Sensation! British movers and shakers are losing their grip on international art

By Louise Jury, Arts Correspondent
Thursday, 28 October 2004

They are the most powerful players in the multimillion-pound world of art, organising exhibitions that attract thousands or selling works that make headline news - and many, including Charles Saatchi, are based in Britain.

They are the most powerful players in the multimillion-pound world of art, organising exhibitions that attract thousands or selling works that make headline news - and many, including Charles Saatchi, are based in Britain.

But today, in the third annual list of the men and women who matter published by an art magazine, Britain appeared to be losing its grip with the millionaire collector Mr Saatchi falling from sixth to 17th place, having held the top spot in 2002.

Other British names, including the Turner Prize-winning artist Damien Hirst and gallery owners Jay Jopling, Victoria Miro, Maureen Paley and Sadie Coles, have all fallen in the rankings chosen by international critics and academics. Nicholas Serota, the director of the Tate galleries, claimed a place in the top 10 and there are some British "newcomers".

Anish Kapoor, another Turner Prize winner who stunned Americans this year with a giant new work, Cloud Gate, in Chicago, makes his first entry at number 73. Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover, founders of the Frieze art fair, which brought thousands of art-lovers and international dealers to London this month, leap in at 32.

This list, also known as the Power 100, in Art Magazine shows America retaining its dominance as the powerhouse of the art market, by virtue of the immense wealth of its collectors. But the list also suggests that as countries such as China stand up to be counted, Britain appears to be losing its influence.

Mr Saatchi topped the rankings when they were launched three years ago but is now replaced by the controversial American dealer Larry Gagosian, who made a major impact in London this year with a spectacular new gallery at King's Cross.

More controversially, Jack Vettriano, the self-taught Scottish artist shunned by major galleries but adored by the public, squeezes in at 100. But there is no space for Tracey Emin or curators such as Norman Rosenthal at the Royal Academy.

Rebecca Wilson, the Art Review's editor, said that Americans remained dominant, but the seats of influence were shifting. "There are countries that are entering the list in a bigger way than before. China is much more prominent than in the past, as is Germany."

The list was not an indicator of artists or dealers in long-term decline, she said, simply a pointer to what had been most exciting in the past year.

Mr Serota maintained third place by virtue of several excellent exhibitions, including Brancusi and Hopper, and initiatives such as encouraging leading artists to donate works. The Scandinavian-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson makes 29th place on the back of his giant sun installation that thrilled Tate Modern visitors last year.

By contrast, Mr Saatchi has proved less successful with his new gallery on the South Bank, which opened with the much criticised exhibition, New Blood. Yet he should not be written off. "He's still the highest ranked British collector. He's still buying and apparently buying more interesting work," said Ms Wilson. Artists on the list tend to be those with financial as well as artistic clout. Money alone will not suffice. Hirst's ranking has gone down because of the poor critical reaction to his collaboration with the photographer David Bailey, she said. But it gets Vettriano on to the list.

"He's not had a major museum show but his past painting sold for £800,000 and he gets £500,000 royalties from images on postcards. He's the highest-selling Scottish artist," she said.

Zaha Hadid and Will Alsop, architects, get a mention. Hadid, who was born in Baghdad but is based in London, moves up a place to 20 after winning the prestigious Pritzker Prize for the Rosenthal Centre for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati. Alsop is a new entrant at 96 for designing several galleries.

Other British entrants are: Nicholas Logsdail, owner of the Lisson Gallery, whose artists include Sol LeWitt, Kapoor and Santiago Sierra, up from 77 to 26; Richard Green, Britain's top dealer by sales with a £95m turnover; Toby Webster, director of The Modern Institute in Glasgow; and Harry Blain and Graham Southern, owners of the Haunch of Venison gallery in London. Hotly tipped for inclusion next year are a younger generation. Among them are Jens Hoffmann, the new curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, and the dealer-curator duo of David Risley and Soraya Rodriguez, whose Zoo Art Fair this month was dedicated to London galleries under three years old.

New York may have the collectors and the big money which makes the whole dizzying art world go round. But London retains a buzz.

THE 10 MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE IN WORLD ART

1 Larry Gagosian (Position last year: 4) Known as "GoGo", Gagosian built up major businesses in Los Angeles and New York before moving into London. Now owns the biggest private gallery in the capital.

2 Glenn D Lowry (14)The director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York for the past decade, has directed $850m expansion plans that will see the opening of new headquarters in Manhattan.

