Hai Hsin Huang's drawing "Art Basel" depicts the global art market's flourishing and nonchalant period just before the pandemic. The sequel, "After Art Basel" happens when the fair ends, when all the VIPS are gone and the place is left with the very important craftsmen of the fair. The glamorous art fair suddenly is filled with busy anonymous figures, bustling gear and oversized crates, which appears to Huang's eyes as a show in itself, a behind-the-scene fair.
The huge original drawing, approx. 5m x 2m, now spreads across the pages of the book like a map, where you no longer find the orientation as the fair dismantles. It leaves you wander and wonder, at some last moment before an unpredictable future, if it is depicting an annual story or paying homage to a bygone art history.
72 pages , 20.6cm × 27.6cm
Offset printing. Bookcloth cover in silkscreen printing.
Edge coloring on top, Coptic binding.
Limited 800 copies
Published by nos:books
Taipei, Taiwan, Nov 2023.
