The story of Frank Gehry’s design of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, is by now familiar. Cities world-wide have begun to aim for the “Bilbao effect”: the construction of a spectacular museum building that attracts international visitors and boosts the economy. The story of the “Art Basel effect” is less widely known. It is the tale of the leading art fair for contemporary art, which has been presented in Basel, Switzerland, every June for the past 36 years, also coming to Miami Beach for the past three Decembers and becoming America’s premiere art fair; the fourth edition of Art Basel Miami Beach opens today.
In past years, about 30,000 art lovers from around the world arrived here for Art Basel, and the Miami Herald reports that this year a sizable increase is expected. The fair’s principal venue is the Miami Beach Convention Center, where about 200 of the world’s most prestigious galleries display paintings, sculptures, photographs, video works and room-scale installations, the majority of which date within the past five years. Works range in cost from thousands to millions of dollars. The fair continues nearby on the beachfront, where shipping containers turned into exhibition spaces display the wares of 20 younger galleries, a presentation underwritten this year by W South Beach. Since its inception, the fair’s principal sponsor has been UBS, with BMW and NetJets serving as supporters. Bvlgari, Morgan’s Hotel Group, Bloomberg Television and AXA Art Insurance are further providers.
In accord with the Swiss model, the fair is not a self-contained entity. A public art program, performances, video and sound lounges, discussion forums and “crossover” events involving fashion, books, music, film, architecture and design are all variously sponsored and promoted by Art Basel Miami Beach. Then there are “partners” in the greater Miami area, ranging from art venues to nightclubs, that feature events officially sanctioned by the fair.
According to Samuel Keller, director of Art Basel’s Swiss and American fairs, more than 840 journalists attended Art Basel Miami Beach in 2004. Much of the press coverage has focused less on the fair than on Miami as a cultural and tourist destination. That the world press offers millions of dollars of free publicity “is worth its weight in gold from a public relations point of view,” asserts Michael Spring, director of the Miami-Dade Cultural Affairs Council.
