Charlie Scheips

My friend Charlie Scheips, (rhymes with yipes) art historian, archivist and art businessman goes every year to Basel to the big art show over there. The art business, like the entertainment business, the book business, the sports business, runs parallel, into, across and around the social world that we chronicle here in the NYSD. I know little about it except to know that it is fascinating: rich in personality, ambition, vitality and of course creativity. (I think it was Andy Warhol who said "The business of art is business"). I asked Charlie to send us a little "letter" about his trip this year. And so he did.

After the New York art auctions in May, the international art world heads over to Europe for the last of the season before everyone evaporates into their holiday mode. In some years the migration is jam-packed with sojourns to Kassel Germany for Documenta and Venice for the Biennale. But if you buy or sell art, or like people who do, the only place one goes during the second week in June is Switzerland for Art Basel. For 35 years, this has been the most important art fair in the world.

I started off in London at the end of May. For those of us that still enjoy the pleasures of smoking, Europe is a big attraction. Mr. Bloomberg, his health police and their followers should all stay away. As the new pariah, we smokers also get an added benefit while lighting up in Europe. There are virtually no children in restaurants giving one pause (and a deep inhale) to reflect on the halcyon days when New York was a late night sexy (and smoky) adult place. If you hate background music in restaurants, like to smoke, enjoy good food and wine, and appreciate high culture in general, Europe is your place.

Picasso Smoking

One of the world’s most famous smokers is David Hockney. The day I arrived in London, David was just back from Palermo where Yves Saint Laurent had transferred the La Rosa D’Oro award to him. Since 1984, the award has been given to a creative person who in turn nominates the next honoree. After drinks in David’s garden, with David Graves, Ann Upton, John Fitzherbert and jazz accordionist Jean-Pierre Goncalves we grabbed a taxi to Lord Harris’s dinner, which was organized to fight the proposed smoking ban in London. Hockney is now living primarily in England. He first moved to Los Angeles during the early 1960s inspired by the tremendous sense of freedom and space he found there. Now, he fears it seems like “America is closing down while Europe is opening up.”

A big event while I was in London, was the enormous new space on Britannia Street that Larry Gagosian opened with a Cy Twombly exhibition coinciding with the sublime show Cy Twombly: Fifty Years of Works on Paper at the Serpentine, The exhibition was curated by former New Yorker Julie Sylvester, who is now a curator for Contemporary Art at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia where the show first appeared. I went afterwards for dinner at Groucho’s with Brian Angel, Ian Grimshaw and American Kelly Padden now working with Hacklebury’s photography gallery there.

I was disappointed in Cecil Beaton: Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery. Unfortunately, many of photos in the exhibition were outtakes of more famous photos that appeared in Vogue. Why they didn't think to borrow the more well-known shots from Condé Nast rather depend primarily on the Beaton Archive which is owned by Sotheby's in London is a mystery to me. I would have liked to seen Beaton’s drawings as well, It’s too bad that no one thought to do a real retrospective on this Beaton’s centennial year.

Of much more interest to me at the NPG were David Dawson’s insightful photos of Lucien Freud in his studio. Dawson, Freud’s assistant for years, is one of the best photographers of creative life I have seen — to my eye far superior to the late Alexander Liberman who thought he had a monopoly on the genre. Dawkins showed the work upstairs at Acquavella in New York last month during Freud’s exhibition there. They are also published in a book entitled Inside Job: Lucien Freud in the Studio.

I flew into Paris for that last weekend in May. I went straight from the airport to Beato which is one of my favorite places to lunch in Paris. Officially it’s an Italian restaurant but everything comes out with a French twist, the best of both worlds to my taste. Our table of four got into an unexpected political discussion with the table of eight next to us over the American political situation. One of our neighbors turned out to be a republican Senator from Minnesota. I don’t think anyone’s mind was changed but civility was maintained.

After lunch, Frederic Verdure took us on a tour of the spectacular new Fondation Pierre Berge Saint Laurent on the Avenue Marceau. The inaugural show focuses on the influence of artists such as Picasso, Matisse, Braque and Mondrian on Yves Saint Laurent’s work. The upper floors of this former l’hotel particulier and the designer’s atelier house the entire archive of Saint Laurent’s career — all stored in state-of-the-art climate-controlled spaces. This is a dream archive for any creative person. Seeing his work in depth without the insanity the fashion world one realizes that he really is a great artist who used the language of clothes as his medium.

