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Plus: 1-54 fair tests Hong Kong; London auctions reflect uncertain times; Vienna fair gets new director

The high number of visitors and early sales at Wednesday’s VIP opening of the handsome Paris+ par Art Basel (October 20-22) seemed to justify the unrelenting nature of this fair coming straight after Frieze in London. Gallerists feel the pressure — variously describing the back-to-back events as “an enormous challenge” (Thaddaeus Ropac) and “really tough on us” (Andreas Gegner, Sprüth Magers) — but can see the upsides. “Seeing different collectors at each fair is what makes it so worthwhile, and having collectors who come to both is a bonus,” Ropac says.

Early sales seemed faster than in London last week, though in a market that is more muted this year than last amid increasing economic and geopolitical uncertainty. Ropac’s were topped by Robert Rauschenberg’s “Untitled” (1962) for $2mn while Sprüth Magers’ included “The Apparition” (1984), a photograph by Peter Fischli and David Weiss (€65,000), which sold to an Asian collection.

At Pace, “Olive over Red” (1956) by Mark Rothko, priced at $40mn, chimes with the artist’s expansive show that opened at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris this week, but had yet to find a buyer by the end of Wednesday. Sales were strong for Pace’s other artists, including a work by Pam Evelyn that sold to LVMH for $80,000 and work by its new signing, Alicja Kwade, whose 2015 mirror and iron sculpture went for $65,000. The artist also found favour through her other galleries at the fair: Mennour sold Kwade’s new “Matter-Mind” sculpture for about €150,000, while 303 Gallery sold a 2022 wall work comprising more than 2,000 watch hands for €62,000.

Other contemporary art highlights include a yellow Triumph TR6 with two “Bunnies” by Sarah Lucas (“Six Cent Soixante Six, 2023, Sadie Coles HQ, £950,000); aluminium body casts by Lili Reynaud-Dewar at Layr and Clearing (€48,000); embracing wooden skeletons in an armoire by Hugh Hayden at Lisson (“Us”, 2023, $170,000). Clément Delépine, director of Art Basel’s Paris fair, says that there are no plans to alter its timing. “The contexts [of Frieze and Paris+] are so different, and there is room for us both. Ultimately it works,” he says.

The 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, which held its 10th edition in London last week, is testing the waters in Hong Kong. Its new event will highlight about 30 works in Christie’s, an extension of the fair’s “1-54 Presents” pop-up programme, and will coincide with Art Basel Hong Kong (March 28-30). “I would like a fully fledged fair in Asia but am starting carefully,” says 1-54 founder Touria El-Glaoui. She notes that artists including the Ivory Coast-born Aboudia and the Ghanaian Gideon Appah have already proved popular in Asia.

This year’s London event, which closed on October 15, was its biggest so far with 62 exhibitors and an emphasis on textiles and ceramics which was also evident through Frieze and some of the gallery shows that opened in the capital this month. Fair highlights included “Library” (2008) by Alex Burke, incorporating 144 cloth dolls (£26,000 at Loeve&Co), metal works and ink paintings at MCC Gallery by the Somerset House courtyard artist Amine El Gotaibi and, at Afikaris gallery, a glazed ceramic wall hanging by Ozioma Onuzulike — also among the artists chosen by Yinka Shonibare in Stephen Friedman’s new gallery on Cork Street. Onuzulike’s 2021 work at 1-54 sold for €20,000 to a Belgian foundation, confirms Afikaris founder Florian Azzopardi. 

London’s October auction season, timed to coincide with the Frieze fairs, fell flat, with unsold and withdrawn lots reflecting the uncertain time.

Of the works that did sell, some had lost value since their previous outings: a 1974 Cy Twombly work on paper went for within estimate at £190,500 (with fees) at Phillips, having been bought in 2007 for £311,200, while Robert Ryman’s impasto “Gate” (1995), bought for $6.2mn in 2014, sold for the equivalent of $3.1mn at Sotheby’s this time around. Exceptions to the rule included national treasure David Hockney, whose 1978 “Gregory in the Pool (Paper Pool 4)” sold for £529,200 at Christie’s, having been bought for £94,850 in 2004.

