For the Moment | Last Call at Art Basel

This week’s guest blogger is Malcolm McLaren — the legendary punk rock impresario, fashion maverick, performer, producer, philosopher, would-be politician and now, officially, artist. Starting today, McLaren will be reporting for The Moment from Switzerland’s Art Basel fair where he is unveiling “Shallow (1-21),” a series of “Musical Paintings,” as part of a special curated section entitled Art Basel Projects. Read Malcolm McLaren’s previous blog posts here.

BASEL, Switzerland — I am undeniably protective about SHALLOW’S presence today at the fair. As disconnected as I am from the work I have given birth to, as it disappears into someone’s collection, I nevertheless feel enraptured by it and I am struggling hard how to continue. SHALLOW, the work, was the only way I could begin again, as an artist, to go back to where I came from.

As Art Basel winds up, McLaren finds a gem — am “amazing, tiny little book” by Hans Bellmer (for $750,000 at Ubu Gallery).

Art Basel | Vicarious Living And Spending

BASEL, Switzerland — The day after Art Basel opens, everyone who knows anyone goes to brunch at the Schaulager, the Herzog and de Meuron building that houses the surpassing Emanuel Hoffman collection, owned by the Swiss trustee Maya Oeri and her businessman husband Hans Bodenmann.

The Schaulager has to be one of the best buildings in the world, all jutting angles, palatial spaces and soft light. It flatters everything in it and seems bigger than the Great Pyramid. It’s so big I couldn’t tell how many people were at the brunch, but judging from how exclusive all of these invitations are, I’d say about a thousand, though not the same thousand I saw at midnight last night at the Campari Bar.

For the Moment | Nibbles for Malcolm McLaren

This week’s guest blogger is Malcolm McLaren — the legendary punk rock impresario, fashion maverick, performer, producer, philosopher, would-be politician and now, officially, artist. Starting today, McLaren will be reporting for The Moment from Switzerland’s Art Basel fair where he is unveiling “Shallow (1-21),” a series of “Musical Paintings,” as part of a special curated section entitled Art Basel Projects. Read Malcolm McLaren’s previous blog posts here.

BASEL, Switzerland — A triumphant day yesterday. A lot of enthusiasm and serious interest from a major collector. I really hope this happens. It is a turning point.

Art Basel | Celebs on Bratwurst

The art advisor Kim Heirston with the artist Ellsworth Kelly; the Basel collector Ulla Dreyfus-Best.

For years I’ve been hearing about the supermarket-sweepstakes stampede for art that begins the moment Art Basel’s doors open. It always sounded so unseemly. I had to see it. Sure enough, when I arrived at the battleship gray hall minutes before the 11 a.m. start time, there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of VIPs with early-access privileges gearing up for combat, armed with floor plans and bottomless pockets. Carried through the turnstiles on this tide of connoisseurship, I tried to get my bearings by grabbing the elbow of a New York collector. “I’m going this way and then that way,” she said, moving left and pointing to her map. She warned me to be methodical or all would be lost. She was right. Within moments, she was gone from view and I was enveloped by a swarm of Euro moneymen and their molls.

For the Moment | Art Basel Heats Up

This week’s guest blogger is Malcolm McLaren — the legendary punk rock impresario, fashion maverick, performer, producer, philosopher, would-be politician and now, officially, artist. Starting today, McLaren will be reporting for The Moment from Switzerland’s Art Basel fair where he is unveiling “Shallow (1-21),” a series of “Musical Paintings,” as part of a special curated section entitled Art Basel Projects. Read Malcolm McLaren’s previous blog posts here.

I decided after reading The Art Newspaper to lunch at Le Trois Rois with friends from Paris, then head off to the Design Miami Basel fair, almost suffering from heat stroke in the old market hall. There is no air. But it was a joy to see Murray Moss and Franklin Getchell from Moss at their stand. We talked and talked about the jewelry designer Tom Binns, my old buddy. What a brilliant display they made of Tom Binns at their shop on Greene Street.

But no one is here. Everyone is buying art.

Art Basel Unlimited | The All-Day Schmooze

On the schmooze: Swiss collector Maja Hoffmann, artist Ugo Rondinone, film producer Stanley Buchthal, collector Peter Soros, collector Randy Slifka, artist Doug Aitken (on Slifka’s shoulder), New Museum curator Masimilliano Gioni and Gagosian Gallery’s Beijing director Nick Simunovic.

I am no art-fair newbie. I know the players. I know the drill: wear track shoes; pace yourself; be prepared to go long days on wine alone. An art fair is not for the sober, much less the weak. I know this. And yet I was not prepared for either the cacophony or the scale of Art Unlimited, the section of Art Basel 39 that started my day on Monday and never really ended.

For the Moment | Peep Show

This week’s guest blogger is Malcolm McLaren — the legendary punk rock impresario, fashion maverick, performer, producer, philosopher, would-be politician and now, officially, artist. Starting today, McLaren will be reporting for The Moment from Switzerland’s Art Basel fair where he is unveiling “Shallow (1-21),” a series of “Musical Paintings,” as part of a special curated section entitled Art Basel Projects. Read Malcolm McLaren’s previous blog posts here.

BASEL, Switzerland — I join the Artists’ brunch (for artists involved in the curated sections of Art Basel) on the third floor. Long tables are set with red-checked tablecloths and pots of geraniums while a Swiss mountain band on various accordions plays traditional Swiss pop music. Interesting… Food is set on crates of different heights — some so tall that they reach my shoulders. How can anyone short get any food?

For the Moment | Malcolm McLaren

This week’s guest blogger is Malcolm McLaren — the legendary punk rock impresario, fashion maverick, performer, producer, philosopher, would-be politician and now, officially, artist. Starting today, McLaren will be reporting for The Moment from Switzerland’s Art Basel fair where he is unveiling “Shallow (1-21),” a series of “Musical Paintings,” as part of a special curated section entitled Art Basel Projects.

Left the bottom of the world only to arrive in the middle of Europe last night for the Basel Art Fair where I am exhibiting my latest work, “SHALLOW 1-21,” a series of Musical Paintings as part of the new curated section, “Art Basel Projects.” I sped to the Fondation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland for the opening of the Férnand Léger exhibition upon Sam Keller’s (the director of the Beyeler, formerly the director of Art Basel) invitation. Ellsworth Kelly, Rauschenberg and Lichtenstein, all surround and look at Fernand Léger. Such a wonderful space! Such a night! Ominous dark clouds. Thunderstorms expected. Cows in the field outside… unless I was hallucinating — which is possible considering I just got off a flight from Buenos Aires.

The Night Before the Day Before Art Basel 39

Partial view, Barnett Newman/Alberto Giacometti installation in the Beyeler Foundation Picasso Room.

BASEL, Switzerland — As the world’s premier art fair, Art Basel is also the art world’s premier social opportunity. To join the interspecies assortment of art collectors, art dealers and artists who gather here each June to witness the endlessly renewable marriage of art and money is to be swept up in cultural consumption so compulsive it feels something like having sex with everyone you ever wanted to know — exhausting and exhilarating.

There’s glamour in it too. Because it’s so exclusive.