vip art fair fails – or not?

Originally conceived three years ago by New York dealer James Cohan the ‘world’s first online only art fair’ has just closed. Billed as the first ’to mobilize the collective force of the world’s leading contemporary art galleries with the unlimited reach of the Internet’ its inaugural fair took place exclusively online from January 22-30, 2011.

With further admirable modesty the show was promoted as ’an unprecedented event’ featuring ‘critically acclaimed artists’ and ’internationally renowned dealers.’  The ’revolutionary design’ was promoted as a way to ‘view artwork online as never before.’ ‘Innovative technology’ promised to allow ’visitors to zoom in to examine details of a painting’s surface, get multiple views of a three-dimensional work, and watch videos of a multimedia piece.’ 

In view of this expansive rhetoric there was only one thing that could possibly happen – and we all knew that it would didn’t we? It crashed. Hoorah! Not completely, but there were a plethora of problems with access speed and error messages, vip passholders couldn’t access dealer’s ‘private rooms’ whilst many galleries had their ‘online chat’ facility, which allowed interaction with clients shut down.

The organisers have said that anyone who paid $100 to enter for the first two days has been refunded and pass holders have been emailed: “If you have experienced delays error messages or slow processing speed while visiting the VIP Art Fair in the first two days, please accept our sincere apologies.”

A number of galleries have complained and said that they would not return although the organisers (of course) claim that it was a great success reporting some good sales: Sadie Coles HQ sold Rudolf Stingel’s painting Die Birne (2002) for a high six-figure price, while David Zwirner sold Chris Ofili’s sculpture Mary Magdalene (Infinity) (2006) in the mid six figures. Alexander and Bonin sold Mona Hatoum’s unsettling 3D grid sculpture Bourj (2010) in the low six figures, while James Cohan sold Yinka Shonibare’s The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (2008) for something between £25,000 and £50,000. Francis Bacon’s Man at Washbasin meanwhile went unsold to the chagrin of the Marlborough Gallery.

Instinctively many dealers and observers will feel that art should be something sold face to face and there is undoubtedly a good deal of schadenfreude washing around at the relative failure of this first online fair - I personally love the mental image of potentially pyjama-clad sales staff (they needed to man their lines 24 hours) faced with crashing systems in the small hours of the morning. Nevertheless the appeal for dealers in accessing a world-wide range of clients and expanding their databases whilst remaining at ‘home’ must have great appeal and the fair will no doubt iron out the glitches and, sadly, continue successfully in the future.

Related Articles

• VIP Art Fair: Welcome to the virtual art fair (telegraph.co.uk)
• Last weeks VIP Art Fair, online (gothamgal.com)
• $1m artworks up for sale at online fair (guardian.co.uk)
• Pyjama-clad dealers wait for a byte at online art fair (theage.com.au)
• Top works unsold at first online art fair (thestar.com)

london art fair 2011

The London Art Fair 2011 kicked off this last week with, let us say, a whimper rather than a bang. Despite being around for some 23 years, it has been on the way down for many years since Frieze stole its thunder a number of years back. Its decline this year was sadly rather evident.

The first thing to strike you was not who was there, but who was not. The big international galleries have long since avoided the fair: White Cube, Hauser & Wirth, Victoria Miro and the like steer well clear. Middle level galleries are now almost completely absent - the likes of Stephen Friedman and Flowers are largely gone. As for small, influential galleries like Carl Freedman – not a chance. Even little West End galleries like John Martin selling popular and easily accessible work – the galleries for who you would imagine this show is perfect are deserting the ship.

So who is left? There was a reasonably good selection of work from Modernist British artists – Ivon Hitchens, Roger Hilton, Alan Davie and the like – shown by galleries such as Anthony Hepworth, Austin Desmond and Richard Green. It was however thoroughly mixed in with contemporary work of generally poor quality from a multiplicity of small galleries - mostly little-known or ‘popping-up’ from unknown origins. 

The whole was exhibited in a maze of alleys and passageways that seems ever more confusing and cramped year by year. The balcony stands afford such little viewing space that it is rather like having a gellery on a tube train whilst the Art Projects section showed some dire stuff in an assortment of back rooms.

The supposed ‘VIP’ tickets afforded a slightly more leisurely experience, but unaccompanied by any drinks until 6pm when some mediocre cava appeared in plastic glasses (the fact it was in relatively generous quantity was a minor blessing). As for the supposed ’VIP room’ – I wont even go there!

