BASEL.- VOLTA ushered in record attendance in its second consecutive year at Markthalle in Basel's city centre. Steady rain showers from before VIP previews through the mid-afternoon public vernissage were no match for throngs of quality clientele and cultural purveyors, a fifty-percent increase in attendance. The resounding sales that followed echoed VOLTA11's serious staking of claim as the premiere destination for new, emerging, and relevant art during Art Basel Week.

"After the blizzard on opening day in New York, I’d be lying if I didn’t say we all greeted the morning with a certain grim resolve... but thankfully the reputation of our galleries provided enough of a beacon in the grey weather to guide our visitors to Markthalle," said VOLTA Artistic Director Amanda Coulson. "We are more than pleased with the result — not only a steady flow of collectors but also really impressive sales — proving that our commitment to tightening up the show curatorial, reducing exhibitor numbers, and focussing on our core ideals has reinstated our founding position 11 years ago as a destination Basel fair."

At the front, Krištof Kintera's solo project "Fatality of Banality" with Galerie Ron Mandos (Amsterdam) was buzzing with energy from the get-go, both from the Czech interventional artist's monumental, stuttering kinetic sculpture Nervous Tree (similar to the array that graced his major solo survey I AM NOT YOU at Museum Tinguely during Art Basel Week 2014) and from the constant stream of collectors, including Tinguely Vice-Director Andres Pardey and British filmmaker and installation artist Isaac Julien. Gallery owner Mandos noted that Martin Margulies purchased several of Kintera's works for his Miami collection. Galerie Kornfeld (Berlin) owner Alfred Kornfeld, director Julia Prezewowsky, and curator Quang Bao shared duties to accommodate the early preview crowd for Alexander Kroll's eye-popping abstract paintings, including longtime patrons Susan and Michael Hort from New York. The gallery clocked approximately $30,000 in sales in the first hours. Guido Maus, owner of beta pictoris gallery (Birmingham, AL), held court at the Markthalle's front-east position, welcoming collectors and confabbing across three interlocked — though individually unique — solo-booth mini-surveys with the precision and finesse of Novak Djokovic at the French Open. "So far it's been a good vibe," Maus said, noting the perpetual flow of traffic through the gallery's three sections, representing one-plus year's worth of Leslie Smith III's new shaped-canvas abstract paintings; five years of Taravat Talepasand's multidisciplinary oeuvre, reflecting her dual Iranian and American heritage; and more than a decade's worth of Travis Somerville's charged, political commentary on historic and contemporary race relations in the United States. "These surveys are important for the viewers, to understand the ideas and concerns about the artists and their works," said Maus. "Not just to provoke sales, though this is an art fair, but to allow for curatorial interest as well." Sales ensued, with interest particularly for Somerville's mixed-media compositions, as well as venerable African-American assemblage artist Willie Cole's brand-new shoe sculpture Sorrow. All three booth artists were present during opening day and comfortable on the fair floor. "I've been meeting curators and institutions from all over the world, and that's an opportunity I wouldn't have elsewhere," enthused Talepasand around Dar Bast (Closed Door), the mirror-shaded Mercedes Benz upon which she painted a palimpsest of historic male oppression and subsequent blossoming female rejuvenation and empowerment, executed on-site ahead of the fair opening. "Personally as an artist, I want to know where my work is going — my 'babies' — and I like meeting these people!" Likewise, Smith concurred: "People are here to see what's happening now, and it's nice to see how they respond to it."