3 Nicholas Serota (3) The director of the Tate galleries is sometimes criticised for keeping a tight rein on his empire, but few doubt his dynamic influence.

4Maurizio Cattelan (24) The Italian artist captured British attention when he hung a stuffed horse from the ceiling of Tate Britain - it later sold at auction for $2.1m. Known for his love of controversy.

5Samuel Keller (15) The director of the Art Basel fair since 2000, and the driving force behind its offshoot, Art Basel Miami Beach. Known for his marketing innovation and stylish venues.

6 Dakis Joannou (10) The Greek industrialist and collector made himself the most imposing Mediterranean figure in the arts when he opened the Deste Foundation in 1983.

7William Ruprecht (new) Took over as chief executive officer of Sotheby's auctioneers after Diana Brooks departed in 2000 over the price-fixing scandal. Has since presided over a substantial improvement in the company's position.

8Ronald Lauder (1) The cosmetics millionaire has been a major fundraiser for the new headquarters of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he is the chairman.

9Robert Storr (new) Highly regarded curator at the Museum of Modern Art, moved on to the Institute of Fine Arts, New York.

10Takashi Murakami (7): One of the Japanese artist's major works will feature in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.

From pickled sharks to the world of business: the expansion of an artist's empire

By Jonathan Brown and Tim Walker
Wednesday, 20 October 2004

Damien Hirst's soaring reputation as an artist has been matched only by the rapid growth in his personal wealth.

Damien Hirst's soaring reputation as an artist has been matched only by the rapid growth in his personal wealth.

Even before Monday night, when with characteristic alchemy he converted the contents of his failed restaurant Pharmacy into a personal payday of £9.6m, he was worth more than £35m.

Prices paid for his works are riding high. According to artprice.com, which provides information to the fine art world, £100 invested in a Damien Hirst in 1997, before Pharmacy even opened its doors, would now be worth £389. This is a return of about 30 times greater than the same amount invested in the FTSE 100 over the same period.

Last year, at his first exhibition since 1995, Romance in the Age of Uncertainty held at the White Cube, Hirst made £11m, making him Britain's most successful conceptual artist. He used most of the money to buy back 12 pieces from his former mentor Charles Saatchi, including his pickled shark, sheep and cows.

The deal was brokered by Jay Jopling of the White Cube. Hirst and Saatchi fell out after riding the Britart wave together from the early 1990s. The advertising tycoon saw a phenomenal return on his investment in the emerging artist.

The top price in the 2003 sale was achieved by Charity , a 22ft bronze replica of the Spastics Society collecting doll from the 1960s. Hirst made three of the statues, one of which was sold to Kim Chang II, a businessman who displayed it at his Seoul department store. Another was damaged in the fire that swept through the Momart warehouses in east London earlier this year, destroying 17 of Hirst's works. The artist received a seven figure cheque from his insurers for the disaster.

Major works are commanding major prices. This week his medicine cabinet The Fragile Truth , sold for £1.2m when the auctioneer's commission was added. A second, The Sleep of Reason , sold for slightly more than £1m.

Hirst's industrial-level of production is down to the closely managed studio system he has built. He employs a staff of 30 mainly at his company Science Ltd which he runs from his rented office, an imposing Victorian house in Gower Street, central London. The cost of employing such a staff can be met with "two paintings a year", he says.

This summer he applied to expand his studios in Gloucestershire where most of his pieces are created. Stroud District Council is considering whether to approve the plans.

His business ambitions are far ranging. He is listed as a director of nine companies including Science Ltd, whose stated endeavour is recorded at Companies House as artistic and literary creation. Then there is Turtleneck Ltd, an art media company, Other Criteria Ltd, a general commercial company, Windows on the World Ltd, a computer company, Murderme Ltd and Overthesofa.com Ltd, which operate arts facilities, and the most recent - Under The Sofa.com Ltd and Under The Sofa Ltd which again specialise in artistic and literary creation. All are registered to a building in Charing Cross Road, central London, the home of Hirst's accountants. A ninth, Is Good Limited, is described merely as a general commercial enterprise.

Hirst is also a former director of 11 The Quay in the unfashionable North Devon town of Ilfracombe where he financed the restoration of the harbourside Victorian inn that houses it.

Hirst lives with his wife in Combe Martin, north Devon. He also has a house boat in Chelsea. He recently added four properties to his portfolio in Lambeth, south London, which are likely to provide studio space and recording facilities.