There was no such luck for Gerhard Richter’s “Abstraktes Bild” (1986), bought for £677,600 in 2003 and back on the market at Sotheby’s on October 12 with a hefty £16mn-£24mn estimate, a level too high to elicit a bid. Sotheby’s evening total of £37mn (£45.6mn with fees) was below presale expectations and considerably below last year’s equivalent total of £97.1mn (including fees). There were still some high points, particularly among the younger artists, with records made for Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (£3mn with fees for a 2015 work) and Mohammed Sami (£558,500), one of the stars of this season.

Christie’s had the biggest haul this year, though its mixed owner sale on October 13 still came in below estimate at £36.4mn (£44.7mn with fees). Its offering was boosted by an extra 37 works from the scholarly collection of the late mail-order businessman Sam Josefowitz. These were topped by Kees van Dongen’s 1918 painting “La Quiétude”, which sold for £9.1mn (£10.8mn with fees, est £3mn-£5mn). 

The British curator and writer Francesca Gavin will be the new artistic director of the viennacontemporary fair, which held its ninth edition last month. Gavin replaces Boris Ondreička, a Slovakian curator who has run the fair since 2020. 

Gavin, who organised the emerging art section of the fair this year, says: “Vienna has incredible institutions and art schools, active project spaces and more and more galleries. It has the potential to be the next European art hub.” In 2022, Galerie Eva Presenhuber and Gregor Podnar both opened spaces in the city.

Viennacontemporary has shrunk in size in recent years: pre-pandemic it fielded 110 exhibitors, while September’s edition had 62. Gavin says that she expects more galleries next year, in the new venue of Messe Wien, and that some of the fair’s eastern European exhibitors should be back on the roster, despite the upheavals of the war in Ukraine. “This is a fair with a real sense of identity,” Gavin says. She starts her new role in November.

India entered into the top 20 markets of Swiss watch exports that month.

PARIS — The shift to a “normal level of growth” continued for Swiss watch exports in September.

Total exports grew 3.8 percent year-on-year to 2.3 billion Swiss francs, or $2.56 billion, the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry said Thursday. It described the rise as “comparable to August” and coming despite “a particularly negative base effect.”

While the monthly gains were slower since the summer, the first nine months of 2023 saw an 8.6 percent rise in exports versus the same prior-year period.

Global demand was mixed in September, with timepiece sales to the U.S. and China declining 6.4 and 5.5 percent, respectively. Sales to the third-largest market, Hong Kong, jumped 24 percent, as exports to France, Italy and Taiwan saw high double-digit growth.

While other major markets like Japan or the U.K. registered modest growth and others like Singapore contracted slightly, at 2.7 percent, the federation noted “the top 20 markets have all maintained steady growth since the start of the year, except for South Korea.” And all eyes will be on the latest entrant, in the 20th position: India.

With export sales of 20.5 million francs, India remains a modest market for now, but a Deloitte study published in October said the country would climb to a top-10 position within the next decade, generating at an estimated 400 million francs of Swiss watch sales.

Overall, for the third consecutive month, sales of the 500-to-3,000 franc price category, which accounted for around one-fifth of all watch exports, was down 10.4 percent. While the summer months were quiet for the top end of the price range, sales of watches costing more than 3,000 francs rose 8.2 percent, and sales of the entry level range, under 200 francs, grew 4.3 percent in September.

That month, the volume of exported wristwatches declined 2.9 percent, eqivalent to 47,000 fewer units leaving Switzerland, but their value increased 4 percent, pointing to a rise in export prices.

Even the 22.5 percent in value and 11.5 percent leaps in volume of the “other metals” category was not enough to offset the contraction in steel watches, which accounted for more than half of all timepieces sold and were down 7.2 percent in value. The “other materials” category, falling 7.1 percent in units, was a major contributing factor to the decline in number of items exported.

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