat due to fundamental shifts in global patterns of consumption. There is an undeniable and indescribable excitement in acquisitions that brings to mind the doctor who squandered money funded to secure children’s heart surgeries in order to buy the latest contemporary art; before he went to prison for embezzlement. His property made for one hell of an entertaining auction in the late 90’s when he was forced to dislodge it all by the authorities. The above is a caution to all that subscribe to the notion that the lack of dough is never an impediment to a good collector, rather, a challenge.  Maybe it all just signifies a giant emotional black hole.

A naked man and woman flanked the entrance to the Sean Kelly Gallery necessitating a certain finesse to squeeze through without creating an international incident. The work was a re-enactment of Marina Abramović’s famous performance “Imponderabilia.” Amazing to think that in the Middle East it would not be permissible to stage this innocuous tableau, and even more outlandish that I was thrown off facebook for 24 hours for posting it on my blog. More suppressive then China and Syria, with a flagging stock, fb is a less happy concept then only a matter of months ago.

Gagosian cobbled together 2 sets of Andy Warhol Oxidation paintings from 1978 by grouping 4 8×10 inch works into one frame and 4 16 x 12 inch works into another in an attempt to create something that exceeded the sum of it’s parts. He didn’t succeed and I needed to find one for a client as I believe the series to be undervalued. But part of the fair upside and involving a rare display of camaraderie, is that if you ask enough acquaintances for opinions you will find key information you seek. In the case of the piss painting predicament, I was directed by a private dealer with a Warhol specialization, akin to independent specialists on the floor of a stock exchange, to Per Skarstedt’s booth where he had a larger, more significant work, in stock at the same price as Gagosian. As Diana Ross sang, it pays to reach and touch somebody’s hand.

How hundreds of millions of dollars of business is consummated on the trading floor of a fair is actually an incredible exploit to conceive. A deal is made by agreeing to the financial terms and simply saying ok, I will buy a work at a given level and then boom, the transaction is complete on a handshake (sometimes not even), invoicing to follow, as old a way of doing business as business is old, entailing a nice leap of faith based purely on trust (by both parties) in the process. There you have it, and the result can be a rather intangible experience on both sides of the coin. Another upside is the sheer amount of information that is at hand; with so many whispered gems, among the best reasons to attend a fair, I can hardly remember which ones I’m not supposed to repeat. From the same source that mentioned the $250m Cezanne a year before it was publically announced, came the juicy gossip of a $160m Rothko recently transacted, what better evidence that the news of the art market’s imminent demise is mere premature conjecture. Another unrepeatable tidbit of gossip was that a dealer I had worked with in the past was so hard up for money that he sold a painting 3 times, and more than once; and, now faces an investigation and possible jail term. Desperate times call for desperate actions but I desperately hope I am not sucked into the proceedings. Ugh.

Enough about art business and back to the inimitable social life. When the fair is in full swing, the city of Basel, like Miami, is so taxed by the demands of the rich, famous and not so rich or famous that it verges on bursting. One night for dinner we ended up at a typical art world haunt, freezing outside with no service for miles; the restaurant so dangerously past their capacity, reservation holders were turned away, we had to steal plates not meant for us in order to eat, and in the end were asked for an address so a bill could be sent, they couldn’t even muster the wherewithal to generate a check. And still business cards were exchanged at the table with other art world guests, similarly trembling in the cold. Amazing the art travelers, bordering on clinically cuckoo, that pass off as professionals in the midst of a heated market.

The booths are strategically and hierarchically laid out at ART Basel like layers of an onion. The sweetest (most powerful) rings are situated around the inner courtyard, and they travel outward like waves until you reach the disparate corners. But like chickens moved to a new coop, not all fair-goers travel far and wide, many stay close to the center, until on occasion they peck each other’s eyes out. No patch of turf in the country of Switzerland is immune to the hustle of an art sale, attempted or otherwise, during the course of the fair. God knows I had a few dry runs in various hotel lobbies and other unorthodox venues, including a bizarre encounter with a famous collector I spied leaning against the concierge desk reading the newspaper on his iPad at 1:30am one evening, where I nonchalantly struck up a Richter conversation. No billionaire shall go unturned. What was the hottest commodity at the fair? Not art or money but phone chargers and the juice to run them. What happened to the time when battery life extended longer than an email? But it’s a dangerous thing to leave your phone in the booth of a dealer “friend” even when the device is locked—snakes can get just about anywhere. After running out of batteries more than once, I had to lug around my charger like an artificial organ.

