The Biennale 2010

Arrival--I don’t think that I will ever get used to the time changes and the unpleasantness of travel these days but having made it across my 8 time zones and checked in at my usual hotel in Paris, I am ready to take on the XXV Biennale des Antiquaires.

The Opening--After spending about 4 hours at the Biennale, with little sleep in the last 36 hours I am sitting at the computer to make some notes on my first impressions.



Just going into the glass enclosure that is the Grand Palais, built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900, is always a thrill; it improves any experience inside. This year the fair is laid out like a star with aisles radiating out from a central circle. For the opening there was a huge round bar for Champagne and other liquid refreshment and continuous hors d’oeuvre were served throughout the evening including all kinds of fish with foie gras for the carnivores. There were many mini refreshment stands as well along one’s route.

As promised there was a surprise in the first booth that one came to on the right. As I entered, the proprietors said, “Welcome to America”. It was a to scale replica of the White House Oval Office. This was the booth of the Kraemer family. Based on the premise that the Oval Office is the most famous single room in the world, they posed the question,-- what if it had been furnished with French 18th century decorative arts. Of course, there was one truly American touch, a small Mark Rothko over the fireplace. I was with my associate Vince Hickman, who had actually been in the Oval Office, and he said this version was much more exciting.

Actually, there have been various attempts to decorate the rooms in the White House with French 18th century. The best known being in the Kennedy Administration when the First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, an avowed Francophile, headed an effort to do so. However, when my wife, Penelope-Hunter Stiebel, was asked during the Clinton Administration to examine all the French decorative arts in the White House collection and report on their authenticity, condition and quality. To her and my surprise, besides the numerous Empire gilt bronze pieces purchased under President Madison, the two best pieces were acquired during the Nixon administration when the First Lady, Pat Nixon, led the effort.



People loved the Kraemers’ Oval Office and many came in just to gawk and see photos of the real thing and what the Kraemers had done in their interpretation. It gave me hope that in the future many more dealers would be inspired to do inventive installations just like in the old days.

Day Two--A day later much refreshed I could go to look through clearer eyes. The Biennale press release had noted this year’s accent on younger dealers. In order for the art world to continue as a vibrant field the new blood is vital. We need new dealers and new collectors and at last they are both definitely present.

French 18th century decorative arts remain a good reason to visit the Biennale but there was a solid showing of the 19th and 20th century. And what was particularly interesting to me was the fact that many of the 18th century dealers are showing a contemporary highlight or two, proving that works of fine quality can live well together no matter the period.



Another draw for the Biennale is the participation of the most important international jewelers. This encourages spouses, who may be as interested in gems as they are in art, to come along. In fact, for the opening the jewelers’ stands were too crowded for me to get near them.

With day three under my belt I realize that there is much more to say about the Biennale and the other fairs and private dealer exhibitions that make this week a big art week in Paris. So I guess I have to end this blog with… to be continued…

Go East Old Man, Go East

For the past dozen years I have spent most of my summers at our home in Santa Fe and always flown East around September 11 (still excellent air fares that day) to get back to New York and or Europe.

I have, however, always wanted to stay in Santa Fe for the month of September. The summer crowd has left, the weather is beautiful and there are many activities after the Fiesta celebrations. But there is always something that I need to do back East so it does not happen. As I say every year at this time, “Maybe next year”.

This year what is luring me away is the 25th Biennale des Antiquaires in Paris. The fair, which will open on September 14 and run from the 15th-22nd, is organized by the Syndicat National des Antiquaires the French art and antiques dealers association. It has around 350 members, mostly from France, but several other nations are represented as well. Although we do not exhibit in the Biennale my firm has been a member of the Syndicat ever since my uncle lived in Paris. He was there from the late 1920’s to the mid 1960’s with a decade’s gap in the 40’s when he lived in New York.

Years ago this fair was one of the most innovative in the world. I remember when a group of 8 Parisian dealers, who often worked together, built a fortress with each dealer showing in his own part of the fort. An English dealer constructed a major mahogany library on his stand, but the most innovative installation that year was a dealer who had borrowed a French 18th century painting from the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. He showed it under a glass bridge that one had to cross over to get into his booth. I would have liked to see the curator’s face when he learned how the dealer planned to protect the painting. Well, it was certainly under glass!

Shortly after that extravaganza the Grand Palais, the beaux arts architectural wonder in the center of Paris that had housed the Biennale, closed for a 10 year renovation. The Biennale moved into an exhibition space in the Carrousel du Louvre, the underground shopping mall next to the great museum. There was no room for innovative installations there and the tradition of design competition among the dealers was lost by the time the show came back to the Grand Palais just a few years ago. Who knows, maybe this year it will be revived.. A friend and colleague of mine who will be exhibiting said that they had a surprise, something special, planned so I am very curious to see what it is.

