Going to China: Fred Sandback’s yarn sculpture sold for just under $500,000

BASEL. Budi Tek, the Indonesian-Chinese collector, has been shopping at Art Basel this week for an ambitious museum complex he is building in Shanghai. This is due to open in stages over the next decade.

As Art Unlimited opened, Tek purchased the Fred Sandback installation Untitled, (Sculptural Study, Seven-part Right-angled Triangular Construction), 1982/2010, for just under $500,000 from David Zwirner and Verna (U20). Tek told us he was also interested in buying Dan Flavin’s 1972-75 installation nearby (Paula Cooper, U24). “I had a very intuitive reaction to those pieces,” he said.

Tek is one of a growing number of collectors who are putting their art on display in their own museums. From London, Berlin and Moscow to Sydney, New York and Beijing, the very rich are buying art and showing it off in quasi-institutional settings like never before, and influencing the buying patterns of countless others (see p7). Some of these supercollectors are in Basel, including the American publisher Peter Brant, Mexican fruit juice heir Eugenio Lopez of the Jumex Collection, curators for the Tasmanian gambling magnate David Walsh, and Marty Margulies and the Rubells from Miami.

The art these collectors buy often have features in common, all of which are in evidence at the fair. For one thing, they are not usually constrained by considerations of size. “Now is the time for me to have a serious space because I have so many big things that maybe a lot of people can’t imagine,” said Tek. Many of the works at Art Basel would be difficult, if not impossible, to display in the average private home.

Collectors with their own museums often look for art with a strong sensory impact, preferring it to more sober work. Olivier Varenne, a French curator based in London who buys art for Tasmanian collector David Walsh, yesterday bought Two Sisters by the Turner Prize-winning artist Susan Philipsz from the Parisian dealer Natalie Seroussi (2.0/D1), a 2009 sound piece that tells the story of siblings who love the same man, with murderous results.

Many of these spaces are in cities where the public have few opportunities to see contemporary art, so work that is either bold or entertaining is often preferred. Walsh, who opened his museum outside Hobart in January, describes it as a “subversive Disneyland”. As of last week, 200,000 people have visited.

Spheres of influence

“All good exhibitions influence me,” said Tek, singling out the unveiling of Miuccia Prada’s collection at the Ca’ Corner della Regina palace in Venice during the biennale, two weeks ago, as a memorable show. It was the fashion designer’s collection of Italian post-war art that Tek said inspired him to buy the Sandback at Art Unlimited because of its minimalist aesthetic.

Back at Art Basel, the impact of the Prada exhibition, which was widely praised, is rippling through the fair. Massimo Di Carlo of Galleria dello Scudo in Verona (2.0/C5), who is showing works by Manzoni, Burri and Fontana, believes it could lead contemporary art collectors to think historically. “[Prada] displays Manzoni next to Jeff Koons, which is what makes the collection interesting,” he said. Prada is one of the collectors at the very top of the “taste-making” food chain, along with a handful of others such as French billionaire François Pinault.

Works similar to those displayed at the Palazzo Grassi and the Punta della Dogana, Pinault’s Venetian spaces, are on show at the fair. They include Giuseppe Penone’s installation of tea leaves held back by mesh, Respirare L'Ombra (To Breathe the Shadow), 1998, a room-sized version of which is in the Grassi. “When you see grand installations like that, of course, it resonates with people,” said Andrew Richards, the senior director at Marian Goodman (2.0/B17).

Charles Saatchi, who recently opened a well-received show of sculpture in London, may not be the dominant tastemaker he once was, but is still influential. Casey Kaplan (2.1/N16) represents two of the artists in the exhibition, Matthew Brannon and David Thorpe. He said that museums belonging to the likes of Saatchi, Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin and Hans Rasmus Astrup of the Astrup Fearnley in Oslo, build reputations and market confidence.

“I think a lot of people who are contemplating buying art are unsure, and it means something [to be shown in these spaces] because [new collectors] are only hearing what the dealers have to say and the dealers want to push the work [of their artists]. The top private collectors and museums certainly make people feel more assured,” said Caplan.

Others take a different view. Jake Miller, the director of The Approach gallery in London (2.1/P2), whose artists include Brannon and Gary Webb, said: “I think shows like Saatchi’s are one thing in a line of things that are happening. The big public museums are still more important in building reputation: if you have pieces in the collection of the Tate or MoMA, it still has more clout.”