He is building a house by the coast in Mexico, described as resembling Cinderella's castle, which he plans to rent out as a holiday destination.

Hirst's next major exhibition will be in the United States with an exhibition of his paintings at the New York Gallery in March 2005.

Turner Prize winner charts his insecurities in pottery

By Arifa Akbar
Friday, 15 October 2004

Grayson Perry's first exhibition since winning the Turner Prize picks up where he left off when he collected the accolade dressed as his female alter ego, Claire.

Grayson Perry's first exhibition since winning the Turner Prize picks up where he left off when he collected the accolade dressed as his female alter ego, Claire.

Making an acceptance speech in a satin dress and patent red shoes last year, he wryly commented: "It's about time a transvestite won the Turner Prize."

That quote is emblazoned inside a speech bubble on one of Perry's signature ceramic pots, and features among his new work at the Victoria Miro Gallery in London, which opened yesterday and runs until 13 November. In another artistic reference to the night, a glazed pot, entitled A Network of Cracks, recreates the seating plan of the awards ceremony.

Perry's exploration of modern-day masculinity is a dominant theme in the exhibition, which consists of 14 ornate pots, a textile work and large-scale maps on paper. "It's an interesting time to be a man. I think the traditional role of the 'utility man' has been pushed out and we have not found a good way to replace him. Everything is so up in the air for men at the moment and we are fishing around for role models. I seek to capture some of that in my work," he said.

An ornate work,Precious Boys, depicting the sartorial elegance of a group of transvestites, represents the "psychological lack" experienced by boys which leads them to "dress up" later in life.

He said: "It's looking at the reasons men dress up, and whether they know it or not, it is about not being able to access the feelings of being 'precious' as boys. Boys do not often get that experience of 'being precious' just for being children. Transvestism is partly a manifestation of that psychological lack."

Another pottery work,Black Dog, refers to Winston Churchill's famous aphorism for depression, and captures silhouetted images which represent the artist's insecurities, including an image of a terrified boy wearing a Victorian smock. "The silhouettes represent the inner voices that tell you that you are rubbish. We all carry them with us," he said.

Perry, 44, said he chose pottery as a medium because it was humble and "not macho". Sir Nicholas Serota is featured as the Pope and the art collector Charles Saatchi is emperor, with London's art galleries transformed into cathedrals on a medieval, Mappa Mundi-style pot, Balloon, which makes a metaphor of contemporary art as the 21st century's religion.

A large etching,Map of an Englishman, depicts, Perry said, the "landscape of my beliefs" in the style of a 16th-century Dutch map - the corners are labelled Anorexia Nervosa, Sex, Peace, Love and Tender.

Saatchi says goodbye to Hymn . . . . . and hello to her

From The Times

October 2, 2004

By Jack Malvern, Arts Reporter THE unmade bed has been laid to rest, the shark has swum, and Hymn isn’t singing anymore. Charles Saatchi, the millionaire collector whose manipulation of the art market in the 1990s made the reputations and fortunes of the Young British Artists has dumped his most famous installations in favour of paintings.

Mr Saatchi has announced that he will clear his gallery of Tracey Emin’s My Bed and Damien Hirst’s shark in formaldehyde for a new exhibition of highly-regarded painters. Hirst’s 20ft bronze reproduction of an anatomical model, Hymn, will also be dismantled.

Works that were initially shocking when they were unveiled for Sensation, Saatchi’s 1997 show at the Royal Academy, will be sent on tour next year and then will be mothballed until 2007, when they will return to the Saatchi Gallery on the South Bank.

The Art Newspaper reported that Young British Artists, who are now approaching middle age, would be replaced by internationally renowned artists including Martin Kippenberger, Peter Doig, Marlene Dumas, Luc Tuymans, Jorg Immendorff and Hermann Nitsch. Luc Tuymans, one of Belgium’s most celebrated contemporary painters, is currently on show at Tate Modern, and Martin Kippenberger is will be exhibited shortly at the Reina Sofia in Madrid.

The five painters will replace the headline-grabbing British artists of the 1990s including Jake and Dinos Chapman, Sarah Lucas, Marc Quinn and Gavin Turk. Hirst’s pickled sheep, Away from the Flock, and Chris Ofili’s elephant dung painting, The Holy Virgin Mary, will also be cleared out.

Marc Quinn’s Self, made from nine pints of the artist’s blood, will be kept in cold storage outside of the gallery.