The September date seems early for a major fair to us in the U.S. where we haven’t yet settled into our fall work routines. Maybe that is why they pick it. But scheduling such events is a very complicated affair, and the exhibitors’ opinion of a desirable date that does not conflict with other arts activities is not the only consideration. One cannot just walk into the Grand Palais and demand a certain time slot. There are commercial, political and museum priorities at this prestigious venue where various sections are used for exhibitions throughout the year.

What will this year’s Biennale be like? The art dealer lives in eternal hope. Will there be something to race his/her motor, and possibly buy, around the next corner? And then will there be a passionate collector who will fall in love with it at the next turn? All in all the Paris Biennale is an excellent reason to venture East.

Georgia On My Mind

In Santa Fe, Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) is front and center much of the time. There is a museum that bears her name here and it is one of the city’s most popular attractions.

Georgia O’Keeffe began coming to New Mexico in 1929 and visited every year until 1949 when she decided to become a resident of the state.










Last week I saw a wonderful exhibition called “Georgia O’Keeffe Abstraction” for the second time. I first saw it in New York at the Whitney Museum and last week at the O’Keeffe here in Santa Fe. Between those two venues it was presented at the Phillips in Washington D.C. From opening to closing the show was on the road for a full year.

The exhibition team was lead by Barbara Haskell, curator at the Whitney and included several other authorities including Barbara Buhler Lynes, the Emily Fisher Landau Director of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center, also an eminent authority in the field.

The exhibition traces the development of O’Keeffe’s interest in abstraction over her long career so that one can see her themes and interests in chronological order. The Whitney version included over 125 paintings, watercolors, drawings and sculptures. It was truly a monumental show befitting a great artist. For me, however, in exhibitions, less is often more, so I found the exhibition here in Santa Fe, where it had contracted by about 25%, more digestible and enjoyable.



















Since I am always interested in what makes people tick, why they go in the directions they choose, I particularly enjoyed O’Keeffe’s quotes on the walls between the works of art.

One of my favorite, from 1922, “Singing has always seemed to me the most perfect means of expression… It is so spontaneous… Since I cannot sing I paint”. That jogged my memory, my father used to say something analogous, “Since I cannot create art, I deal in it”. Ah, but that is for another Missive!

One of her most revelatory quotes is, “ Nothing is less real than realism… Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.” Or maybe even better, “I know I cannot paint a flower. I cannot paint the sun on the desert on a bright summer morning but maybe in terms of paint color I can convey to you my experience of the flower or the experience of the flower or the experience that makes the flower of significance to me at that particular time”


















I was always a fan of Georgia O’Keeffe even when her monographic exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York in the 1970’s was generally panned* But I only fully appreciated her work a decade later when I came to New Mexico and saw the light, the clouds, the mountains as she had.

We all strive to communicate what is most important to us in any way we can. Some are masters of the spoken word, others of the pen or paint brush. For me O’Keefe is among the masters. Using abstraction she evoked the essence of the light and landscape of her (and my) beloved Southwest.

Indians Indians Everywhere !

For three weeks in August there is Indian mania in Santa Fe. It actually starts in Albuquerque with the sales fair at the state Fairgrounds. Here traders (called “dealers” back East) sell not only to some local collectors but they also buy and trade with each other.














This in preparation for the following week when collectors will begin swarming into Santa Fe. At the new Santa Fe Convention Center, the best dealers will offer Indian works from the secondary market . These are just a couple of the events that lead up to the week-end of Indian Market (or Indian Mark-up as it is called by some).

The Santa Fe Indian Market has been in existence since 1922 and today brings some 100,000 visitors from all over the world to a town with a population of around 70,000. The market is estimated to bring in $100 million in revenue to the area. With an accent on the southwest about 1200 Native Americans from all over the United States representing approximately 100 tribes set up in 600 plus booths on the Plaza and the surrounding streets.














Why? Aside from it being a successful commercial enterprise for them, there is intense competition among the Indians. They vie for ribbons, with attendant cash prizes. Those who win the ribbons are extremely proud and show them off. A single piece may have been entered and won ribbons in previous markets in Phoenix, Gallup and elsewhere and with each ribbon the price of the art work seems to increase.

In Santa Fe prizes have individual sponsors and the judging is done by juries of three specialists including Native artists, scholars and sometimes traders with a certain specialty. The yellow, red (second place) and blue (first place) ribbons are given in categories that include painting, jewelry, pottery, and textiles, and, this year for the first time, film . These divisions are broken up into subcategories corresponding to specific techniques and the traditional styles of different peoples, but increasingly important is the designation “contemporary” , which may be as subjective as objective. There is a People’s Choice award and, of course, the coveted and much-publicized “Best in Show”.

