Like I say; Art Basel is a funny old place. I was at Art 22'91. When I say "at" I'm not being strictly accurate.
I was working for an art gallery in Bradford and our application to exhibit at Art 22'91 had been turned down as we weren't flavour of the month anymore. So we fought back good and hard. We got in touch with a gallery in Basel (Galerie Goetz on Steinentorstrasse), arranged two floors' worth of exhibition space and took £500,000 worth of contemporary art over. Oh, and me. In costume. For the opening, I played a Milliganesque butler who doddered about spilling Earl Grey tea and falling down two flights of stairs. My party piece was to hassle people who didn't want tea by forgetting I'd asked them. I managed to ask one guy 15 times. It didn't make up for missing Happy Mondays playing Elland Road, but it was a giggle.
I had to do something outside Art Basel itself to bring the punters our way. It was on the other side of town at the Messe so we needed to do something spectacular. We had a newspaper printed up in German and English and I had a costume made from a design by Isabelle Craven. Gold boots, black tights, gold belt, a black top with a crest, a blue floppy hat, a red cape and an electric blue codpiece. My character was called "SuperHuman", and he was the crappiest superhero ever. No special powers; just very, very human.
Then there was the logistics. Two tram journeys each way. In costume. Twice a day. I got to the point where I would sweep onto the tram, cape flowing, and breezily greet my fellow commuters. "Good morning!" I would declaim, "Are we ready to fight evil?" The Swiss are more reticent than the British, by the way.
I would do my bit in 90˚F, sweat, go to the gallery, drink free beer and step out in the evening with a delightful young woman called Daniela who worked in an English language bookshop by day and swore like a trooper by night. She learned English in Ramsgate. Need I say more? Dani now has two kids. Funny old world.
Why do I mention this? Because at Art Basel 36'05, a bar of soap has sold for $18,000. But not just any old bar of soap. Read on.
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