Mr Saatchi said that it was time for contemporary painters to be recognised. “For the last ten years only five of the 40 Turner Prize artists have been pure painters,” he said. “We think it is time for a painting survey looking at established international artists and later in the year, new young painters.”

The move represents a significant shift for the collector who usually invests in relatively unknown artists by buying their work en masse. Sensation was seen as a success, but a recent exhibition, New Blood, was mauled by art critics. Mr Saatchi will hold a second exhibition of paintings, by younger artists including Daniel Richter and Cecily Brown, later in 2005. They will be succeeded by another exhibition of paintings by “emerging” artists, whose names have not yet been announced.

The works of Sensation will be touring the country but no venues have been arranged.

The move comes after reports of cooling relations between Mr Saatchi and the YBAs. In 2003, Damien Hirst described his patron an “arrogant” and a “childish” businessman who “only recognises art with his wallet”. Hirst declined to be involved in the Saatchi Gallery when it opened the same year.

Mr Saatchi’s newfound love of painting was not greeted with universal acclaim, however. Charles Thomson, who founded a movement called Stuckism to oppose Mr Saatchi’s patronage of installation art, said that the collector was copying his idea.

“It is amazing that he dares to do it,” he said.

A large chunk of Mr Saatchi’s Britart will not be available for touring. Several high profile items, including Tracey Emin’s tent and the Chapman Brothers’ Hell, were destroyed in a the fire in the Momart art warehouse May.

Sotheby's And Hirst To Auction London Chic

By CAROL VOGEL

Published: July 6, 2004

When it opened in 1998, the Pharmacy epitomized London chic. Everything in this Notting Hill restaurant -- from the butterfly paintings and glass-fronted medicine cabinets to the aspirin-shaped bar stools and match boxes illustrated with surgical tools -- was designed by Damien Hirst, a leading member of London's Young British Artists. For nearly six years people from all over the world flocked to the Pharmacy to ogle the celebrity regulars like Kate Moss, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise.

In September the Pharmacy closed, a victim of its own trendiness. ''It was a slow death,'' Mr. Hirst said in a telephone interview. ''People gradually stopped going.''

But unlike most closings, this one is expected to generate money. Sotheby's announced on Monday that it planned to auction the entire contents of the Pharmacy on Oct. 19 for an expected total of more than $5.5 million.

It is surprising that virtually everything from the Pharmacy still exists. After it closed, Mr. Hirst put it all in storage. Like many in the London art world, he chose Momart, one of whose warehouses in the East End had a fire in May that destroyed millions of dollars worth of art by Mr. Hirst and other Young British Artists. The things from the Pharmacy were stored in a building separate from the fire, and nothing was harmed.

''It all could have gone up in flames,'' said Cheyenne Westphal, head of Sotheby's contemporary art department in Europe. ''When we heard about the fire we held our breath.'' At the time she and her colleagues at Sotheby's had discussed the sale with Mr. Hirst, but no contract had been signed, Ms. Westphal said.

The decision to sell at auction was not easy for the artist. ''I thought long and hard about it,'' Mr. Hirst said, ''and finally decided it was best to do it all in one big hit.''

For months, he said, dealers had been coming to him, wanting to cherry pick. He even had offers from people who offered to create a kind of restaurant-museum. ''It's not like it's only art,'' he said. ''But there are 10 butterfly paintings, so maybe people will be able to get them cheap.''

Winner of the 1995 Turner prize, Mr. Hirst, 39, is known for shocking viewers with works that include dead animals. Among his best known are rotting cows positioned to simulate copulation; sharks and sheep preserved in formaldehyde; maggots attacking a cow's head; medicine cabinets full of hundreds of bottles and boxes of drugs; paintings of colorful dots and swirls; and canvases with real butterflies on them.

For years his work has been eagerly bought by museums and collectors around the world, and many of the best paintings have brought upward of $400,000 at auction. In November a glass-front cabinet full of animal skeletons sold at auction for $1.1 million, a record for the artist at auction.

Sotheby's has purposely timed the sale to coincide with the Frieze Art Fair, which specializes in contemporary art. It plans to publish a special catalog recording the history of the Pharmacy and to recreate the feeling of the restaurant at its New Bond Street galleries in the hope of creating a feeding frenzy in the international contemporary art world.

''It will give people a chance to see the Pharmacy one last time,'' Ms. Westphal said.