The reason that many pieces have seemingly high prices is that the Indians bring their best work. They want to show the other artists how good they are, and they know that their pubic expects it of them. The very best pieces by the best artists command the highest prices and they usually sell quickly. In good times, well-known artists are sold out the first day. The second day, the artists that still have goods left may be amenable to giving a better price. The other side of that coin is that if you want the best that an artist has brought with him, you better buy it right away because it won’t be available for long. Even with unsold works, if the artist is affiliated with a gallery, a piece may appear there after market and you will find the gallery mark-up added to the price.



















One of the additional events introduced this year was a skateboard competition. A long-time popular favorite is the Costume Contest with competitors in categories according to age, starting with 2 to 4 year olds and going on to adults. They show off traditional wear of their own nation with costumes often sewn by a grandmother. Recently a contemporary fashion design category was introduced.

Indian Market is conducted under the auspices of SWAIA (The Southwestern Association for Indian Arts) and many recent innovations are due to the Executive Director, Bruce Bernstein, a scholar and entrepreneur who had previously been director and chief curator of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe. He also served as Assistant Director for Cultural Resources at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C.



















People who come to town just to see what Indian Market frenzy is all about often get caught up in the spirit and become immersed in the subject matter. Here you have the opportunity to speak with the Native Americans themselves about their art and culture. It is an exciting time to learn something about the “foreign” world of Native Americans who were here before us foreigners!

State of the Art / Art of the State

A short while ago my wife and I made an appointment to meet with the Executive Director and Curator of the Capital Art Collection. No, that is not an investment fund! The capitol building of the State of New Mexico has a collection and a serious arts program.

The capitol of New Mexico is Santa Fe and the capitol building is hidden behind trees on the border of the most historic part of town. The circular building with four entrance wings protruding to the North, South, East and West was designed so that from a bird’s eye view it resembles the sun symbol of the Zia tribe.













Their pueblo is located in Northern New Mexico. The Zia symbol was adopted for the state flag when New Mexico achieved statehood in 1912.

The “new capitol”, also known as the Roundhouse, was dedicated in 1966 and required asbestos remediation between 1989 and 1991. There was already a system in place similar to 1% for art and at the time of the necessary renovations the legislature decided to set up the Capitol Art Foundation with a panel of 25 arts experts from around the state including curators, directors and scholars. It was agreed that the foundation could not buy art but could only accept it as a loan or by donation. The money appropriated would go only for the salary of the sole director/curator and pay for installation of the art acquired.

Today the collection numbers over 600 works in all areas including paintings, drawings, sculpture, ceramics, textiles, photographs, prints and mixed media. Aside from judgments of quality, the only prerequisites for donations are that the artists are from New Mexico or work here. The works of art are installed throughout the four floors of the Capitol down every corridor and on every wall.













All the cultures of New Mexico are represented including, Hispanic, Native American and Anglo. The most popular piece in the collection is a monumental mixed media Buffalo Head lent by the artist, Holly Hughes.



















Additionally, two temporary exhibitions are organized every year, (before budget cuts there were four). When we visited we saw “Roots and Vision of the African American Experience in New Mexico” consisting of work by 25 African-American Artists from Albuquerque. The next exhibition which will open in September will be art created by public school students throughout the state. It is ironic in that in the most recent budget cuts, art is being eliminated from the curriculum.

The Executive Director and curator who does all this on her own is Cynthia Sanchez, who was appointed shortly after the Foundation was set up. She has degrees not only in art history but also in painting, sculpture and performance studies. All of them must come in handy in juggling what she has taken on, not to mention the politics of dealing with the legislature.

Interestingly, in the same building, the Governor has his own Governor’s Gallery in his offices. It is a separate entity, with its own curator, who organizes loan shows…. but that is for a later Missive.

The Art Dealer Today

My father defined our trade quite simply, --we try to convince someone who does not want to sell, to sell, and someone who does not want to buy, to buy. That could never be more true than today when everyone with a collection wants to hold on for a better selling climate and those who wish to collect have no expendable cash!

We travel, we look, we schmoose (gab) and we hope. Often we fail in our attempts to bring a buyer and seller together but once in a while we succeed, and that is a day to celebrate. My father and his cousin Rosenberg always celebrated twice. Once when the client said, “I’ll take it” and again when the check actually arrived. That is another thing that is more true than ever today.


















In the old days if a client said they would buy something you could literally bank on it. Unfortunately, that is not as true any more . It used to be a pretty small art world. Everyone knew everyone. My father believed that if anyone collected in our fields they had to visit our gallery, not necessarily buy, but check out what we had.

