The Importance of Art Fairs

The UK newspaper the Telegraph has an interesting article in their Luxury section on the importance of art fairs to galleriests.  The article states that art fairs over the past 20 years have become a very important aspect of dealing in art.  It not only includes sales at the shows, but also networking with dealers and meeting new clients.

From my own first-hand knowledge of having an antique shop and also exhibiting at quality antique shows, there is enormous benefit from doing both, but that comes with a lot of extra work, planning, expenses and dediction. If done correctly the pay off can be gratifying both financially and emotionally. If not done correctly, it can mean much work and expense with little to show in return.

The Telegraph reports

One of the most radical changes in the art world in the last 20 years is the way in which art fairs have become indispensable to a gallery’s economic well being. A report commissioned by The European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht in 2014 said that a broad section of the world’s galleries made an average 33 per cent of their income through art fairs; that is why as many as 200 large contemporary art fairs (with 150 plus exhibitors) a year currently permeate the major cities of the world.

Next month, London dealer Ben Brown will travel nearly 20,000 miles, or almost the total circumference of the globe, in two and a half weeks to take part in three major international fairs in New York, Maastricht and Hong Kong. The cost, including stand rental, travel, shipping and insurance, will come to about £250,000, “but I wouldn’t be doing it if I thought I couldn’t cover my costs,” he says. His display in Maastricht of works by Lucio Fontana, one of the most sought-after artists of the post-war era, is worth over £5 million alone.

Brown is one of Britain’s liveliest dealers in modern and contemporary art. At Sotheby’s in the Nineties, he helped devise the first modern Italian art sale, and commissioned the Italian prankster artist, Maurizio Cattelan, to make a portrait of his grandmother. The portrait, Betsy, turned out to be a life-size wax model of Brown’s grandmother hunched up inside a fridge. Fortunately Brown’s family were not fazed; his mother is an established contemporary art collector.

After Sotheby’s, Brown worked with the leading dealer, Leslie Waddington, and then set up on his own in 2004. He currently has galleries in Brook's Mews, behind Claridge’s, and in the Pedder Building in Hong Kong, where his family has close ties.

While his galleries are vital for making exhibitions, doing the right fairs is crucial for business he says, though the crowded calendar can be problematic. “I wasn’t looking for three fairs so far away from each other yet so close together in time, it’s just happened that way this year. I have done Maastricht for seven years, so that is normal. Then I decided to break into the American market with The Armory Show, which is new for me, but then Art Basel Hong Kong, which I’ve done since it began, changed its dates. They’ve moved away from a date in May that clashed with Frieze and the auctions in New York, and was too close to the Art Basel fair in Switzerland in June. But in doing so, they’ve put the squeeze on the Armory and clashed head to head with Maastricht.”

The Armory Show is the oldest and most established fair in America for modern and contemporary art. This year it has a special focus on art from the Middle East, so, in addition to works by Andy Warhol and a supersize bronze bin bag specially made for the American market by Gavin Turk, Brown is talking new paintings by Algerian artist, Djamel Tatah, whose work he has sold to Middle Eastern public collections, and by the Lebanese painter, Nabil Nahas, priced in the $10,000 to $50,000 range.

Brown operates at a higher price point at TEFAF, Maastricht, where his main clientele is European. Here, he will bring works by most of the living artists he represents, including Miquel Barcelo, Claude Lalanne and Heinz Mack, but also the post-war Italian art of Lucio Fontana, Alighiero Boetti and Michelangelo Pistoletto where prices rise to the millions.

In Hong Kong, Brown’s emphasis will change again, relating to his exhibition programme there. “Collectors here take fewer risks than in America. They like to have seen more of an artist’s work before they buy.” So he will be following up his exhibitions with works by Alexander Calder, Frank Auerbach, and Vik Muniz who had a retrospective exhibition in Shanghai last year. For the fair, Brown is unveiling Forbidden City, a brand new 6 x 8.5 foot photographic print by Muniz of shredded and collaged vintage photographs and postcards, priced at $58,000.

In spite the different emphasis for each fair, Brown is showing work by many of the artists he represents at all three. The six-foot photographic prints by Candida Hofer of historic St Petersburg interiors, for instance, are part of her latest series of works that will be shown at the Hermitage Museum in June.

“Fairs are a necessary evil,” says Brown. “I prefer the quieter contemplation of the gallery, but I sell more at fairs, and I make more contacts.” So next month should be a bumper one for the globe-trotting art dealer as he spans three continents.

Source: The Telegraph