News Intelligence Analysis
From Art Basel daily edition
Latin American Art Goes Global
Record number of works sold at ArtBasel/Miami Beach
Posted 02 December 2005
By Charmaine Picard
Latin American art, which used to be collected mainly by Latin
American buyers, is now reaching a broader audience than ever
before. “US, European and Southeast Asian collectors make-up
50% of the market today,” says Carmen Melián, director
of Latin American Art at Sotheby’s.
This year no fewer than 17 galleries are included at ArtBasel/Miami
Beach, and several of the European and North American stands
are also prominently displaying art from the region. “We
sold four works in the first hour of the fair,” said Cecilia
de Torres whose New York gallery specialises in Modern and Contemporary
Latin American Constructivism. American and Latin American collectors
bought works by Leon Ferrari, Francisco Matto, César Paternosto,
and Magdalena Fernández. “Within the past four to
five years there has been a noticeable change of attitudes, and
a wider range of collectors have begun to look at this work,”
says Torres.
These works are not only being sought by private collectors, but major institutions such as Tate Modern, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Daros Collection in Zurich are investing in Latin American art, and have hired curators to build their holdings in the field.
The art world’s interest in Latin American art has never been greater,” said Julian Zugazagoitia, director of El Museo del Barrio in New York—one of the few museums given an exhibition space at ArtBasel/Miami Beach this year (X4). “Our attendance has more than doubled over the past three years.”
The number of Latin American buyers at the fair is also noticeable: around 300 top collectors from Latin America are here according to Isabela Mora who handles VIP relations for the fair. The Swiss Bank UBS, ABMB’s main sponsor, says it has 900 guests in Miami this year from Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Venezuela.
The growing interest in Latin American art is clearly reflected in the New York auctions held twice a year, at the end of May and the end of November. This year Sotheby’s art sales totalled $28.2 million, the highest annual amount ever for Latin American art. Works by Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo and Roberto Matta have all sold for over $2 million, and in 2000 a work by Frida Kahlo sold for over $5 million, setting the record for a female artist.
While the figurative tradition in Latin American art is well known, collectors have become increasingly interested in geometric abstraction. “There’s a re-evaluation of artists from the 60s and 70s right now, not only in Latin American art, but across the board,” says Melián. Works by Brazilian neo-Concretists Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Clark and Sérgio Camargo, as well as art produced by Venezuelan kinetic artists Carlos Cruz-Diez, Jesús-Rafael Soto and Gego, have become increasingly sought after by collectors looking for good investments and quality work.
On opening day of the fair São Paulo’s Gabinete de Arte Raquel Arnaud sold works by Camargo, Cruz-Diez, Soto, Anna Maria Maiolino and Waltercio Caldas, while Houston’s Sicardi Gallery sold two Sotos and three Gegos.
According to Venezuelan collector and philanthropist, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, who spoke at this morning’s ArtBasel Conversations: “The kind of art that I collect, which is largely abstract, rigorous work, has become more popular among collectors. There is much more interest today in contemporary conceptual art. The market seems to be breaking away from the stereotype of Latin American art as folkloric, Frida Kahlo-like work. ”
While many in the art world have benefited from attention paid to Latin American art as a category, some shy away from the all-encompassing geographical description. Marcia Fortes, director of the Brazilian Galeria Fortes Vilaça, sees contemporary Brazilian art as part of the mainstream art world. According to Fortes, Brazilian art may have seemed exotic 10 or 15 years ago, but today artists like Ernesto Neto and Beatriz Milhazes are no longer included in the Latin American art auctions, but instead are represented in the broader field of contemporary art. “I think that no Latin American artist working today should be categorised by this label which doesn’t describe a shared tendency, but is more a matter of geography,” insists Fortes.
Michael Jenkins of New York’s Sikkema Jenkins & Co. agrees. His gallery sold several works by Venezuelan Arturo Herrera, and Brazilians Janaina Tschäpe and Vik Muniz on the opening day of the fair, to European and American collectors. According to Jenkins: “Being from Latin America doesn’t in any way define these artists or their market. They’re part of the international art world, and their nationality matters very little when selling their work. The international character of today’s art world is captured by ArtBasel/Miami Beach where a Swiss organisation holds an art fair in Miami with participating galleries from all over the world; it’s a reflection of our times.”
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