Art Basel sales show slowdown in tough economic year
Sales are down this year, but loyalty to Art Basel Miami Beach stays firm, a survey reveals.

BY DOUGLAS HANKS, MARTHA BRANNIGAN, DANIEL CHANG AND INA PAIVA CORDLE


The recession sculpted Art Basel Miami Beach into a humbler version of itself this week, with almost half of the galleries reporting drops in sales.

A Miami Herald survey of dozens of exhibitors at the Basel show and surrounding fairs found only 16 percent seeing sales growth, while about a third said sales were flat with two more days to go. Nearly a fifth of the galleries surveyed reported sales down at least 30 percent compared with last year.

''People are more careful in pulling out their checkbook than last year,'' Achim Moeller said as he worked the Basel booth rented by Moeller Fine Art in New York.

To gauge the impact of economic turmoil on the country's largest contemporary arts fair, five Miami Herald reporters surveyed 41 exhibitors participating in the official Basel show at the Miami Beach Convention Center and 45 dealers in nearby satellite fairs.

The survey and interviews confirmed predictions of a downturn for this year's Art Basel week but also reinforced the event's clout in the art industry. About 60 percent of all dealers said they were ''extremely likely'' to return next year, despite declining sales and an ongoing shakeout in the art world.

''On its worst day, Miami is still better than all the other fairs on their best day,'' Los Angeles art dealer Mark Moore said from his booth at the PULSE Miami fair in Wynwood. ``This might be its worst day and it's still not bad.''

Just over 50 percent of those surveyed described smaller crowds this year. With fewer would-be buyers, galleries had less leverage to force quick sales -- ending the frenzied seller's market that defined Art Basel week for most of its seven years in existence.

''There is more negotiating,'' said Serra Pradhan, a director at New York's Richard Gray Gallery, one of more than 250 exhibitors at the Art Basel Miami Beach show. ``At earlier fairs, there was a sense of urgency among buyers.''

At Wynwood's New Art Dealers Alliance fair, Jerome O'Drisceoil offered the same analysis. His Green on Red gallery has shipped art from Dublin to Miami for the past four years, and he thinks 2008 will be the slowest yet for sales. ''Last year, we had a record fair. This year, we're negotiating sales,'' he said. ``People are definitely bargaining.''

Even so, more than 70 percent of all exhibitors in the survey said their art prices were either flat or ''slightly'' down. That finding does not square with anecdotal reports of major discounting among galleries, but some saw a disconnect between weak demand for pricey art and the prices themselves.

Adam Sheffer of the Cheim & Read gallery in New York saw dealers trying to price art at the prior height of the market, while collectors want to buy pieces at foreclosure prices.

''All the sellers think it's 2007,'' Sheffer said from the gallery's Art Basel booth, ``and all the buyers think it's Miami Beach real estate.''

Faced with historic declines in global wealth and an autumn stock market crash, Art Basel week had little chance of continuing past sales growth.

Although the survey turned up pockets of despair -- one Swiss gallery reported zero sales, despite a sellout at last year's Art Basel Miami Beach show -- it also found dealers pleasantly surprised that the decline wasn't so bad.

Brian Rumbolo had a colleague fly down a small nude statue from New York to replace a $75,000 life-sized version that a Miami collector bought and hauled away for a party Friday night.

''This is going better than I expected,'' said Rumbolo, of New York's Carolina Nitsch gallery. In fact, 75 percent of the galleries in the convention center described themselves as ''extremely likely'' to return next year, if invited.

Landau Fine Art, a Montreal gallery, had sold nine of 11 paintings on display by Austrian artist Christoph Kiefhaber, ranging from $18,000 to $35,000 each. Three out of five of the artist's glass and ceramic sculptures on display, priced in the range of $16,500 to $19,500, were snapped up, too.

The gallery's proprietor, Robert Landau, cautioned against putting too much weight on sales pace because serious buyers may wait weeks or months to purchase art they spot at a show. At the high end, he was offering a surrealistic oil painting, Les grces naturelles by René Magritte, for $11.5 million.

''You can't sell all your masterpieces in one show, nor do you want to,'' Landau said. ``It doesn't mean anything if works don't sell right away.''

Results from inside the Basel showroom were slightly weaker than the total survey tally. More than half of the official Basel galleries saw sales decline, with a quarter describing the drop as more than 30 percent.

Anne Cook, art administrator for Capital One, was perusing the Aqua art fair on Day 3 of a five-day acquisitions hunt for the company's new corporate center in Plano, Texas.

''I'm looking for Texas and Louisiana artists because that is the focus of the collection,'' she said. Cook expects headquarters to cut her budget this year but also thinks her money will go farther. ''You can get good deals on good work,'' she said.

Art dealers saw an upside to the thinned-out crowds for Basel week: more time to talk up serious buyers.

''This year, it is more collectors,'' Parisian art dealer Jean de Lassus said from the Gallerie Lelia Mordoch's spot at Miami Beach's Bridge fair. ``Last year, there were more people from the beach and cruises popping in.''

Miami Herald staff writer Jaweed Kaleem contributed to this report.