Andrei Jecza, director of first-time VOLTA exhibitor JECZA Gallery (Timisoara), received significant attention early on for Genti Korini's luminous, geometric abstractions that reference new architecture in his native Albania. Jecza counted five paintings sold (23,000 EUR approx) to a regular gallery client and otherwise brand-new collectors from Israel, Switzerland, and the United States, with another three paintings on reserve. Across the aisle, new exhibitor ARTCOURT Gallery (Osaka) was very pleased from visitors' reactions to Taiyo Kimura's darkly humorous pop-culture interventions. "We knew there are many fairs going on at the same time," said gallerist Michiko Kiyosawa, "so we went in with measured expectations, but they have been exceeded, easily." Besides multiple sales, including for Kimura's collaged fashion magazine spreads, Kiyosawa noted that viewers were pleased to participate with the artist's interactive works and discover a more pronounced side to his ongoing, subversive practice. Collectors were clamboring for the provocative, evidentally, as longtime exhibitor V1 Gallery's (Copenhagen) "subversive practices" themed booth was constantly bustling. Dealer Jesper Elg clocked sales for two of John Copeland's wetly figurative nude paintings, Cali Thornhill DeWitt's two vinyl-on-corrugated plastic signs (sample text: "If these sexually transmitted diseases could talk") — all to Danish, British, and American collectors — as well as Rose Eken's large array of lifelike ceramics (including a iPhone and cigarette packet) to a major Danish institution. Meanwhile, David Risley Gallery (Copenhagen) moved British bad-boys Jake and Dinos Chapman's chilling diorama The Human Stain (approximately 35,000 Pounds) to a significant Brazilian collector. Around the corner, Patrick Heide (owner/director of his namesake London gallery) and assistant director Clara Andrade Pereira welcomed a wave of interest in their booth, featuring four multidisciplinary artists from the gallery's core program. The gallery sold both of Thomas Müller's monumental India ink and pencil compositions plus 10 small-scale drawings, as well as two paintings and 10 ink and graphite drawings by Károly Keserü.

Concise presentations, including over 20 solo positions, attracted much attention from fair visitors. "We tried a more conventional group booth last year," said Ernst Hilger, owner of longtime VOLTA gallery HilgerBROTKunsthalle (Vienna/Jersey City), "and it was good and all high-quality works, but we thought: this divided booth now" — referring to their VOLTA11 presentation of ASGAR/GABRIEL's painting-assemblages and Julie Monaco's photography — "this is a VOLTA booth." Two of ASGAR/GABRIEL's assemblages went to a major international museum's collection (approximately 46,000 EUR total) and dealer Michael Kaufmann recorded a commision for the duo from a private Toronto client valued at 15,000 EUR. "That's a good first day!" he said. Joanne Holm-Kristensen of first-time exhibitor Galerie Mikael Andersen (Copenhagen) was thrilled with visitor reactions to Berlin-based artist Tom Anholt's intimately-scaled paintings, arranged within a pink and robin's egg blue-walled 'viewing room'. "Normally these small-scale works would drown in a conventional art fair setting," she explained, adding "we sold 11 works in the first hour, and the reception for Tom has been really amazing for us." She and Anholt, who was on hand for much of the day, met collectors from New York and across Europe including, according to Holm-Kristensen, "new people we wouldn't have reached otherwise, even though we participate in other fairs." Returning exhibitor CONRADS (Düsseldorf) made seminal Dutch ZERO artist herman de vries, representing The Netherlands at this year's Venice Biennale, the focal point of their multi-generational booth presentation to much acclaim. "Numerous visitors knew him from Venice," recounted director Helga Weckop-Conrads, "and some said 'hmmm...this looks like in the tradition of herman de vries. Then they were delighted that these are the real deal." She sold a major mixed-media work to a private client and noted a very good response to the booth's younger artists, painter Pius Fox and photography artist Anna Vogel, who holds the distinction as the first master-student of Andreas Gursky. Kurt Beers, of his eponymous London gallery, was thrilled by reactions to Canadian artist Andrew Salgado's solo project 'This is Not the Way to Disneyland', selling 8 of the 10 large-scale oil and collage portrait paintings (priced between 26,000 – 36,000 EUR each) to an international cast, including four works sold unseen. As well, Patrick Mikhail (owner of his namesake Ottawa and Montréal galleries) was aglow within artist Jennifer Lefort's sprayed canvas workspace, selling her large painting One of a Kind (Repeated) to a new Basel client and three mixed-media mylar works to a Zürich collector. "The Swiss are good to us," Mikhail enthused. "We love the Swiss!" Likewise, Tamar Dresdner (of her namesake Tel Aviv space) reflected on visitors' reactions to Batia Shani's booth installation Tissue, an array of hanging, hand-stitched army uniform "dresses" and needlework envelopes arranged salon-style like family photos. "People are interested in the process and the stories behind them," Dresdner explained, commenting on a sale of four embroidered and framed envelopes to a not-for-profit arts foundation based in Lichtenstein whose collection features a section dedicated to social injustices. "Batia uses universal materials that emulate wartime and violence towards women. There are so many details behind each and every piece of work, and people found their own connections to them."