''The sale will include something for everyone,'' she added. There will be paintings with estimates of over $550,000 as well as objects expected to sell for under $100. A group of 10 of the artist's much-loved butterfly paintings, each with a bright color background and each with love in the title, are estimated to fetch over $110,000. The auction will also have 11 of his well-known medicine cabinets and a molecular model sculpture with estimates each from $183,360 to $275,000.

There will be the aspirin-shaped bar stools (estimated at $920 to $1,200 for six) and glass cone-shaped hanging lamps ($5,500 to $7,300 for eight; $550 to $740 for one). A pair of martini glasses with a snake wrapped around each stem is estimated at $92 to $128 for the pair.

''The martini glasses are prototypes,'' Mr. Hirst said. ''They became too expensive to make.

The dishes, white with the restaurant's logo and signed by the artist, will be in the sale too. A set of 12 are estimated to bring $9,000 to $13,000. A set of eight glass egg cups, also with the Pharmacy logo, will go for $73 to $110. Mr. Hirst produced about 60 different designed match boxes. Some of these will be auctioned too, but Sotheby's officials said they had not priced them yet.

''Everybody these days wants branded objects,'' said Tobias Meyer, director of Sotheby's contemporary art department worldwide. ''The Pharmacy represents a moment in time when the London art world was at its peak.''

From the time it opened, the Pharmacy was as much fodder for gossip columnists as it was for restaurant critics. Inspired by a pharmacy installation the artist made in 1992 that is now in the permanent collection of Tate Modern in London, the restaurant looked so much like a drugstore that people often came in with prescriptions.

''A woman once asked me for an aspirin, and I had to say I'm sorry we have a strict no drug policy here,'' Mr. Hirst recalled.

Shortly after it opened, the restaurant ran into legal trouble when the Royal Pharmaceutical Society threatened a lawsuit saying the name was confusing for people who were looking for a real drug store. The name was temporarily changed to Army Chap, an anagram of Pharmacy.

The restaurant's ground floor had a bar full of Mr. Hirst's glass-fronted pharmaceutical cabinets. The windows were stained glass etched with pill patterns, and the staff wore uniforms designed by Prada and inspired by surgical gowns and lab coats. (None of the uniforms still exist.)

Mr. Hirst's decision to sell the contents of the Pharmacy is surprising because he is one of the few artists who collect their own work. In November he and his dealer, Jay Jopling, bought a group of about 12 seminal pieces for a reported $15 million from Charles Saatchi, the advertising magnate who is one of his biggest collectors. Mr. Hirst said that he has kept one of his molecular sculptures.

When he thinks of the Pharmacy, Mr. Hirst said, ''it makes me think of failure.'' But he is still involved in the restaurant business. He recently opened a small fish restaurant called the Quay in Devon, England. ''I will be putting art in there soon,'' he said. He also plans a restaurant in Mexico.

''When I have something to celebrate, I always celebrate with food,'' Mr. Hirst added. ''Someday I'd like to open a world class restaurant.''

The Olympics of the art world

28/06/2004 Telegraph

Art Basel is the world's biggest contemporary art fair, where leading dealers compete to seduce wealthy collectors with their most expensive pieces. Anyone who is anyone was at this year's event – and so was Tom Horan

Into the vast exhibition centre in the Swiss town of Basel come thousands of people, striding forward with an iron purpose. The sun is shining and there is plenty inside that is fun and beautiful, but their faces do not betray even a hint of levity. The building is alive with intention, thick with the possibilities of beauty meeting money. They have gathered to do battle at the Olympic Games of modern artistic commerce – Art Basel, the biggest contemporary art fair in the world.

Money meets art

Inside the doors, staff at a central helpdesk slip without a flicker from German to French to English, Italian, Spanish, Romansch. The fair is open to the public and attracts 50,000 visitors in five days, but the artworld elite is already equipped with its security passes, and marches past the queues for day tickets. Without a glance at the hyper-efficient Swiss signage that marks out the 270 stands, the dealers – or "gallerists", as they prefer – make their way to their temporary homes. Here, inside miniature empires rented at 427 Swiss francs (£195) per square metre, they await the arrival of Art Basel's ruling class – the buyers.

The fair may offer the chance to see an array of post-1900 artworks that would put virtually any gallery in the world to shame, but it is the intricate, courtly dance of a thousand discreet business deals that makes the event so gripping. Descending on escalators from a labyrinth of cordoned-off anterooms and hospitality bays on the upper floors, come the collectors. The antennae of the gallerists begin to quiver as they sense the arrival in their territory of a rather special kind of person. The word "rich" being considered in this milieu the height of vulgarity, they are known in the trade as "individuals of high net worth".