Klaus Perls the renowned art dealer used to say, “I have never sold anything in my life. Once in a while I have allowed someone to buy something”. From an old fashioned dealer such as myself it makes a lot of sense. We want people to come by our galleries and fall in love with a work of art. Only after that am I there to consummate the acquisition.

Today, the art world is bigger. There are many more art buyers (if not collectors), there are many more art dealers, and the auction houses greatly influence the market.

A good friend and art dealer colleague who studied a different field at Columbia University has said to me that he is jealous of my art history degree. I have countered with how jealous I am of his business degree. Which one is more important? I believe that today, probably, the business degree is more important. As a matter of fact some of the most successful art dealers have MBA’s.

When I was doing my MA at Columbia I asked a professor about continuing on for a Phd. He asked “Why? You can learn more in your gallery in 2 months than here in 2 years”. Now, while this might have been a bit of an exaggeration, on the job training in the art field is possible. Business formulae are much more difficult to master without the discipline of a scholastic setting.

Thank goodness, museum curators are still being trained as art historians. Increasingly, however, the prerequisite for a museum directorship is a degree in business administration, yet museum directors still make the ultimate decisions of what acquisitions will go to the trustees for approval. There are few who are strong in both art and administration. . We have recently lost two such directors, Philippe de Montebello who retired from the Metropolitan Museum, and the late James Wood, named President of the Getty Foundation after retiring as the Director of the Art Institute of Chicago. Happily the Metropolitan picked a new director, Tom Campbell, the old fashioned way, from the curatorial ranks.

From the art dealer, both more scholarship and more business acumen are demanded. I think that the former is a great improvement in our trade. Our clients want to know more about the art that they are buying. We have to be able to supply the latest scholarly information available. The complicated, protracted, deals that have become the norm are alien to the world I grew up in. Yet the art dealer today must be able to handle both.

A Stranger in Hopiland

We got an “emergency” call from our friends living on the Hopi Indian Reservation that the last Katsina dance of the season was taking place in a couple of days. So with hardly any notice we packed up and headed out.

The Hopi Reservation covers about 2,400 square miles in Northern Arizona, an approximate 5 ½ hour drive from Santa Fe. About 7,000 full time inhabitants live in 12 villages which stand on top and at the foot of 3 mesas . One goes up and down a lot of steep hills as one drives and walks around. Coming from New Mexico the quickest route is through Gallup (a true frontier town) into Navajo country.














Though their ancestral lands originally covered far more territory, today Hopi is surrounded by the Navajo Nation which has caused conflict for generations. While the Navajo were a nomadic tribe, the Hopi have lived in their current location for over 1000 years. They have the distinction of being the only Native American tribe not to have been relocated because their land has never been of interest to the white man for farming or mineral development. The road up to Second Mesa was only built in the 1960’s, Life at Hopi remains extremely simple. Many go without indoor plumbing and have to haul their own water.

The Hopi calendar is marked by dances that can be religious or social. What we attended was an important religious event, Niman, the Home Dance. It takes place every year near the end of July and is the last appearance of the Katsinam in the villages before they return to their home in the San Francisco Peaks in Northern Arizona. The dance goes on from sunrise to sunset with short breaks in between when the Katsinam return to the Kivas (underground religious chambers) and refresh.

The term Katsina (or kachina) refers to the masked dancer and to the spirit he impersonates. These spirits are the intermediaries between man and the gods

As visitors we do not sit on the plaza (the square) where the dances take place. First priority goes to the families that retain their ancestral houses on the plaza and their extended families. Most visitors sit and stand on the roof tops surrounding the plaza. No photography is allowed.














It is an arid land and in 20 years of visits we have never experienced rain. But this time bright sunshine alternated with torrential downpours. Many at the dances got soaked but we managed to dodge the rain drops and were inside when the rains came. The Katsinas we were watching are called Susuk’holi on Second Mesa. They are the messengers to the Rain gods!

Our friends Joseph and Janice Day have a trading post on Second Mesa and their clients are not just the tourists who come from all over the world. The Indians come as well to trade for the many supplies that they need for the dances. For instance outside their small shop is a pile of wood, not logs for firewood but rather cottonwood roots from which the carvers create the Katsina dolls. These are given to the children as rewards for good deeds and also to teach them about the Katsinam. Every village has variants of the Katsinam and they can be very difficult to identify, but a Hopi learns early on.

The Hopi and their Katsinam have fascinated Anglo artists and intellectuals from Jung and the Surrealists to the German artist, Horst Antes, who has the most important collection of Katsina dolls today.

A bibliography attempting to cover all that has been written about the Hopi was published in the 1970’s. It is a tome of over 700 pages and it could probably be expanded several fold by now. I, myself, could go on for pages and pages. I plan to return to the land of the Hopi in future missives.