Being in Basel can at times stir an urge to buy that transcends the immediate surroundings of the fair—exposed to so much stimulus can trigger remote buying reflex. For example there were two Frederick Kiesler multi-purpose chairs from Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of this Century Gallery from 1942 on offer at €450k each at the Design Fair. Only weeks before I was shown images of two replicas made in the 1960’s for Kiesler’s appearance on a TV show for a fraction of the cost; in comparison to the real things I viewed in Basel, I jumped at the low cost simulacrum. An occasion of arbitrage opportunities that frequently pop up at fairs were two beautiful Bridget Riley drawings from the 1970’s—the examples on exhibit were £90k each which reminded me of the even earlier and equally as attractive pieces displayed in Hong Kong only weeks ago at nearly half the cost. I was hoping to cement a deal before the HK dealer arrived in Basel, for timing counts for a lot.

One of the gripes spreading through the aisles like wildfire was the fact that the fair management demanded collector details from the galleries prior to sending out the coveted VIP cards, which caused nothing short of a revolt. Galleries guard their clients like state secrets and would rather face a firing squad or torture then reveal even to their loved ones who the biggest buyers are (you never know how a relationship will end and who will make a grab for the business). After only a few days of looking, an act more strenuous than climbing, I had seen so much so closely, I couldn’t bear the thought of a single museum visit; yes the true philistine in me reared it’s head, only to retreat in a sea of guilt. And my fair visit ended like it always does, faced with the nagging desire to flee early regardless of cost. Foolishly, I had been staying in Zurich which had the unforeseen effect of keeping me out of the bars and parties in Basel which was an hour train ride away; ostensibly and health-wise a good thing (and professionally), but on hindsight, I rather missed it all. Maybe for my next trip to the Miami fair I should commute from New Jersey.

ART Basel should go one step further than the Cologne fair that hosted an autonomous NADA fair within the belly of the main event but still separated; and, in a seamless and nonhierarchical manner, fully integrate the design amongst it’s happy bedfellow, art. In another move towards abolishing the dull sameness of big art fairs, the second floor of Basel, hosting the more adventurous, less established and canonized art and artists should collapse and mix with its forefathers. We don’t really live or think in a chronological universe where history is linear; the future is a non-narrative zone where we bounce between things, with a little more randomness and chaos—don’t fear, fair organizers, give us a little more credit to make our own associations and juxtapositions without spoon-feeding us the identical line, over and over and over. Call it a dose of creative destruction to cure us from the monotony—I’d much rather see a hodgepodge by way of a mishmash.

Now that all is said and done, I get a phone call that the shit I have been writing on the machinations of the art world has inspired a TV show; I hope that a) I get some credit, i.e. the monetary variety; b) it has the chutzpah of Tony Shafrazi exhibiting his very own art within his very own booth with full knowledge he’d be thrown out on his ass next year as a consequence; and, c) that it doesn’t suck as much as Tony’s show did.

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www.RoveTV.net

Reports from ArtBasel 43 are focusing on the Mark Rothko painting being offered by Marlborough Gallery. Meanwhile, Gagosian is quietly asking nearly as much for a Warhol Marilyn work. Though both prices are keyed to prominent validating sales. In the case of the Warhol, the $100m said to be paid privately for Warhol’s Eight Elvises.

Colin Gleadell puts the Rothko into a similar context:

The most expensive work will be on London’s Marlborough Fine Art stand where Mark Rothko’s large abstract painting Untitled 1954, (pictured), is priced at $78 million (£50 million). The painting was formerly owned by New York banker turned art dealer, Robert Mnuchin, who sold it at Christie’s in 2007 for $26.9 million. It was the second highest price paid for a Rothko, behind White Center, 1950, which had sold the night before at Sotheby’s for $72.8  million to the royal family of Qatar. Untitled was, comparatively, a bargain, and was bought by a collector in Switzerland, who has now decided to sell. One very good reason for this decision is that another large Rothko painting, Orange, Red, Yellow, 1960, set a new record this year, selling in New York for $87 million. There were still three contenders for the painting as the bidding soared over $70 million, so two of them, perhaps, are still looking.

ArtBasel 2012: The Future’s Orange (Telegraph)

 Judd Tully proves once again why he is called The Master:

