The 40th edition of Art Basel closed on Sunday, June 14, 2009. Although everybody was expecting gloomy results, the fair demonstrated health and apparently significant sales, (although galleries would never tell you if they hadn't made business). You could feel in the air that everybody was really enthusiastic and a great many artists also attended the event, among them Stefan Balkenhol, Matthew Barney, Elmgreen and Dragset, Thomas Demand, Olafur Eliasson, Liam Gillick, Dan Graham, Subodh Gupta, Joan Jonas, Jeff Koons, Mark Leckey, Sigmar Polke, Ed Ruscha, Nedko Solakov, Not Vital and Franz Erhard Walther. Over 50 museum groups visited Art 40 Basel, as did "major private collectors". Even Brad Pitt, Pharell William, and Karl Lagerfeld were there...
Copyright Gabriele Heidecker, Berlin 
I personnally really enjoyed the fair, which is amazingly professional and well organised. A lot of reasons can explain this feeling: the fact that it's the oldest fair, the most established, that it gathers la crème de la crème (from gallerists, artists, and obviously artworks) and the dedicated and lovely people that work for it.
Starting naming the artworks that I loved would be endless so I'll just flag up David Nahmad's late Joan Miró works and booth that were marvellous. Which artworks did you like?
Design Miami was absolutely amazing too!
Now I am looking forward to Art Basel Miami Beach taking place from 3-6 December 2009 and you will hear from me soon about Il Tempo del Postino, the Van Gogh exhibition at the Kunstmuseum and of course the Beyeler Foundation which, for me, is perfection...
