As always, the world’s largest and most important art fair takes place in Basel.
You might think it’s just around the corner… if it weren’t for this small country in the middle of Europe. Switzerland is seen as a third country, so everything that is transported into or collected from the country has to be cleared through customs. That’s why there are long queues of trucks waiting for kilometers at the border. It’s a horror when you have to queue up yourself as a trucker and face the uncertainty – are we going to wait an hour or a whole day…? It all started quite differently…
This year we celebrated our personal success by outperforming the previous year. Shippers are always about volume and weight, and this year we were right at the top. You can just tell that this fair is the non plus ultra for many galleries, as they bring incredible amounts of art to Basel in the hope of showing and selling everything. Who can blame them, when you consider the amount of money the galleries put into the Basel fair in advance. The stand rents, transportation, accommodation, staff and much more run into the 50 thousands and more… This has to be earned back… we do our best to make these fair days a success for YOU.
We have already dealt with Basel at the beginning of this year and gave a training course for our customers on the subject of customs clearance in Switzerland and everything to do with Art Basel. We invited our long-standing partner Sam Schaerer from Kraft E.L.S. in Basel. He was able to provide our customers with important information that they need to know for the preparation and support at the fair. This know-how is now useful to you in the preparation of customs lists, after-sales support, the purchases of your galleries, the exchange with each other and much more.
It’s not just getting goods from A to B, not in Basel. “All that glitters is not gold…”
New challenges were of course presented to the transporters, which are frankly almost inhumane. The checkpoint is used by truckers to park their trucks in a guarded parking lot and, if necessary, to spend the night there. This means that drivers live there for a period of at least 5 days directly at the airport under deafening noise, without access to running water, without a possibility to get something to eat, without the possibility to take a shower and under scorching temperatures. There is no bus service so that you can get away from there yourself. The shipping companies themselves have to feed their people there, the fair management is not interested in this at all… only the money counts here. This is what the art world looks like from behind…
Outside hui Inside pfui… it is an imposition what is demanded of the drivers, who also often have to act as art handlers at the fair.
Not with us…
As we are only a small wheel in the art market, I hope for the butterfly effect. Unfortunately, it has to be said, not all shipping companies are as close to the boss as Artseco. Many of our colleagues from other companies have been left alone here. It’s time for us to stand up for a little more comfort too. To do this, we need the help of our customers, because the customer is king, even at Art Basel… Nevertheless, it was a great fair for us and for most of our customers, it went just as well.
We hope that, from our point of view, things will improve at Art Basel.
See you again…
By the way, there is a short video on our Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/artsecoGmbH