Although I am wearing my best – indeed, my only – suit, I sense that even the rooky dealers on the edges of the hall have me marked the second they see me as an individual of virtually no net worth. I make my way from stand to stand. For the most part the gallerists are too busy attending to the buyers to bother with people who have just come to look. In closely packed, open-sided booths that have none of the intimidatory element of walking into a commercial gallery, you are so close to the art you can smell it. You are left to examine it at your leisure – and watch the artworld at work.

I go up to the first floor, where the younger galleries are billeted. Art Basel sells itself on the quality of the work it attracts, and this is maintained through strict vetting of applicants. A gallery must have been dealing for at least three years to qualify, and then its work is assessed by the fair's seven-man committee. I decide to head for the stand of White Cube, the London gallery run by Jay Jopling. An extraordinary character, Jopling is dealer-in-chief to Damien Hirst and many of Brit Art's key figures, and son of Lord Jopling, a former minister for agriculture. Before I can get there, however, I'm stopped in my tracks by four enormous basketball players on the far side of the floor.

The stunning series of manipulated colour photographs The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is at the stand of a New York gallery called The Project. The artist, Paul Pfeiffer, has taken action shots from big games and removed the hoop, the ball and all but a single, peripheral player. In turn, this player's uniform has been stripped of numbers, names, sponsors. The lone figure stands frozen and exposed in front of 20,000 cheering spectators. The effect is eerie. "Has there been any interest in the basketball images?" I ask Jenny Liu, the gallerist. She pulls on her cigarette. "They're sold," she says, "and we're in a quiet spot. It's Siberia out here, baby."

From the corner of my eye I catch sight of dismembered body parts hanging from a tree, being eaten by maggots and snails. It's the Chapman brothers' Sex II, for sale at White Cube. Of basketball-playing proportions himself, Jopling in full dealer mode is a compelling sight. He towers over a pair of fortysomething American women, whose haircuts alone have cost them the price of a Chapman brothers sketch. His signature heavy black glasses stand out like a logo for all of Brit Art, drawing crowds of people into the stand. Jopling reaches out a long arm and wraps it round the shoulders of his clients, enfolding them in a decade and a half of London art grooviness. It's irresistible.

	Individuals of high-net-worth

Now he and the two Americans have me wedged in against the rotting flesh of Sex II. "Are you coming to the Bulgari dinner tomorrow night, Jay?" one asks him. "Dinners schminners," he says. "I can't be bothered." I decide that now is the moment to catch his eye and get a word with him, but his command of the room is imperious, and I am blotted out in favour of someone with more noughts in their current account. I decide to take a break and regroup. Being so close to so much contemporary art is having an odd effect. The intensity of all that human expression is unsettling. I slip away upstairs to the Collectors Lounge.

Basel is a drug town, the centre of the pharmaceutical industry, a global business second only to the arms trade in terms of profitability. It's home to many superb art galleries, built on its astronomical wealth. Up in the Collectors Lounge, the financial hierarchies that make up the town are starkly set out. At one end, the luxury jeweller Bulgari has its enclosure, for those with an eye for a luxury jewel. But pride of place goes to Art Basel's other sponsor, Swiss bank UBS. Its VIP enclosure is so exclusive that you can't even see into it. It's ringed off in a circle of ruched curtain that stops just short of the floor, like the one that hides the wizard in The Wizard of Oz.

As they are at the stands on the floors below, most people are smoking. A group of Catalans in their mid-fifties sits down at my table. They talk in dollars, euros and Swiss francs, pet their mobiles, sip at flutes of champagne. They're wondering whether to go to the "Conversations" tonight, the first of a series of discussion panels about burning issues in the art world. They nod at Sam Keller as he breezes through the room, his shaven head glinting.

Keller is the organiser of Art Basel, a dynamic and preternaturally charming Swiss of 37. People love Keller. He has a smile that says success. In a magazine interview available throughout the lounge he describes the qualities required to do his job: "To serve, to listen, to calculate, to moderate, to motivate, to communicate, to analyse, to criticise, to organise, to change, to set goals, to risk, and to take yourself not too serious."

