
This discussion of Art Basel’s future prospects as a market force is available to AMMpro subscribers. Subscribers get the first month free on monthly subscriptions. Feel free to cancel at any time before the month is up. Sign up for AMMpro here.
Marc Spiegler, the director of Art Basel, did one of his regular pre-fair interviews with Art Media Agency discussing his decade at the fair, the changes he’s seen and the challenges facing the fair in the future. The interview flags some of the key features of Art Basel’s phenomenal growth and unrivaled presence.
The combination of Art Basel’s apotheosis as the one of the most recognized brands in art—it rivals the two tenured auction houses for public mindshare—with the sea change in the way retail is conducted around the world is both a tremendous opportunity for the art fair and an enormous challenge to become something more than what it has been, a producer of trade fairs.
There is no question that Spiegler knows this. He’s a trenchant observer of trends in modern economic life, the social customs and tribal habits of the world’s wealthiest persons and the day-to-day pressures of running a small business, which is what most galleries are.
In the AMA interview, he synopsizes the fast pace of change in the primary and secondary art markets:Continue Reading