• Blum & Poe: Takashi Murakami’s two-part “Shangri-La Blue/Shangri-La Pink” (2012) in acrylic on canvas, for around $1.5 million; Chinese artist Zhu Jinshi’s new paint-gob-scattered abstraction at $150,000, and an older work from 1990, the diptych, “The Rings Stay Open” for $125,000; and Matt Johnson’s painted bronze, “Styrofoam Girl” (2012), which sold for $60,000; Mark Grotjahn’s “Untitled (Orange Butterfly Blue MG03) #1” (2003) for around a million dollars; “Untitled (Turned and pretty blue and cream face 43.43)” in oil on cardboard mounted on linen from 2012 also sold for $225,000; Henry Taylor’s new wall relief, “You’re in it, we’re in it,” comprised in part of plastic bottles, black spray paint, a mop head, and nails, sold to a European collector for $40,000, while Scottish artist Michael Wilkinson’s impressive, mixed-media “Never Work 6 (triptych)” (2012) sold in the $15,000-20,000 range.
• Galerie St. Etienne: sold a rare Max Beckmann woodcut of his most important print, “Group Portrait, Eden bar” (1923), in the low six figures.
• Metro Pictures: two versions of Robert Longo’s fearsome “Untitled (Tiger Head No. 9) (2012), in charcoal on mounted paper, sold to Europeans for $295,000 apiece, and Olaf Breuning’s carved marble sculpture, “Flat Human (I want more)” (2009) sold to an American collector for $90,000;  four out of six from the new Cindy Sherman edition, “Untitled” (2010-2012), at $450,000 each; 10 Jim Shaw airbrush drawings on paper dating from 1979, featuring some Hollywood stars and other creatures (including Doris Day), sold at around $10,000 apiece.
• Sperone Westwater, which sold three works byAlighiero e Boetti at prices ranging from $240,000 to $300,000, as well as Tom Sachs’s hand-painted bronze, “Saturn V” (2011) rocket, standing at its launch pad, for $125,000; “Mobile Home” (2012), a new Charles LeDray sculpture of a miniaturized outfit for $100,000 to a European collector,
• Christopher Wool “End Plate II,” an alkyd-on-aluminum and steel from 1986 to a European collector for $950,000.
• Pace sold Agnes Martin’s “Untitled,” a 12-inch-square oil, ink, and wash-on-canvas from circa 1961 for $1 million, Claes Oldenburg’s bronze and stainless steel “Clothespin” (1974) for $600,000, and Zhang Xiaogang’s somber oil-on-canvas “Face 2012 No.1” (2012) for $450,000.
•  Hauser & Wirth: Philip Guston’s late and figuratively gutsy “Orders” (1978), which went to a European collector for $6 million, and Louise Bourgeois’s mixed-media sculpture, “Arched Figure” (1993), for $2 million to another European; all three versions of Thomas Houseago’s bronze wall piece, “Untitled” (2012) for $175,000 apiece, as well as a new Paul McCarthy black walnut sculpture, “White Snow and Prince on Horse,” for $1.8 million.
• Galerie Max Hetzler, a huge and new Albert Oehlen “Untitled” paper collage on canvas, replete with slivers of advertising images and strong colors sold for €315,0000 ($396,700), and Mona Hatoum’s ”Witness” (2009), a porcelain biscuit sculpture from an edition of 10 and a miniaturized version of a Beirut Lebanon monument that was damaged by gunfire during the country’s civil war, sold for €40,000 ($50,000); Günther Förg abstraction, “Untited” (1990) for  €150,000 ($189,000).
• Acquavella Galleries sold Andy Warhol’s large-scale, 100-by-80-inch “Joseph Beuys” (1981); two new paintings by Damian Loeb, including “Vega” (2012), for approximately $220,000, and Wayne Thiebaud’s 24-by-24-inch “Girl in White” (1979-1996) for somewhere in the vicinity of the $1.5 million asking price.
• Auriel Scheibler, the gallery sold Alice Neel‘s portrait, “Elsie Rubin” (1960) and “Spanish Harlem,” a circa 1938 drawing to a Chinese collector, for over $500,000. According to the gallery it is the first Neel heading to China.
• Galerie Gmurzynska, which sold a small scaled and pretty Fernand Leger composition, “Etude pour ‘La Baigneuse au tronc d’Arbre’” (1930) for $600,000, and a stunning Wilfredo Lam gouache on paper laid on canvas, “Figure Assise (Anamu)” (1943), for somewhere under $3 million.

Despite Gripes About Thwarted VIPs (Artinfo)

The Art Newspaper’s Charlotte Burns and Riah Pryor have these sales:

• Helly Nahmad Gallery: Picasso’s Untitled (2 June 1971), 1971, a work on paper for $300,000.
• David Zwirner:  a $2.6m Donald Judd from 1981. 
• OMR: five editions of Artur Lescher’s ZU, 2012, which found homes in Russia, Eastern and mainland Europe for $45,000 each.
• Hotel gallery: sold five out of six editions of Arbeit, 2012, a video piece by Duncan Campbell, for £20,000, with three going to museums.

Collectors Expect—and Find—the Best (The Art Newspaper)

From a fairgoer:

• Richard Feigen: Ray Johnson collage.
• Galerie Thomas: Dubuffet gouache, from 1947 $185 000

Judd Tully reports from Art Basel:

• Gerhard Richter’s large, richly textured, and riotously polychromatic 1986 oil painting “A.B. Courbet, ” a highlight of the Pace Gallery’s booth at this week’s Art Basel, was sold today during the second day of the fair’s VIP preview. The work was listed in the $25 million range.