Lunched on Friday with the famed decorator Charles Sevigny at his expansive and comfortable apartment overlooking the Seine on the Quai D'Orsay. Charles first came to Paris during WWII as a soldier. He was on unexpected leave after his entire platoon was captured while he was recuperating in hospital from pneumonia. After the war, Charles went to Parsons’ Paris school during the tenure of Van Day Truex. He won the Lady Mendl scholarship and after his year was complete Truex encouraged him to stay in Europe. He began his career working for the U.S. State Department decorating the official ambassadorial residences Paris, Madrid, Moscow, Brussels, and London. He claims to be retired now but even after lunch he was to meet a former client for a “consultation.”’

On Saturday, went for a drink at Pierre Barillet’s apartment on the rue de la Chaise. Pierre co-wrote the plays Cactus Flower and 40 Carats which were later turned into movies directed by his good friend George Cukor. Afterwards, went to dinner at Jimmy Douglas and Rod Coupe’s on the rue du Bac. Jimmy and Rod seem to have known everybody, at least of a certain set, during the past half century. Their friend decorator Georges Geoffrois helped them decorate the place years ago. We had Jimmy’s gazpacho, Moroccan chicken and delicious blueberries with brown sugar — an unbelievably good combination.

On Sunday night had dinner at Brasserie Lipp with New York Times Magazine design editor Pilar Viladas and photographer Jason Schmidt who had just arrived from shooting Jacques Grange’s house in the Loire. We were joined by curator Thomas Gunther — an American from Maryland who has been living in Paris for more than 20 years. Thomas curates exhibitions of photography, teaches at Sciences-Po — the elite French political science school, and works with the estates of a number of photographers including Henry Clarke and André Ostier.

The gate at La Forest

On June 1, I left Paris for a holiday in the Vaucluse outside L’Isle sur la Sorgue, guest of American Vogue’s legendary Paris Bureau Chief Susan Train (working in Paris for Vogue for over 50 years). On the way we stopped for delicious lunch at former House & Garden editor Jacqueline and Yves Gonnet’s house near Lyon. Yves is from the area and actually worked the very land he now owns while a teenager during WWII.

The house I stayed at with Susan is called La Forest. This was my third year there and each year we do the same things — shop, cook, eat, and sleep. Everything is about the next meal. Of course the arrival each morning of the International Herald Tribune is a highlight, with lots of conversation about the state of the world and America’s involvement.

The house guests included Bettina McNulty, who worked for Vogue and House & Garden in the good old days, as well as Marie José LePicard, also a Vogue alum but more recently until her recent retirement the cultural reporter for French television, Parisian Americans Susan and Freddie Bondi, former Ford model (during the 50s) and now journalist Nina de Voogd, Condé Nast archivist Thomas Graf as well as the most famous dog in Paris — Susan’s dachshund Gogo.

They cooked a celebratory meal in Lesley Branch's honor which included her famous Pilaf de Shah

Bettina was a great friend of photographer Lee Miller and always has a good story to tell about their adventures together. Another good friend of hers was James Beard with whom she frequently traveled and dined with including at Hiely Lucullus in Avignon where we all had a delicious lunch one day during our stay. During my visit to La Forest, the much under known and fabulous writer Lesley Blanch turned 100 at her place in Menton near Nice. We cooked a celebratory meal in her honor one night which included her famous Pilaf de Shah.

With a couple days to spare before Basel, I decided to take the Route Napoleon through the Alps staying at Aix les Baines the first night and then driving on to Münich for my friend architect Uli Tredup’s 40th birthday dinner. The dinner was organized by Tredup’s partner Arthur Duncan known in the art world as the premier organizer of spectacular tours through his company Arthur Duncan Journey.