Ethan Cohen New York (New York) returned to their center-aisle location with two capsule presentations, for New York-based Pop archaelogist Greg Haberny, subject of a VOLTA11 x GalleryLOG artist-video interview, and young Ivorian wunderkind Aboudia, both of which were filled with collectors from minute one. "We're doing great!" enthused gallerist Liliana Gao, and owner-director Cohen agreed: "Having all different key collectors coming on opening day was really important — it shows dealers are so committed that collectors know they have to come and take a look." He tracked steady sales for both artists, including Haberny's chaotically beautiful "homage to Rothko" Ash Parallax (along with interest for the other medium-sized compositions) and a full range — from A3- to mural-sized — of Aboudia's neon-tinged crowd scenes. "VOLTA is the template for showcasing emerging contemporary art," added Cohen, "It's why VOLTA is VOLTA. We are at the forefront of art dialogue, and I like that about Basel."

Over at LARMgalleri (Copenhagen), director Lars Rahbek recounted booth artist Jeannette Ehlers' grueling and physically/emotionally intense performance Whip It Good! — where the Danish-Trinidadian artist assaulted a white-painted canvas with a charcoal-soaked bullwhip — that occurred at the front of Markthalle in the early afternoon. "This was very important," Rahbek said. "It was great exposure for her, and I think that's the importance of art: beyond the aesthetic values, that is has a political relevancy." He noted the many conversations with curators, museum directors, and other gallerists that followed her performance. Ehlers agreed: "I've been doing Whip It Good! many places now and each time is different. I've never performed in an environment like the art fair before. It was quite another experience that brought unexpected layers to the project and raised new questions. Like: is this totally going to 'fail' because people here are not at all expecting — and might not want — those kinds of confrontations, and what does it mean to actually bring forward those types of political issues in a marketplace like this." She further reflected, "But at the same time I was so excited to try it out, because I find the clash extremely relevant. I was very thrilled to experience that people actually engaged in the performance... although one could easily get distracted from it, due to all the stuff going on in the building at the same time. But the incredibly loud noise from the whipping that resonated throughout the whole building, helped bring focus to the project and I guess shook up a few people too. It was amazing and I’m so happy that LARMgalleri and VOLTA invited me to do this."

A distinguished coterie of international guests were seen within Markthalle during VOLTA11's preview, including: Susan and Michael Hort (New York); Carole Server and Oliver Frankel (New York); Ole Faarup (Copenhagen); Jean and Tony Harrison(London); Alain Servais (Brussels); Martin Margulies (Miami); Michael and Brigitte Dyreholt (Denmark); Ulrich and Nathan Koestlin (Berlin); Daniel Desmond (New York); Blake Byrne (Los Angeles); Serge Tiroche (Jaffa); Tracey and Phillip Riese (TGR & Associates, Brooklyn, and Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees of El Museo del Barrio, New York); Fred and Nancy Poses (New York); Karen Boyer (Principal, Elements in Play, New York); Karsten Schmitz (Sammlung Federkel, Leipzig); Erlend Høyersten(ARoS Museum of Contemporary Art, Aarhus); Museum Tinguely (Basel); the Van der Broek Collection (The Netherlands); Museum Voorlinden (The Netherlands); Artphilien Foundation (Vaduz); the National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne); and many other notable patrons of the arts.