Artnews profiles Noah Horowitz just before the Vernissage at ArtBasel Miami Beach. Among other things the profile describes what Horowitz’s role is at the fair. That description actually echoes something ArtBasel’s head, Marc Spiegler said in his presentation at Talking Galleries in Barcelona earlier this year. That is, the fair’s role is not simply to sell booths to galleries but to act like a federation of galleries so that each member of the federation gains from the alliance in visibility, reach and clout.
Here’s Spiegler saying it again in another way:
“For the Art Basel show in Miami Beach, the reapplication rate is always somewhere between 98 and 100 percent,” said Marc Spiegler, the global director of Art Basel and Horowitz’s boss. “So the big challenge for Noah is no longer getting galleries to apply to the show, it’s making sure they’re successful once they’re there. It’s working with galleries on what they bring, and also making sure that the great collectors and museum directors—from everywhere from Tierra del Fuego to Montreal and Vancouver—are connected with the right galleries.”
Noah Horowitz, Art Basel’s Newly Minted Macher, Takes His Talents to South Beach (ARTnews)