Some of the very best fair reports aren’t coming from journalists but through social media as art world habitués share their enthusiasm and skepticism about various works on display. Since Facebook is semi-public, we’ll wait on identifying the sources until they give their approval. But two observations that have already come up are the recognition that Edward Keinholz’s work is receiving much more attention from secondary market dealers and that Calder-mania may be peaking if one is too judge by the work on view:

• L & M Arts  Ed KIENHOLZ ”Untitled” 1959 $300,000 sold immediately at opening

Juxtapositions are the soul of art fairs. (Yes, yes, we’re aware of all the horrible aspects too.) This comes from an eager collector snapping the booths as he goes.

Scott Reyburn was prowling the aisles in Basel:

• Marlborough is getting a lot of press for its £50m Rothko: “We’ve got serious clients from South America and Russia who are interested in the Rothko,” Marlborough’s director Gilbert Lloyd said in an interview. Frank Auerbach’s 1985 painting “Head of J.Y.M.,” priced at 550,000 pounds ($857,200), featured among the gallery’s first-day sales.
• “I sold works priced at more than $1 million to a Scandinavian and an Israeli buyer I hadn’t met before,” said the Swiss dealer Karsten Greve, who has the 1966 Cy Twombly blackboard painting “Hill (Rome),” tagged on his booth at more than $12 million.
• Per Skarstedt, who sold a 1984 Albert Oehlen self-portrait for between $1.5 million and $2 million. The 1987 Rosemarie Trockel knitted painting “Made in Western Germany” sold for $1 million.
• The U.S. artist Rudolf Stingel was one of the blue-chip names in demand. His “Untitled (Paula),” based on an old black and white photograph of the New York gallerist Paula Cooper smoking a cigarette, was sold by Cooper to a European private institution for about $3 million in the Art Unlimited sector. (Carol Vogel names the buyer as François Pinault.)
• Hauser & Wirth sold the 1978 Philip Guston canvas “Orders” for $6 million and the 1993 Louise Bourgeois mixed media sculpture “Arched Figure” for $2 million. Both were bought by European collectors

Hedge Funder Cohen, Basel VIPs Eye $78 Million Rothko (Bloomberg)

Ben Gennochio covers the fair for Artinfo:

• Marian Goodman: Gerhard Richter’s “Strip (922-1)” (2011) for an undisclosed sum.
• L&M Arts had a fabulous Frank Stella painting from 1967 that went for around $2 million.
• Karsten Greve sold a Twombly, a Fontana, and a Chamberlain all before lunch.
• Hans Kraus sold in the first few hours two photographs, one to an American institution and another to a German museum.
• Kukje sold a Richard Prince
• Lelong devoted a sizeable chunk of its booth to a major Luciano Fabro sculpture, which sold quickly

ArtBasel Report (Artinfo)

One of the usual press gambits for an art fair is to have an insurance firm estimate the gross value of all works brought to the fair. Of course, a small number of the works account for the vast majority of that value. But Bloomberg’s Scott Reyburn reports that one gallery may also have an inordinate effect on the overall value of the  306-booth fair.

That gallery, of course, would be Gagosian:

 This year, Gagosian brought an estimated $250 million of works to a fair that has inventory valued at about $2 billion.

That would put the average booth’s value at $6.5m or mean that Gagosian is nearly 40 times the size of the average gallery.

Hedge Funder Cohen, Basel VIPs Eye $78 Million Rothko (Bloomberg)

Georgina Adam explores the selection process for ArtBasel, the world’s most prestigious Contemporary art fair. We give you some of the choice bits:

• A few years ago another dealer complained: “My gallery was rejected for Basel, yet my artists are all over the fair.”
• During the fair itself, the “rehang” which takes place as pieces are sold will also be carefully scrutinised to ensure that it is up to the opening display. The committee goes around the whole fair every day at 8am: a mediocre rehang has sunk galleries in the past.
• “Being a selector is terrible for relationships between dealers. If someone is rejected, there is the question, ‘who spoke out against me?’ It can get very personal.”

Fair Selection Panels: Behind the Scenes (Financial Times)

Bloomberg catches a few ArtBasel datapoints worth noting:

• Gagosian sold $45 million of art within the first quarter of an hour, said two dealers with knowledge of the matter, who declined to be named.

• Cattelan’s 2002 sculpture of two New York policemen, “Frank and Jamie,” priced at $3 million, was among sales by Gagosian at the June 14 VIP preview, said dealers. Two examples of this edition of four sold at auction for about $1.6 million in 2010.

• Geneva-based Galerie Krugier & Cie. offered three Picasso oils priced at a total of $52 million. Though at least two smaller Picasso works found buyers for undisclosed prices, the big-ticket oils were still available as the 42nd fair ended.

Big Spenders Lift Contemporary Art Back to Peak at $1.8 Billion Basel Fair (Bloomberg)