Was it really as bad as I make out – probably not and I passed a pleasant enough couple of hours at the fair – but it was all slightly disappointing and not the sort of event  to inspire the spending of large amounts of money on high quality art – even if you could find it. The first word from some dealers I spoke to backs up this impression – “the worst year yet”, “no buyers around” and “never again”. Verdict: C minus – could try harder. Will we see anything change next year – nope!

Related Articles

• London art fair opens with political tinge (reuters.com)
• london art fair gets ‘littlewhiteheaded’ (akickupthearts.wordpress.com)

london art fair gets ‘littlewhiteheaded’

The London Art Fair used to be the city’s leading art fair until all of a sudden, back in 2003, Frieze leapt on to the scene. It is now a bit of sideline event – and it is far from happy! Not that it has done much about it, pottering along, much as it always has. The word is out that it wants to try to do something about it. Unless something very dramatic happens, like hell friezing over (see what I did there!), it is hard to see it ever get back to number one. Meanwhile it is making some noises about making the fair a little more, let us say, memorable.

Their first move has been revealed today by the young and go-ahead London dealers SamarriaLunn. Their artists littlewhitehead will be appearing throughout the exhibition, much as Simon Fujiwara’s brilliant archaeological ‘intervention’ at Frieze.

Craig Little, 29, and Blake Whitehead, 25, began working together after graduating from the Glasgow School of Art in 2007. Having become friends by default because “nobody else would speak to us”, their prerogative is to expose the inherent, unpleasant, and bleakly comic truths about society and the viewer.

The London Art Fair heralds the unveiling of their most provocative work to date: a Bible cast from the ashes of 90 copies of Mein Kampf. Doomed to enrage any number of religious groups, not to mention anybody who has ever taken a history lesson, this work is classic littlewhitehead. They claim that “to some extent, it doesn’t really matter that it’s made from the Bible and Mein Kampf”: The two books can merely exist as symbols for powerful and commonly adopted ideologies and more importantly, their destructive capabilities.

They have stated that “We don’t ever set out to offend, we just seem to have a knack for annoying people.” A favorite recent subject for the artists has been hostages. Victims are tied to chairs, bags pulled taut over their heads, knocked onto the floor and left there, helpless. They wait to be saved, only for nobody to come. These victims may well be hyper-real sculptures, but the stories on which they are based are real: unashamedly lifted from the newspapers and brought screaming into the physical world. In walking past the work as viewers, littlewhitehead demonstrate our choice to ignore, and in turn make us complicit in the act;

And even if their work fails to offend/impress then they at least have a new verb. To littlewhitehead – which I suggest means to be deeply disturbing - even when initially you are sometimes not sure quite why. We shall see!

Related Articles

• littlewhitehead getting bigger (akickupthearts.wordpress.com)

sunday art fair thursday to sunday

I highly recommend dropping in to SUNDAY this week. With no exclusive preview, no snobbery and no entry charge it is a new art fair that should provide a pleasant change to the big-name, big-ticket FRIEZE fair. SUNDAY’s first outing was in Berlin during the 2010 Gallery Weekend where it was so well received the organisers decided to bring it to London during Frieze week. It is being held at Ambika P3 on Marylebone Road – a 14,000 square foot, triple height subterranean space. Just down the Marylebone Road from Frieze it is also easy to add to your Frieze itinerary.

Organised by three of the participating galleries: Limoncello (London), Croy Neilsen (Berlin) and Tulips and Roses (Brussels) and sponsored by the Zabludowicz Collection, the stated aim of the fair is to provide an easy-going and accessible temporary platform for young galleries to exhibit their artists’ work. An international, gallery-led art fair it will be showing a selection of about twenty young galleries which will be exhibiting work by over 60 international artists.

Refreshingly entry to Sunday is free – compare that to Frieze’s astonishing £25 charge – and talking of refreshment five artists (Fiona Banner, David Batchelor, Liam Gillick, Christian Jankowski and Bob and Roberta Smith) have been asked to design a cocktail for the bar. The artists will be mixing, shaking and serving them for customers at allotted times – I shall look forward to it!

