Basel and Venice are unattainable for me at the moment. I will admit I have never been to Venice and to Basel just once. It is a lovely small city that can be strolled across in an hour or so and for one week in June becomes the site of a grueling party where business gets done. Remember the last time you went to someones birthday party because you knew you should and you paid too much for your share of dinner even though you didn’t have four cosmos like the woman to your left (who you will never see again because she is SO getting dumped after the holidays). Yeah, thats Basel.
In an art business where I have often pretended to know more /see more than I actually have, my greatest ally is, yeah, you guessed it, the web. I try not to churn too much BS into my art dealing ways, but keeping up with the art world is unreasonably expensive if you want to be there. Still, many events are uniquely available if you cannot be in country. My goal in recent years is to try and see as much as I can and filter out the editorializing until I form an opinion.
Artsy and Artspace give previews from what the galleries want you to see and various online news outlets cover the fair. Instagram is a distillation of the an ala carte art voyeurism I follow dealers, artists and curators. I follow the news outlets instagram feeds (I will make a list of these at the end.) It is NOT the same as being there, but it is better than most anything that came before. Artinfo does Basel here. Hyperallergic, The New York Times and Gallerist weigh in here on Venice.
Some instagramers to follow, but you can always just search #artbasel
Team Gallery http://instagram.com/teamgal
Gavin Brown http://instagram.com/passerbystop
Andrea Rosen http://instagram.com/andrearosengal
Gagosian http://instagram.com/gagosiangallery
Fitz & Co (PR/Marketing) http://instagram.com/fitzandco
Cecilia Alemani (High Line) http://instagram.com/ceciliaalemani
Kathy Grayson (The Hole) http://instagram.com/kathy_grayson
Art in America http://instagram.com/aianews
ArtObserved http://instagram.com/artobserved
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1 year coming up
In the coming weeks Atlas will be having its first anniversary. I am going to visit some of the places that started all of this. I will offer my thoughts on a year of this type of catch as catch can art reporting. We are still a small group but I do plan to slowly expand Atlas. I will make also make a few changes over the summer to the look of Atlas. I am hoping to coerce people to write for and speak with me in the next year. I would like to get the voices of gallerists, curators and artists to you.