I head down to the ground floor, where the biggest operators are sited, to ask a long-established British gallerist, David Juda, about what makes Art Basel special. Juda's gallery Annely Juda is one of only five that have shown at every fair in the event's 35-year history. He's on the Basel committee. "You can go to a fair like Arco in Madrid," he says, "and find twice as many people, but it's a bit like going to the Ideal Home Exhibition. Boyfriends and girlfriends wandering around and you're not sure if they're really looking at what's in front of them. At Basel people stare intently and they're very serious. This year is a big selling year. You can feel the buzz of people buying. You can tell, because you can see dealers smiling."

Jopling is certainly smiling. He's winding up a chat with another little knot of Brit Art buyers. Sex II is sold, for £450,000. This is his skill, to ease the qualms of buyers, to reassure them that their money is well spent on Jake and Dinos Chapman's astonishing 5ft painted brass vision of putrefaction. I step up to Jopling. "Could I have a few words, Jay?" I'm 6ft 2in, but he looms over me like a great larch. "What's this?" he says, staring at my notes. "'Dinners schminners'? You've been writing down my conversations." Disaster. I say maybe I should come back tomorrow. He tosses my business card into a thick notebook that contains 500 others.

'The intense concentration of art makes huge demands'

I feel dazed. It will soon be time for the "Conversation" and I need to go and change. This intense concentration of art makes huge demands on the imagination, drains your last drop of empathy, exerts an unnerving power. Some of it is breathtaking. The proximity you get to the works – Miró, Picasso, Dalí, Duchamp, Hockney, Warhol, Koons, Hirst – is quite unlike a museum exhibition. All distance is removed; history comes alive; you can feel the ghosts of the makers hovering around them. And beneath it all the incessant whisper: "Anything you see can be yours."

The "Conversations" panel is made up of international museum directors, and starry names. There's the Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, whose enormous sun installation The Weather Project caught the public imagination at Tate Modern last year. Next to him sits the British architect Zaha Hadid, whose innovative projects are lauded rather more frequently than they are built. Hadid keeps turning away from her mic to point at accompanying slides, so all we hear are single phrases: "urban context", "spatial experiences", "aggregates", "typography". None the less, everyone cheers. Eliasson says something about chalk, and then: "How do you present presentation?" No one seems to know.

Then a row starts between an inflammatory German museum boss who has been smoking roll-ups and the chief curator of the Guggenheim in New York. Just as things are getting personal, the lights come up and it's time for a dinner of Louis Quatorzian opulence. The guest speakers throw slightly nervous glances around the room as the high-net-worthers buttonhole them. During the perfunctory disco, I make a run for it.

I take a taxi to the Kunsthalle, which I've heard is the destination after a hard day's culture commerce. You've got to meet Frank Cohen, someone says in the packed open-air courtyard, he's a heavyweight British buyer, fantastic collection – made millions out of wallpaper. The style magazine, I ask? No, the stuff you put on the bathroom wall. He's from Cheshire – had a chain of DIY shops in the North.

Cohen is the soul of affability, full of bonhomie and dry Mancunian one-liners, and hugely enthusiastic about art. He lost some of his collection of a thousand-plus pieces in the recent London warehouse fire. "There's an art fair every week of the bloody year," he says above the din, tugging on a bottle of beer. "And there's only so many modern artists churning out stuff to fill 'em. But Basel's the one. It's where all the dealers bring out the good stuff they've been keepin' back." I ask him what makes him spend his money on contemporary art. "I love it. It's the thing – it's got a sense of what's going on, right now, today, in the world. It's bloody modernity, i'n't it?"

At the end of the night, as Jopling and the international young gallerists let it all hang out at Le Plaza, a basement disco beneath the Swissotel, I think back to a fleeting moment I witnessed earlier in the day. I was passing a tiny private sideroom at the stand of New York giants Gagosian, the premier traders in the modern art game. I caught a glimpse of an old man, finalising his purchase of a deep blue Andy Warhol painting, frosted in a diamond glitter. The Warhol was so dazzling, so iridescent, that it seemed to pulse with life. Looking at the Warhol, the old man too looked alive, animated. This was what all those rich people were here for. They betrayed it in their eyes: they knew that cold, arid money was worth nothing in the end. They were here to strike one last deal, and trade it in for vials of pure human spirit – the finest works of art in the world.

Which have great sell-on value, obviously.

The new Mr Big of modern art?

By Louise Jury Arts Correspondent
Tuesday, 22 June 2004

He is the Charles Saatchi of the North, the self-made millionaire credited with the most important private contemporary art collection in Britain after the advertising guru himself.

He is the Charles Saatchi of the North, the self-made millionaire credited with the most important private contemporary art collection in Britain after the advertising guru himself.

