Turkish galleries to attend ‘Solo-Project’ at Art Basel
ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News
Galerie Krinzinger. Showing for the first time in the Art Galleries section are Miguel Abreu Gallery (New York), Chemould Prescott Road (Mumbai), Galerie Mehdi Chouakri (Berlin), Thomas Dane Gallery (London).
Two galleries from Istanbul, C.A.M Gallery and Çağla Cabaoğlu Art Gallery will attend “Solo Project” parallel event of the 43rd Art Basel fair. This year’s Art Basel Fair, which will take place between June 14 and 17, will make its mark on the contemporary art scene with new trends and 2,500 artists.Speaking to the Hürriyet Daily News, the owner of the Çağla Cabaoğlu Art Gallery, Çağla Cabaoğlu, said The Solo Projects allows galleries to attend with one or two artists.
This year Çağla Cabaoğlu Art Gallery will attend Solo Projects with Seydi Murat Koç and Güneş Çınar. The galleries in Solo Projects section were selected by private invitation from the fair director, Paul Kusseneers.
“The Solo Projects part is an important step for those who would like to attend Art Basel,” said Cabaoğlu, noting that it is really hard to attend the Art Basel fair.
“The fair is a well established one, and each year almost all the galleries choose to return to the fair. They never decrease; on the contrary, the [attending] galleries increase.”
Galleries from Istanbul are no less successful than the international ones attending the fair. The most important thing is to support galleries with government incentives in order to increase international circulation, according to Cabaoğlu.
Turkish galleries need support to attend international art fairs, as the insurance fees for artwork during international circulation are very high.
Sevil Binat, on the other hand, the owner of C.A.M Gallery will be attending The Solo Projects section with Murat Germen and Emir Uras. “It is important for us to attend international fairs,” she said. “In Solo Projects section it is possible to experience an intense focus on artists and their works,” she said. Last year the Art Basel fair directors came to the Istanbul Contemporary Fair and they chose galleries from the fair, she said.
In order for Turkish galleries to attend the Art Basel fair, the works of Turkish artists should be sold for very high prices. “But there is not too much,” she said. If the works are not very
pricey, it is hard to break even because the high fees.
43rd Art Basel
Once again this year Art Basel will attract art lovers and art professionals from all over the world. It is possible to discover new artists and rediscover new works from already established artists. This year, more than 300 galleries from 36 countries on 6 continents will show works by over 2,500 artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. According to the fair press release, in 2012 more than 99 percent of last year’s exhibitors reapplied for the Art Galleries section. This year’s strong roster of returning galleries will be enhanced by an international range of new exhibitors. Showing for the first time in the Art Galleries section are Miguel Abreu Gallery (New York), Chemould Prescott Road (Mumbai), Galerie Mehdi Chouakri (Berlin), Thomas Dane Gallery (London), David Kordansky Gallery (Los Angeles), Long March Space (Beijing), maccarone (New York) and ProjecteSD (Barcelona). After a brief hiatus, Eigen+Art (Berlin) and Galerie Susanne Zander (Cologne) rejoin Art Basel’s exhibitors in the Art Galleries section.
Basel as an ‘art market’
As a fair Art Basel means a huge market, but the fair refuses to be only a “market,” which is why it attracts people from all over the world with its parallel events each year.
New trends, new artists and emerging artists are determined at Art Basel. Art Basel Conversations; Art Parcours; Art Unlimited, which displays 62 large-scale art projects; Art Film Programs; Art Statements: Solo shows by emerging artists; Art Feature: 20 gallery-curated projects; and Solo Projects, which has been held for 4 years, are among those parallel events.
Exclusive curation for Art Unlimited sector
Art Unlimited will also offer performance art, wall paintings and installations. This year’s Art Unlimited section will for the first time be curated by Gianni Jetzer, director of the Swiss Institute in New York. The section will feature 62 projects by artists representing a cross section of the leading figures from several generations of today’s international art scene. Many pieces have been created especially for Art Unlimited and are marked both by their ambition and the relative youth of the artists creating them.
Art Unlimited offers artists and galleries a platform for works that surpass the possibilities of the conventional gallery booth, showcasing outsize sculptures, video projections, installations, wall paintings, photographic series and performance art. This year, works by artists including Jeremy Deller, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Hamish Fulton, Gilbert & George, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Tristan Bera, Douglas Gordon, Roni Horn, Anthony McCall, Ryan McGinley, Bruce Nauman, Mike Nelson, Olaf Nicolai, Walid Raad, Ugo Rondinone, and Franz West will be on display.
