The What, How and Why of an Art Fair
Tanya Singhal
Have you heard of the worldwide phenomenon called “Art Fair”? From local — the India Art Fair, New Delhi to global — Art Basel, Frieze, FIAC, TEFAF, we can now witness many art fairs taking place all around the year. They usually last between 4–8 days where you see the city coming alive and being completely immersed in the arts. It’s not just the grand striking exhibits, but also the excitement of networking and trying to make the most of this time where you see multiple collectors and visitors gathering to participate at the fair. Whether you are an art enthusiast or are a part of the art fraternity, the advent of the art fairs is likely to be the busiest time of the year for you where you will find yourself running between catching multiple activities at these fairs. Now that the pandemic has become the “new normal”, fairs are coming up in new geographies, inviting more scope for exploration where you see fresh and new ways in which the city’s culture influences the arts and vice-versa.
So now for the uninitiated, let me tell you what an Art Fair is, how it came into being, and why.
The idea of the fair isn’t new — as children we all have attended a variety of fairs — book fairs, food fairs, trade fairs or crafts mela in our city, wherein we have seen items exclusive to the city were collected and displayed for public viewing and purchasing. We still have such state wise exhibits being held in our cities that have a curated theme sometimes. Having such fairs is a great community building exercise. Art Fairs are very similar — a place where you carefully put together a selection of galleries, institutions, art magazines, maybe a few sponsors (if done right), and showcase the best they have across multiple price points for patrons, collectors and visitors to relish. One is not bound or expected to buy anything. While one of the major reasons to host an art fair is to display works and pieces for sale, it is not imperative to enter only if you have the capacity to buy art works. This is a common concern for some people that art galleries and art institutions are reserved for the affluent who have the means to purchase or for scholars who can understand the art jargon and the technicalities of the works displayed, however, art fairs have lead to the democratisation of this space as general public including art students visit with the sole purpose of viewing and appreciating the arts.
Frieze Art Fair in Regents Park, London. Courtesy of Linda Nylind/Frieze
The art fair brings a welcome change — you take your family and friends to an art fair and enjoy looking at the works without any overarching reason other than the simple joy of looking at art, without expecting to answer an examination based on your understanding of what you saw afterwards. I believe art fairs are one the best things that can happen to an art enthusiast. Certainly they benefit the collectors too by providing them an opportunity to view art from different locations of the world and collect the works if they like. Even the artists get a grand space to present their work to diverse audiences which might not be possible at smaller galleries. Although the fairs seem to benefit all, they come with their own set of challenges. However, in this blogpost, we will only discuss the how, what, and why of the art fairs. It all started at the turn of the century, post World War II — not in London, or in New York, or in Paris, but in Cologne, Germany.
The shadow of WW2 still hung over Cologne’s burgeoning trade. “Something had to happen to breathe new life into the stagnant art trade,” explains Rudolf Zwirner in his frank biography. So, in collaboration with his fellow Cologne dealer Hein Stünke, he founded the world’s first official contemporary art fair, Kölner KUNSTMARKT 67, or Art Cologne. KUNSTMARKT 67 opened its doors on September 13, 1967. For five days, eighteen German galleries showed more than two hundred artists and recorded returns of about a million German marks, with visitors more than doubling and sales more than quadrupling over the next three years. These numbers may pale in comparison with current figures, but at the time, they made for a completely unexpected, extraordinary success.
Visitors at the first KUNSTMARKT 67. Image from the internet.
There were monographic “exhibitions,” designed to ensure the aesthetic “quality” of the overall experience, just as today’s fairs boast about “curated” projects, single-artist booths, and the inclusion of large-scale work. And there were artists who flocked, as they do now, along with sixteen thousand visitors, from collectors in suits and ties to young couples and parents with children, who paved the way for the strollers that now clog fair aisles on any given Sunday.
During its most vibrant years, between 1967 and 1972, the KUNSTMARKT was largely responsible for generating the most public and open discussion about the contemporary art market in history.
Moreover, in its attempt to reconnect West Germany with an international art world, the KUNSTMARKT not only succeeded but became the indisputable model for all those contemporary art fairs that gradually sprang up around the Western world — not just Art Basel but also FIAC in Paris in 1974, Art Chicago in 1979, the Armory Show in New York in 1998, and Frieze in London in 2003. This model formed the basis of the commercial success of the modern-day art fairs. Money comes in from booth rental and entrance fees, while the temporary nature of a fair encourages related events and other local investment that keeps everybody happy.
The earliest structures of Art Cologne were modelled after the Stuttgart Antique Book fairs, resembling the artisanal fairs of the past centuries, and a similar format was adopted by Art Basel. In the early stages, the fairs were regional events, but the participating dealers rapidly expressed their desire to expand to an international network. These art fairs served as places for professional trading — reserved for dealers. They also facilitate business activities in the art market and help galleries secure their presence and network.
Art Basel 1973, image courtesy Art Basel
Then in the late 1960s, three Swiss art dealers: Trudl Bruckner, Balz Hilt, and Ernst Beyeler founded an art fair in Basel, Switzerland and went into direct competition with Art Cologne. “Now, the art markets chase the exhibitors,” read the headline of a German newspaper in 1971. This attitude now seems outdated because you can see that for the past ten years, the number of art fairs has also increased with the growing global interest in contemporary art. To put things in perspective, before the 1990s, there were only 50 fairs across the world, now there are over 300 art fairs. Art Basel, one of the biggest and most prestigious fair for any gallery in the world, attracted 93,000 collectors and visitors from 80 countries and boasted of 290 exhibiting galleries in 2019.
Nowadays an art fair is held somewhere in the world almost every other week. Some of these fairs have become essential events, participation in which is important not just for the reputation of a gallery, but also for the revenue. It is said that galleries can earn almost a year’s worth of revenue from these fairs. So you can imagine the stakes are very high but so are the costs associated with participating in these fairs. The conversation pre-pandemic was that over the last few years, fairs had become a victim of their own success as they benefited the giants while neglecting the smaller players. Smaller gallerists and dealers are often required to pay the same fees while selling considerably less expensive works, which leads to emerging artists being overlooked in the selections. Many wonder if the art fair has become too commercial a structure. Even though the artists need this kind of exposure, the increasing fatigue among the buyers and enticing mixed feelings among artists, is a rising issue in the art industry. Most of the artists might be ambivalent to the fact that their works are displayed in this manner
Art Basel Miami, 2019. Image from Art Basel.
The debate will continue and so will the art fairs across the world. The gallerists, art professionals and collectors will keep jet setting to new fairs and till a new model is put in place which might come with its own set of issues, let us just enjoy art — be it in a museum, gallery or an art fair.
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Reference:
https://magazine.artland.com/from-antiquity-to-modernity-how-art-fairs-became-a-cultural-mainstay/
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/melanie-gerlis-book-excerpt-2059808
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24146123
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266030131_Evolution_of_the_Art_Fair
https://www.artforum.com/print/200804/emerging-market-the-birth-of-the-contemporary-art-fair-19751
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-how-art-fairs-expanded-the-contemporary-art-market
https://www.bmw-art-guide.com/categories/insiders/the-role-of-the-art-fair