Tomorrow, Frank Cohen is inviting curious Londoners to see highlights of a collection that until now only his friends and a few art-lovers in Manchester have had the opportunity to view. In the splendour of a Grade I-listed Georgian townhouse, nearly 30 works by artists including the Chapman brothers and Luc Tuymans, the highly influential Belgian who is the subject of a summer show at Tate Modern, are going on show. There is a video installation by Matt Collishaw, Tracey Emin's ex-boyfriend, and sculptures by Paul McCarthy, the artist who had two giant inflatables bobbing around outside the Tate Modern last year.

"It's an incredibly fine collection," said Anthony McNerney, a specialist in post-war and contemporary art at Christie's who agreed to help Mr Cohen hang the show. "He's very knowledgeable and extremely well-read about contemporary art. He knows a lot of the dealers and listens to them, and he knows a great number of artists and talks to them. He's a consummate collector."

Frank Cohen, 60, lives in an affluent part of Cheshire with an Emin, a Grayson Perry pot and a Lowry among others, but only one piece from his home - a McCarthy - has made it to London. Most of his 1,000-strong collection, which is stored in the Midlands, is unsuitable for the ornate grandeur of the Georgian house that has been lent for the occasion by the bank, EFG.

But Mr Cohen is eager to know what the critics will make of this first glimpse of his private passion, art accumulated over 30 years and funded with the proceeds of a DIY/home improvement business he built from scratch and sold in 1997.

"I want to know what they will write about me. I'd like to know what the critics say," he said yesterday, as he swirled around the building, answering his mobile phone between making improvements to the hang.

He started young, collecting cigarette cards and coins, before moving into art three decades ago, starting with modern British painters and sculptors such as L S Lowry, Stanley Spencer, Barbara Hepworth and Eduardo Paolozzi.

"Then that period left me because the artists were dying and the dealers were dead and the contemporary art world took over from there," he said.

He has, in fact, displayed a few of his contemporary works before, to benefit a friend who runs a small gallery in Manchester. But, he noted, no critics deigned to take a look at that.

"When you live in Manchester, no one knows you exist," he said. "They're quite a close-knit community down here. I could have 50,000 pieces in my collection, but I'd still only be a collector."

Now he feels like a film star but he claims he does not care whether the critics like what they see or not. "I couldn't care less," he said. "I do what I do. I'm not the kind of person who's going to cry my eyes out if they say they don't like it."

The interest is immense with a cavalcade of international journalists passing through the not-quite complete show yesterday for a preview.

Mr Cohen's display is part of a giant initiative called Art Fortnight, in which the capital's auction houses and private and public art galleries are co-operating to promote London's pre-eminence in the art market.

He is taking part after being invited by the writer and Art Fortnight organiser, Meredith Etherington-Smith. It is, he adds, "a great opportunity". It is also, perhaps, a taster of the much bigger permanent gallery he intends to open in the heart of Manchester next year, a tantalising advertisement worthy of Charles Saatchi.

But Saatchi is the one subject Frank Cohen will not discuss. They are virtually the same age and both built a business empire instead of pursuing higher education. Like Saatchi, Cohen is a perfectionist, moving sculptures to left and right for maximum impact, railing at the chandeliers spoiling the view of a colourful Frank Ackerman. Where they differ is in Frank Cohen's chattiness. He is as voluble as Saatchi is reticent about his art. Mr Cohen makes clear he believes there is nothing to be gained by discussing Saatchi - even though the more famous collector has already popped in to take a look.

Critics will finally be able to compare their two collections properly when Frank Cohen opens his Manchester gallery. It will cover 25,000 sq ft in the heart of the city and will have space for up to 200 paintings and sculptures, enabling a proper display of contemporary Germans, such as Andrea Slominski and Tobias Rehberger, young Brits including this year's Turner prize nominee Yinka Shonibare, and Americans, such as his current favourite, Richard Prince.

McNerney said: "He's always spotting artists and championing young artists so there are some unsung heroes of contemporary art in his collection that will probably be the most exciting things to see."

Yet Mr Cohen has just one assistant and one conservator to help him with his collecting. His art is "pretty much" what he does these days, apart from the odd property deal.

He is proud of what he has. Looking around the exhibition yesterday, he almost bounced with excitement. "It looks good, doesn't it?" he said.

The Frank Cohen collection is on show with the Neil Kaplan collection of Rembrandt etchings at 3 Grafton Street, W1, on weekdays from tomorrow until 2 July.