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Erica Gilbert-Levin  

At the Venice Biennale, which opened in early June, Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla's work was on display to be seen and experienced. At Art Basel International, which opened this week, another Allora and Calzadilla work is on display – but this time it comes with a price tag, and a hefty one at that. ("At the Venice Biennale," the WSJ observes, "you look. At Art Basel, you buy.")

Allora and Calzadilla, the young, relatively unknown but up-and-coming collaborative duo from Puerto Rico, have been generating international discussion and controversy with their highly political, in-your-face multimedia art, their techniques ranging from installation and performance art to sculpture and photography.  Their piece at the Art Basel is entitled "Scale of Justice Carried by Shore Foam" and is on sale for $175,000 to $200,000 at the Galerie Chantal Crousel in Paris. The work features a "scale of justice" which "teeters precariously out of balance atop the turbulent crest of a handcrafted sculpture of foam," according to the description provided by Art Unlimited, the Art Basel program that is hosting Allora and Calzadilla's work. "The image of foam by the seashore has come to occupy the public imaginary more prominently in recent years as a result of countless media depictions of man-made catastrophes – from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to the now annual flooding worldwide caused by global warning. With these ecological events cutting across national and territorial borders, the scale of justice has become an object of explicit struggle. Presented here in sculptural form, this ephemeral froth stands as the remains of something that has come to pass, frozen in time, with the final balance of the scale left undetermined." Explains Artnews.org: The work is "organized around the principle of physical and temporal displacement." Artnews adds that the artists are "privileging the aberrant, excessive, and disruptive workings of metaphors and other tropes to destabilize the functional stability of these ordering structures."

At the Venice Biennale, Allora and Calzadilla's six pieces spoke for themselves, raising questions about global economics and politics, international identity, and the military-industrial complex. Without an accompanying price tag, the works communicated in what might be perceived as a context of "purity" (to borrow from the discussion raised by Velthius in his essay "Talking Prices"), as the art's political statements and aesthetic value could be separated, at least in the public mind, from the perception of ulterior (read: economic) motive on the part of the artists. Of course, the absence of a price tag directly attached to the physical works was rather deceptive: At the Venice Biennale, the artists are, in fact, competing for a monetary reward. But the explicit motivation behind the Art Basel is to sell art. The question to ask, then, is whether Allora and Calzadilla's participation in an event that is organized around many of the very principles that their art challenges (economic exploitation, socioeconomic inequality, the capitalist drive behind war...all of which possess at their core an inextricable connection to market incentive and capitalism itself, which, of course, is behind the driving purpose of the Art Basel) undermines the capacity of their art to effectively ask these questions.

Perhaps the artists' participation in this venue points to their courage – they are challenging the underlying values of the very system that has invited them in. Or perhaps their "against-the-grain" art work places Allora and Calzadilla resolutely in the tradition of many in the art world who situate themselves as outsiders, as avant-garde, as alternative or anti-establishment as a means to accumulate sufficient "symbolic power" to succeed financially, in the process we learned about from Bourdieu and Velthius. Whatever the case, it appears that Allora and Calzadilla are succeeding – both in what I believe is their sincere dedication to the principles of social justice that their art work embodies and in the competitive market place for art. It is possible that Allora and Calzadilla believe their messages can have more of an impact and reach wider audiences if they also succeed financially, and they are probably not incorrect in this perception.

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"Scale of Justice Carried by Shore Foam" by Allora and Calzadilla

References:

http://artnews.org/chantalcrousel/?exi=24140&Chantal_Crousel&Allora_Calzadilla

http://www.artnet.com/galleries/Exhibitions.asp?gid=114501&cid=204196

http://dawire.com/2010/09/21/allora-calzadilla-at-chantal-crousel/

http://www.artfixdaily.com/news_feed/2011/06/14/8859-art-basel-extravaganza-begins

http://media.messe.ch/Art/42/PDF/ArtUnlimited_Art_42_Basel_web.pdf

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303657404576363260142777224.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/alloracalzadilla/

Kimberly Ann Phoenix  

Art Basel is one of 23 art fairs the happen in the month of June.  The crowds at the art fairs this year have been large.  According to the Huffington Post in the first day of the show over 300 private jets landing bringing the wealthy and famous to view and buy the art on display. Philip Hoffman, who foundered The Fine Art Fund Group, noted people are looking for other places to invest because of the unstable currency market, low interest rates and high inflation is some places art is getting a closer look (3 Huffingtonpost.com).  Although there is a change in the buyers, many are wealthy Chinese who are buying Asian, Western, and European art, Americans have been absent maybe because of the weak dollar, speculated by Anee-Claudie Coric, director of Galerie Daniel Templon of Paris (3 Hoffingtonpost.com).  According to ArtVista one way for new collectors to recognize a good gallery is to see it they show at the art fairs, the galleries who show at some of the major art fair, Art Basel, Frieze Art Fair, and Armory Show have good reputations in the art world. 
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Will Farrel and artist Christian Marclay   
Theodorah Vischer who is the founding director of Schaulager and the senior curator-at-large at the Foundation Beger has picked a Jeff Koons sculpture as one of her favorite at this year fair.  The sculpture is called "Seal Walrus Trash Cans" with an estimated value of just under 5 million dollars.  Vischer feels this sculpture has attitude and a quite unique that is refreshing this year (Shaw).

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Politics is not far from Art Basel this year, in March when the selection committee had made the final list of 300 galleries to show this year, several Berlin galleries were not on the list.  The Eigan & Art, one of the most recognized, owned by Gerd Harry Lybke was one of those galleriesnot selected to show at the fair.  Gerd said the artists he represents, Neo Rauch, Marin Eder, and Casten Nicolai, will not be at the fair in support of the gallery not making the final list.  He is claiming that the 3 members of the committee from other Berlin galleries do not like him and wanted to keep him out of the show (artinfo.com).   When art info contacted Art Basel for a comment they dismissed this as a clever publicity stunt.   The other big political story this year is Anish Kapoor, he was to donate a sculpture to the National Museum of China he has decided not to in protest of the detention of Ai Weiwei.  Ai has been detained for "economic crimes" against the Chinese government.  Kapoor is taking a stand to bring publicist to Ai situation.   

  Image Removed Anish Kapoor

1.http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Anish%20Kapoor%20rejects%20China%20show%20in%20support%20of%20Ai%20Weiwei/23991

 2.http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Jeff-Koons:-The-pain-of-inflation/24008

 3.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/18/art-basel-sales-suggest-a_n_879588.htm

 ArtVista.com

 Anny Shaw, Art Basel daily edition, 16 June 2011

 http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/36866/they-messed-with-the-wrong-person-rejected-berlin-dealer-feuds-with-art-basel-selection-committee/

 http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/36866/they-messed-with-the-wrong-person-rejected-berlin-dealer-feuds-with-art-basel-selection-committee/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/16/will-ferrell-larry-gagosian-more-notables-at-art-basel-bash-for-christian-marclay.html