The dinner was a cross-section of Munich’s fashion, film, music, design and art set. Guests included Baron Marc von Schmarsow, Patrick Ferrier, Gregory Blatt, Cordula von Keller, Dr. Bernhart Schwenk, contemporary curator of the Pinakothek der Moderne, fashion design team Adrian Runhof & Johnny Talbot, Stefannie Fresie, Caroline von Saurma, EMI-Virgin Germany’s Ama Walton, very pregnant with and her partner, the rock star Roland Appel; Hugo Boss’s Philipp Wolff, Martin Freimoser, architect Veit Rausch; Münich gallerist Andreas Grimm, Petra and Jeremy McAlpine, model agent Harry Denker, Celina Stromeyer, Tatjana Sprick, Markus Zimmer, Chris Glass, Uli’s design partner Bettina Hamann, Gerhard Schiller & Nick Larret, and Matthias Erler. I went to bed at three — I was told the party lasted until five in the morning!

We finally arrived in Basel Tuesday afternoon, stopping at the café L’Escale just up the street from the convention center called the Messe where Art Basel takes place.

Monica Bonvicini. Don’t miss a sec, 2003. Courtesy Galleria Emi Fontana, Milan.

One of the highlights each year is the adjunct Art Unlimited which featured 69 different single artist installations this year including yet another inspiring Richard Serra sculpture and an amusing Robert Thierrien triple-scale table and chair sculpture that puts the viewer at the vantage point of a toddler. On the plaza between the Messe and L’Escale there are also several sculptures. One of the amusing ones this year was a mirror cube that contains a functioning toilet that allows the sitter to see out but no one (supposedly) to look in. I am sure it was by created artist but I am not sure of its art.

One of the problems with Basel is that the days always ends up with big groups hungry for a meal and if you don’t plan ahead you can get a bit desperate for a table. We managed to find a table of eight at an Italian restaurant called Roma a few blocks away and then headed for to the garden behind the Kunstmuseum where everyone gravitates in the late evening.

Art Basel had more than 52,000 people visit during the seven days of the Fair. More than 270 dealers participated, but that number is deceiving because hundreds of other dealers are visitors but very actively engaged in the business of art. Since 1994, the fair’s major sponsor has been the international financial institution UBS. I used to think the VIP pass I get each year was the special one, but this year I learned the pass to have was the UBS VIP issued to clients of the bank. They even have there own special lounge at the top of the fair. I get my pass thanks to Sara Fitzmaurice and her talented staff of Fitz & Co in New York that handles the US PR for both Art Basel and the two-year-old sister fair Art Basel/Miami Beach.

Rodney Graham.  A Reverie Interrupted by the Police, 2003.  35mm color film transferred to DVD, 7min 59sec, projected on continuous loop, dimensions variable.

Basel is so successful from a financial point of view that by the second day many dealers were already busy re-hanging their entire booths. I ran into Jeff Poe of Los Angeles’s leading gallery Blum & Poe. The gallery had four artists in the Whitney Biennial this past year — Sharon Lockhart, Sam Duran, Dave Mueller and Slater Bradley.

Blum & Poe Partner Tim Blum started his career in Tokyo during the late 1980s becoming fluent in Japanese along the way When he returned to LA in the mid 90s he had brought with him a host of interesting Japanese artists including Takashi Murakami and Yoshitomo Nara — today two of the most collected contemporary artists. This was their fourth time in Basel, and as in previous years they had sold out their booth within the first couple days of the opening. Designer Marc Jacobs, who tapped Murakami to re-invent the Vuitton logo for last year’s handbag of choice, was there traveling around the fair with Johnnie Reinhold.

One of the big meeting places during Art Basel is the Kunsthalle next to the Kunstmuseum. Roman art dealer Cordula von Keller organized a lovely dinner for 12 on Wednesday night that included collectors Sylvie Winkler, Sabina Dumont-Schütte and her sister; Philip Risso, Ralph Loeffler, curator of the new Kunstmuseum in Lichtenstein, Friedemann Malsch, Arthur Duncan and art dealer Martine d'Anglejan-Chatillon of Thomas Dane Ltd. in London. The restaurant was packed with similar tables — I went over to say hello to one table that included Warhol Foundation President Joel Wachs, MOCA curator Ann Goldstein and art dealer Michael Cohen. On the way back ran into New York architect Ted Porter in Basel art shopping for a client. Bulgari, another major sponsor of the fair, also hosted a big dinner that night.

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