Along the golden coasts of Florida, edged by the crystal clear waters of Miami Beach, the thirteenth edition of Art Basel Miami opened its doors to the general public from the 4th until the 7th of December 2014.

Nine different sectors focused on a variety of dimensions of Modern and Contemporary Art: Nova, Positions, Edition, Conversations, Kabinett, Public, Survey, Film and Magazine. Returning galleries such as The Approach, Galeria Raquel Arnaud, Maccarone, Giò Marconi Gallery and ShanghART were joined by new galleries, especially from Latin America: Central Galeria de Arte, SlyZmud and Clifton Benevento.
267 national and international galleries from 31 different countries worldwide participated in this unique event with ground-breaking projects. Attendance reached around 73.000 visitors, similar to that in 2013. The highlight of the 2014 edition was Survey, a new sector of the fair inaugurated this year in which thirteen art-historical projects were exhibited including the work of Feminist video maker artist Valie Export, French artist Gina Pane with her homage to Suprematist painter Malevich, and Andrei Monastyrski, a key figure in post-soviet conceptual art. Survey displayed solo exhibitions by individual artists as well as juxtapositions and thematic exhibitions from artists representing a range of cultures, generations, and artistic approaches.

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It has been estimated by AXA Art Insurance Corporation that the overall price of the artworks combined was of about 3 billion dollars: a part of this astonishing value was represented by the massive sculpture Rouge Triomphant by artist Alexander Calder at the gallery Helly Nahmad worth 35 million dollars which, according to the Wall Street Journal, was reserved by an unknown collector.
Before Art Basel, Miami was hardly a dream place for the art world however, after the opening of the Fair in 2002, there has been a vertiginous rise in tourism, plane tickets, hotels and of course collectors and dealers that visit sunny Miami during the first week of December. Not only art professionals attend this extraordinary event; also celebrities make their way to see Art Basel Miami, this year in particular actors Leonardo Di Caprio, Tobey Maguire and rapper Sean Combs were spotted strolling through the stands.

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Collectors from all over the globe jump right in to pick the best hit: New York gallery Ameringer McEnery Yohe immediately sold Markus Linnenbrink ’s Arms of Mine (Blue Melody), a 45,000 $ pockmarked wall work and the David Zwirner gallery sold paintings by Oscar Murillo and Jordan Wolfson as soon as the fair opened. The Murillo sold for 180,000 $, and the Wolfson for 90,000 $. Leonardo Di Caprio bought a painting by Frank Stella from the Marianne Boesky gallery however the price has not been revealed.
According to art dealers one type of art work that was largely appreciated by collectors where lamps and chandeliers; for example Pae White ’s geometric sculptures decorated with light bulbs and Martin Kippenberger ’s resin lamp Kippenblinky, which gallerist Klaus Webelholz sold for $175,000. Also dealer Anthony Meier sold two of Brooklyn artist Michael DeLucia’s carved images of three lamps into sheets of ordinary laminate for $15,000 each.
Apparently many collectors came from Russia, Asia and South America unlike the past in which most of them where from North America or Europe.
This is a mere snapshot of the event that took place last week in sunny Miami; once again Art Basel has demonstrated its impact in the art world where everybody now eagerly awaits the third edition of Art Basel Hong Kong in March 2015.

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