Art Basel

Two days at Art Basel make you know what an amazing scene the art world is. The art consists of more than 200 art galleries from around the world--with many from Germany as well as from the US, and even some from China.

We were amazed at how much Blue chip art there was. Would you like to buy a Rothko, a Miro, a Picasso? They were all there. Of course many other artists as well. For my Corcoran buddies, there were several pieces by Jessica Stockholder, some Rudolf Stingl works, etc.

The audience included gallerists, shoppers, dealers, owners, and a few people like us who were just looking. We saw many older couples with notes, etc.

Now here are our impressions of the most amazing things. An old bmw car filled with water, with its lights on. Inside was the artists submerged in water and gurgling. Periodically he gasped for breath using some scuba gear. I have a picture, although I can' quite figure out how to get it on the computer. Will keep working on that. About 50 people watched and wondered if he was going to make it. Reminiscent of Chris Burden having someone shoot him in the arm.

A gigantic canvas--4 sections--with sort of a rising son of heads of Chinese men coming up over the horiyon. The rest was blue sky. (if you have not used a kezboard in another country, zou might not know this, but some keys are located in different places than what we are used to and i find mzself making some simple typos.

Many larger than life photorealist pictures bz Thomas Struth. Saw an installtion of what looked like a bathroom from a public space. The large figure looking over one of the sinks was supposed to be spraypainting grafitti on the mirror. It took a while to discover he was not real.

Much more painting than I expected. I will comment at length after I have a chance to review my notes.

We also attended one of the alternative art venues called Scope. It was about 3 blocks away from the main location. Smaller galleries were represented there. The people were much more accessible and even friendly. At the end as we were having a coffee, the rains came down in buckets and we waited it out for some time.

The train back and forth between Zurich where we are staying and Basel took about an hour and was perfectly easy to do.

Now we are in for a train trip to Frankfurt. I hope that works as well. Tonight we expect to go to the opening of documenta which begins late this evening.

Staz tuned.