Art Basel’s new chef is all about the brand

The international art trade, like most global luxury companies, has its dominant brands. One of the largest is the Swiss-based one Art Baselwhich hosts fairs for modern and contemporary art from hundreds of the world’s top dealers, in Hong Kong, Basel, Paris and Miami Beach, during the four seasons of each year.

On Tuesday, the VIP preview of Art Basel’s mothership event opens in Switzerland. Dealers traditionally keep their most desirable pieces aside for Basel, whether they cost thousands or tens of millions. With booths for 284 gallerists from 36 countries in a huge exhibition center with a circular courtyard, plus an adjoining hangar for dealers to offer large works, the format feels reassuringly familiar.

But led by James Murdoch, whose venture capital firm Lupa Systems has been the “anchor” investor in the organizer’s Swiss parent company, MCHsince 2020, and the new director of the fairs, Noah HorowitzArt Basel is quietly adjusting its business model.

“There are some changes and trends,” Horowitz, 43, said in a recent video interview. “We are also open to how the culture changes,” he added.

“People are increasingly driven by experience and people are increasingly driven by brand,” said Horowitz. “They buy from a big auction house, but they also buy from Art Basel galleries because we’re a brand.”

appointment of Horowitz, announced in October, came as a surprise. He replaces the formidable Mark Spiegler, who oversaw the growth of the fair brand for 15 years and was widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the art world. Horowitz returned to Art Basel from Sotheby’s, where he headed the gallery and private dealer services for 13 months; prior to that, he was America Director of Art Basel for six years, for which he was responsible the Miami Beach fair.

“When I left Art Basel two years ago, one of the hard things was not knowing what impact James and his partners would have as stakeholders,” said Horowitz.

Murdoch, 50, discusses his vision for Art Basel in a rare podcast interview earlier this month expressed his admiration for Formula 1’s “traveling circus” business model of Grands Prix around the world that “convene a wider community”. While Murdoch said he wasn’t sure how many major fairs the art market could hold, he added that Art Basel is one of those brands that are “bigger than their business and present an opportunity for growth.”

At a time when the art world is blowing against economic headwinds and many fear a market correction, consolidation rather than expansion seems to be Art Basel’s priority. In January, the MCH group announced that it would no longer hold its position Masterpiece Fair in London at the end of June, citing rising costs and a decline in international exhibitors.

In East Asia, an important growth region for the international art market, MCH has recently made measured investments boutique eventssuch as the SEA Focus and Art SG trade shows in Singapore, as well as Art Week Tokyo. Industry observers viewed these moves as MCH’s hedge against deteriorating trading conditions in Hong Kong, where so many of the West’s leading auction houses and galleries have established branches, and where Art Basel has an exchange. Last year, Art Basel’s main rival, Frisianowned by California-based entertainment group Endeavor, opened a brand exchange in Seoul.

But for now, Hong Kong remains the center of the Asian art market. The latest May edition of Art Basel Hong Kong, the first to be held after China’s long-standing coronavirus restrictions were lifted, attracted 86,000 attendees, just 2,000 fewer than the event’s 2019 attendance.

“That week marked a milestone for Hong Kong’s centrality in the Asian market,” said Horowitz. As for Art Basel’s other investments in East Asia, these have been about “recognizing the size and scale of the Asian market” and “supporting galleries in the ecosystem that sustains them,” he added.

Art Basel’s four own-brand fairs remain its central priority, Horowitz added. No expansion would be possible without these events “thriving and staying top of the class,” he said.

To ensure that, Horowitz oversaw the introduction of a new management structure for Art Basel’s more than 120 full-time employees. Below Horowitz, Vincent de Bellis, a former curator of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, oversees the management of all four fairs, each of which now has its own dedicated director. Maike Cruse, the respected former director of Gallery Weekend Berlinwas appointed to lead the Swiss Stock Exchange.

But beyond the realm of corporate restructuring and the corporate language associated with it, Horowitz, like Murdoch in his podcast and Spiegler before them, has a vision of Art Basel as an experience that is more than just an art fair. Art Basel should use “brand activation” to engage other “cultural classes” such as fashion, film, music and design, and with “audiences on the edge of what we do, potentially creating new realities,” Horowitz said.

But how can Art Basel reach audiences on the periphery of the art world when it charges 67 Swiss Francs, or about $74, for a standard day ticket – about three times the price of admission to the museum of modern art in New York — and not charge ultra-rich VIPs for the preview days?

“We have a duty to bring customers to our galleries,” Horowitz said, and a responsibility to “bring the great collectors and institutions of the world to their feet.”

“That’s the business we’re in,” he added.

For all the talk of art fairs becoming zeitgeist-changing cultural happenings, they ultimately remain high-stakes commercial events. Participating dealers, many of whom operate multiple galleries, pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to exhibit in Art Basel’s traveling fairground circus. “These dealers run big businesses,” said Candace Worth, a New York-based art consultant, who will be in Basel as usual for the Swiss fair’s first VIP day. “They have to sell a lot of art to keep these companies afloat.”