Art Basel Miami Beach 2006: Anxiety of Profit and the Professionalization of Collectors

In 2007, the art market saw such significant capital gains that nearly all major contemporary art collectors turned to commerce, selling works by Warhol and Basquiat for profit. This speculative frenzy fueled Art Basel Miami Beach, which spawned twelve peripheral fairs. The event marked the professionalization of the collector status, though established families like the Margulies and Rubells were less enthusiastic about the VIP festivities that diluted the fair's avant-garde character. A standout was the design fair featuring Zaha Hadid's furniture-architectures by London's Established & Sons. The Gavin Brown gallery presented Urs Fischer's post-ready-made: an empty 8 m² space with a cigarette packet bouncing via a transparent wire, sold for $160,000. Aaron Young's container installation, a sand-filled room with a hole in the roof, was dubbed a giant hourglass and a memento mori.