Interview: Art Basel directors Annette Schönholzer and Marc Spiegler

Art | 39 | Basel

I reckon it has been a hectic year for you, the first year as co-directors for Art Basel?

M.S.: It has been hectic like the first year of any job, there are many things to expect and many things that you do not expect. The last month has been really exciting. Suddenly everything came very close, and we could follow shipments that had left China and South America, and we saw things arrive. Our offices on the third floor overlook Messeplatz, so we were able to watch when the platform for Uno Rondinone was built up and when Roxy Paine welded that giant silver tree in front of the entrance. There is a tremendous amount of work, but there are also tremendous amounts of excitement.

How has it been to take over after Samuel Keller, who has been like an icon for Art Basel?

M.S.: We are very happy with the first two days of the fair. The general response to Art Statements and Art Unlimited which opened yesterday was very strong. People liked what was there. Things are running quite smoothly. I haven’t had a chance to walk through the fair and see everything fully installed, because of the press conference this morning, but what we saw during our final inspections yesterday was very good. The response from the collectors today has been very good, people are very happy with the level of quality that we have here, and the collectors are buying apparently, because the galleries are quite happy with the level of sales that we have had here. We even had sunshine on opening day for our champagne brunch on Messeplatz. So far, so great.

What are your ambitions for the fair?

A.S.: Our ambitions have been to be at least as successful as the past years. I have been part of this fair for 6 years now, and I know that it takes a lot to succeed in that way. The ambition is to reach that goal, and we are very pleased to see that the show opened and everyone is happy.

How much can you as directors actually change?

A.S.: I think it is more about highlighting certain things, and more about improvements rather than changing something completely. There is no reason to do that, because all the different sectors have been selected in such a way that they should cover the areas, that they need to cover. One of the things that we did change, was to vary the positions of the art conversations, and to bring it back in, and we are curious to see how it works.

M.S.: One of the ideas we had when we started looking at what we would like to change was that we really wanted to make sure, that we did things right in this transition year, and that we didn’t make any radical changes; it was never a goal of ours, but obviously Annette and I both have our ideas about things we want to try out for the next few years, some of them will be implemented and many of those experiments will succeed.

What kind of ideas do you have for the fair?

M.S.: We never talk about those ideas before we put them into action. We are very Swiss in that way.

You started out as three co-directors, but now you are two. What happened?

A.S.: What happened is that Cay Sophie (Rabinowitz, red.) resigned for personal reasons. And we are spreading responsibility between the two of us, that means that for some of us there are a little bit more work than before. That’s it.

It was at a rather critical time it happened

M.S.: I know from the media’s perspective it looks like a critical time, because it is one month beforehand that the media start to think about Art Basel, but our exhibitors think about Art Basel 6 months beforehand, because that is when they are being selected. So actually at the time that Cay Sophie resigned, the quality of this fair lay in the hands of other teams and of the exhibitors. The fair is like a train at that time, moving forward at full speed and nothing can derail it.

A.S.: The four weeks before a fair are always hectic, regardless, because there are always last minute things, but the major decisions are made much earlier. What is happening is the execution of the ideas that we have invented much earlier.

How is the world economy affecting the art market? Have we seen the peak of the art market?

M.S.: This is not something that we concern ourselves about greatly, because we have limited influence upon the greater market. The best thing we can do is to create a platform for the exhibition and the sale of the high quality art from our galleries. And in general when one looks at what is happening at the art market in recent times - quality sells.

Many of the visitors the first days are collectors. What are your notions about art as investment?

M.S.: I think that the collections that are appreciated the most in value are those who are buying against the directions of where the market is going, so I think someone who has a really good eye and has really good taste and builds good strong connections with the artists will build a collection that has a lot of monetary value. But usually they will not sell it. I think that people who are trying to speculate in art, tend not to be very well received by the galleries that we deal with here. Because these galleries try to build long term careers for their artists by selling them to very stable collections. The galleries here tend to be financially very stable, which means that if they know that an artist’s work is going to raise significantly for two years they will hold it themselves rather than selling to someone who is going to put it into auction after 18 months.

This fair is in many respects one of the world's largest fairs, can it get any bigger?

M.S.: There are larger fairs, both in terms of attendance and in terms of the number of galleries, but most people say that this is the most prestigious fair. Our ambition is obviously to remain the most prestigious fair. In terms of the number of galleries we are basically happy with the size, it is manageable and in any given year there are very few galleries, which are at our level of quality, that is not included in some way.

A.S.: The way this fair is set up for example with the Art Unlimited site in Hall 1 allows the participating galleries to display themselves in additional ways, and by doing that we are giving them an extensive amount of boost and a focus at the individual artists, and that is what makes it a big fair. What we want is always an increase in quality rather than an increase in quantity.