HIGHLIGHTS OF 2023 PART I
One of the advantages of working as an art advisor is that I can do what I want, usually when I want, and not when someone else needs me to do it. 2023 was a good example of this, a year in which I was lucky enough to see many amazing exhibitions and events.
Here are a couple of my highlights:
Johannes Vermeer, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, May 2023
As soon as I heard about this exhibition I was determined to go and for once planned ahead, booked tickets, and visited in May, once the initial razzamatazz had dissipated. To have seen twenty-eight of his paintings in one place, out of the thirty-seven that are known to still exist, was an emotional, almost religious, experience and one that I shall never forget. His paintings, although 350 years old, are timeless in their appeal and connect with the viewer on so many levels. Better art historians have articulated his technical ability and beauty of his style, use of light and rare pigments, but in my experience, there are few artists who are able to generate such a spiritual response from the viewer.
If you did not manage to go to the exhibition, his works can be seen in many major museums including the Netherlands (Amsterdam and the Hague exhibit seven works between them), London, Paris, New York, and Washington DC.
Art Basel, Basel, June 2023
For me Art Basel is the pinnacle of art fairs and I visit whenever possible. In 2023 I was lucky enough to go with my 19 year old son, who has always wanted to go. This was his first visit and it was very special to be able to share that experience with him. The scale of the fair and its satellites is impossible to convey until you have visited; three main exhibition halls and several subsidiary fairs in a small city of only 170,000 people. For anyone with an interest in the art of the twentieth and twenty first centuries a visit is essential. The number of works that we saw is now a blur, but the Art Forum space, used to exhibit large scale individual works and installations is always a highlight.
A good example of an installation piece is this untitled work by Mai-Thu Perret. Consisting of 29 hands in yellow neon, the hands create an abstract pattern but the composition can be read as a symbol for labour, creating art, protection and freedom. The scale and impact of the work is a typical example of why for me the Art Unlimited section at Art Basel is the most exciting and stimulating part of Art Basel and arguably of all global art fairs.
In addition, I particularly remember several works by Frank Auerbach, a giant of the School of London art movement, who is still working at ninety three years old.
This is one of seventy portraits of J.Y.M, a refection of his obsession with certain subjects, whether portraits or landscapes, and the way in which he applies, scrapes and reapplies paint, resulting in a multi textured almost three dimensional surface.
For me great paintings have to generate an emotional response from me, the viewer; in my opinion Auerbach succeeds magnificently at this.
I also saw this stunning painting by Etel Adnan, which had recently been bought from Sotheby’s London for £165,000 and exhibited and sold at Basel six weeks later for Euros 450,000. Not a bad return for the gallery and in my opinion not overpriced for such a beautiful and increasingly rare example of her work.
Adnan was a Lebanese-American poet and visual artist. At the turn of the century, as the market for Middle Eastern art rapidly grew and expanded, driven to a large extent by the art related activities in the Gulf States (primarily Dubai through Art Dubai and the opening of world class museums in Abu Dhabi and Qatar), Etel Adnan’s works could still be purchased for a relatively low price.
This all changed after her major retrospective at the Serpentine Gallery, London in 2016, and a wider recognition shown towards her by the auction market.
