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It takes three: Annette Schönholzer, Marc
Spiegler and Cay Sophie Rabinowitz will assume
leadership of Art Basel Miami next year.
Mayor Matti Herrera Bower didn’t
give Samuel Keller a mere key to the city on Wednesday —
she handed him
Miami
Beach’s
highest award, the Medal of Honor. As an added bonus,
Bower proclaimed
Dec. 5,
2007 “Samuel Keller Day.”
Since
2000, Keller has been the director of Art Basel Miami
Beach, one of the largest international fairs of modern
art, which many credit with putting Miami-Dade County on
the global cultural map. He also led the main art fair
in
Basel,
Switzerland.
But all
things must come to an end.
Keller
will be stepping down from the fair’s top post to take
over Foundation Beyeler, a 200-piece museum in
Switzerland with an impressive inventory of modern art.
Assuming Keller’s position for the fairs are not one,
but three new directors with equal power and different
responsibilities: Cay Sophie Rabinowitz will become
artistic director, Annette Schönholzer will be in charge
of organization and finances and Marc Spiegler will be
responsible for strategy and development. Keller will
remain Art Basel’s chair, but will not direct
operations.
So what
will be the future of Art Basel after Keller?
Scope
Miami co-founder Alexis Hubshman feels that the choices
for Keller’s replacements were good ones. “Art Basel hit
its zenith as a business,” he said.
Keller,
though, believes Art Basel will continue to grow. “Every
year people ask me if the show has reached its peak,”
Keller said. “But it’s getting bigger and bigger.”
Following in the footsteps of the great Sam Keller,
Virginia-born Rabinowitz says she and her colleagues are
ready to guide
Basel
into the future.
“Sam
has done a fantastic job — it’s an honor for me,”
Rabinowitz said, as the trio kicked off Art Basel Miami
Beach 2007. “The task itself is huge and I’m looking
forward to the challenge.”
Over
the last decade, Rabinowitz has served as a contributing
editor for Art Papers magazine while producing
and coordinating arts projects across the United States.
She’s also curated almost a dozen shows from
Atlanta
to
Berlin,
served as senior editor at Parkett Publishers in
New York and Zurich and is currently a member of the
graduate faculty at
New
York’s
Parson School of Fine Art.
Spiegler is equally excited about assuming a piece of
the leadership for the mushrooming fair. “I certainly
hope we’ll be able to push it higher,” he said. “With
three directors, we will be able to do more and more
things. [Regarding] the density of artistic content
within the fair and its programming — I think the more
the better.”
Although Spiegler sees the potential for growth under
the trio’s direction, “there’s very little influence we
can have on the number of outside activities, but it’s
great that we have all of these things,” he said.
Spiegler, art journalist extraordinaire, has reported on
the art world for London’s The Art Newspaper,
Berlin’s
Monopol, Art & Auction, ARTnews,
Metropolis and American Demographics.
Spiegler was one of the co-founders of artworldsalon.com,
and has served as a senior editor at
Chicago
magazine and the NewCity Chicago newspaper. He
has also headlined or moderated dozens of arts-related
panel discussions and lectures.
“Marc
Spiegler is brilliant in everything he’s accomplished,”
Hubshman said, adding that Spiegler is not connected to
any other art fair.
He has
also garnered local support.
“Spiegler has known all of the galleries here for a very
long time,” Emmanuel Perrotin, of Miami’s Galerie
Emmanuel Perrotin, said.
Schönholzer also is respected in the art world. “Annette
Schönholzer
is an
amazing producer,” Hubshman said, adding that she will
be adept at “continuing what Keller did.”
Schönholzer’s record of art show management is long and
varied. She has served as show manager for Art Basel
Miami Beach since December of 2002, responsible
for the fair’s budget, design and planning. Prior to
that, Schönholzer, who was born in
New
York but lived in Switzerland since 1972,
served
on the project management team of the Swiss BIOPOLIS
Project.
“I’m
very happy with the change, but for sure, I regret
Samuel leaving,” said Perrotin, a longtime friend of
Keller’s. “The selections were a good choice.”
After
bestowing Keller with honors at Art Basel’s press
conference in her first official act as mayor, Bower
expressed regret that this would be his final show. “I’m
so sorry to be the one to say goodbye to Sam Keller,”
Bower said.
Then
Keller rang in the art mecca he has directed for six
years while simultaneously bidding farewell to what he
called “a new form of an art show combining an art show
and an art market.”
“I
could not be happier with what [Art Basel Miami Beach]
has become,” Keller said. “It was a very exciting and
rewarding experience, and I wish the same for my
successors.”
In
this, his final Basel welcome, he quoted, fittingly,
Village Voice art critic Jerry Saltz: “Art ... is as
much a form of intelligence or knowing as a first kiss,
or a last goodbye.”
Comments? E-mail
angie@miamisunpost.com. |
