There aren’t many gaps left to fill in the voracious art market but Art Basel’s latest section for nearly new art, called “Premiere”, seems to have hit a sweet spot. “Curated sections of fairs tend to focus on new work by emerging artists or the rediscovery of historical positions. This new section provides an opportunity to present a mid-career or established artist with institutional momentum to the global market,” says Jeremy Epstein, co-founder of London’s Edel Assanti, one of the 10 selected Premiere galleries.
It is the gallery’s first showing at Art Basel, to which it brings a solo booth of work by the multidisciplinary American artist Lonnie Holley. Epstein describes Holley as “the archetypical artist for this section, a generational linchpin”. Holley, who was born in 1950, worked alongside the likes of the groundbreaking assemblage artist Thornton Dial and has since proved an inspiration to today’s practitioners.
Edel Assanti’s booth will be anchored by Holley’s “Without Skin” (2024), an installation of thick fire hoses coiled around a pile of wooden chairs. The work references the water from hosepipes used to disrupt non-violent civil rights protesters in the US. “The spray was so strong it literally stripped the skin off people’s backs,” Epstein says.
