Upwardly Mobile

This article originally appeared in The Art Newspaper‘s Art Basel Miami Beach Daily Edition on December 4th 2014.
It has been taken down from their website since. [Update Nov. 2021: It appears to be back up on the website]

Upwardly Mobile
Visitors find Calders galore, works on a nautical theme and some very lusty paintings at Art Basel in Miami Beach.

One of the largest and most expensive works on show at Art Basel in Miami Beach is Alexander Calder’s mobile Rouge Triomphant, 1959-62, at Helly Nahmad Gallery (B1). The sculpture has leapt in value: now priced at $35m, it sold for $9.7m just two years ago at Christie’s.

Rouge Triomphant on display at Gagosian Gallery in Paris in 2013:

The number of mobiles by Calder and other artists on galleries’ stands is striking. Among the works by the hundreds of artists brought by 267 galleries from 31 countries, mobiles definitely constitute a trend. The fair’s organizers have seen an increase in the number of galleries installing hanging works.

There have been big Calder shows in museums and a growing demand for his work in recent years: Poisson volant (Flying Fish), 1957, sold for a record $25.9m at Christie’s New York in May. At the fair, there are works by the artist at Galería Guillermo de Osma, Madrid (K1), Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York (F4) and Galería Elvira González, Madrid (D13). Rouge Triomphant may stay in South Florida; the work is on reserve for “someone who has a house in the area”, says gallery director Joseph Nahmad.

“It’s incredible to think that, before my grandfather began to make mobiles at the beginning of the last century, the art form did not exist,” says Alexander Rower, the president of the Calder Foundation. Contemporary mobiles on display include Ernesto Neto’s interactive canopy Egg Bed Crystal Shell A, 2014 (priced at $180,000), with Tanya Bonakdar Gallery (E6). Pae White’s intricate, mirrored Noisy Neighbors, 2014 (priced at $100,000), is at Kaufmann Repetto (J7), and Xavier Veilhan’s Mobile (Paris) n°1, 2014 (priced at $58,000), is at Galerie Perrotin (G6).

Not all mobiles refer to Calder, says Eva Presenhuber (L7), who sold Martin Boyce’s A Library of Leaves (We are still and reflective) (2014) for £35,000 (approx. US$46,000 in 2014) within three hours of the fair’s opening. “You cannot avoid thinking of Calder when you see any mobile, but Boyce’s references are more modern design and furniture,” she says.

The above mentioned mobile sculpture A Library of Leaves (We Are Still And Reflective) (2014) by Martin Boyce, which appears to be for sale again for US$60,000 (as of November 2021):

Also see:
Calder at Art Basel Miami Beach – Mobiles Constitute a Trend

2019 Update:
Jeff Koons’s ‘Sacred Heart’ and a Bevy of Alexander Calders Star in 50th Edition of Art Basel Fair, With Early Sales Solid
“It’s impossible not to note how many Alexander Calder sculptures abound at Art Basel this year, most of them top-quality, relatively fresh to the market, and offered above previous market prices.”