Sunday - Berlin

SUNDAY will be open:
Thursday 14th October 12pm – 8pm
Friday 15th October 12pm – 8pm
Saturday 16th October 12pm – 6pm

For more information visit SUNDAY

Among the artists on show will be: Jesse Ash, Edwina Ashton, Francesco Barocco, Michael Bauer, Luca Bertolo, Armin Boehm, Wolfgang Breuer, Sophie Bueno-Boutellier, Liudvikas Buklys, Nicolas Ceccaldi, Kit Craig, Gintaras Didžiapetris, Chris Evans, John Finneran, Zipora Fried, Aurélien Froment, Simon Fujiwara, Ryan Gander, Andy Holden, Judith Hopf, Takaaki Izumi, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Thomas Kratz, Deborah Ligorio, Anissa Mack, David Mackintosh, Joseph Montgomery, Rosalind Nashashibi, Dominique Petitgand, Riccardo Previdi, Ruth Proctor, Matthew Smith, Jack Strange, Megan Francis Sullivan, The Hut Project, Richard Wilson, Richard Woods and Katarina Zdjelar.

Independent contemporary bookshop and publisher Aye Aye Books (Glasgow) and publishing house Archive Books (Berlin) will also be there as will the Zabludowicz Collection who will present a selection from their limited edition sculptures, photographs and prints.

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Related Articles

• Frieze week in London: gallery spaces are blossoming (telegraph.co.uk)
• Art market news for Frieze week (telegraph.co.uk)
• Frieze Art Fair 2010: Get ready for British art’s biggest week (independent.co.uk)

multiplied – christies muscles in to art fair business

This October, in what is undoubtedly the most important week in the London Contemporary Art calendar, Christie’s is taking advantage of the international interest generated by Frieze to create their own ‘Fair’ – Multiplied – showcasing Contemporary Art in Editions. Around forty dealers ranging from major dealers like White Cube down to relative tiddlers like Black Rat Projects are taking advantage of the relatively low-cost stand space to sell low to moderate-priced works that appeal to new collectors. The  works will include not only prints but, for example, editioned photographs and sculptures and will reportedly start at a just a few pounds with the aim of tempting new clients in to the world of buying art.

Over thirty London galleries have temporarily dropped their objection to Christie’s muscling-in on to what is traditionally dealer territory. Christies tell us that “Multiplied will be the perfect place to scope out the vibrant contemporary editions scene, featuring young, emerging talent alongside eminent contemporary artists. With prices from £50 to £10,000, and editions in all shapes and sizes, from prints and photographs, to artist’s books and 3-D multiples, you may just spot ‘the next big thing’. An initiative of the Christie’s Prints and Contemporary departments, Multiplied aims to support contemporary publishing by providing a much needed platform to exhibit editions during this significant week; and to nurture a wider appreciation of editions amongst the art buying public.’

Marc Quinn - Apple

Multiplied is not the only effort the auction houses are using to move away from traditional auctions. Phillips de Pury are co-operating with Saatchi at his Chelsea gallery and feature selling exhibition of works in the top floor gallery – their latest is Korean Eye. Sotheby’s in New York is holding the exhibition Divine Comedy - around eighty widely varied works ranging from Cattelan to Brueghel, some for sale.

In recent years of course the two main auction houses have ventured in to dealership – Christies has bought Haunch of Venison, while Sotheby’s choice was the Old Master dealer Robert Noortman. But there is more – New York Sotheby’s opened a wine retailer in New York and also offers retail diamonds and jewellery in New York, Hong Kong and London. What next – groceries and insurance!?

Exhibition Viewing Times:
15-18 October 2010, 10am-5pm

www.multipliedartfair.com

Related Articles

• Art market news for Frieze week (telegraph.co.uk)
• Inside Art: ‘Divine Comedy’ Exhibition At Sotheby’s (huffingtonpost.com)
• UK’s Frieze fair puts art market recovery to test (reuters.com)
• Frieze Art Fair 2010: Get ready for British art’s biggest week (independent.co.uk)

gil vicente shoots into the news

The opening of the Sao Paulo Biennial has been dogged/cleverly publicised (delete according to your point of view) by controversy. Brazilian artist Gil Vicente is showing a series of nine charcoal drawings where he is depicted personally dispatching a series of world figureheads utilizing a variety of assassination methods. 

Gil Vicente

Vicente tells us that the paintings began with George Bush, pictured hands tied as the artist puts a gun to his head. Other ‘victims’ include the Pope, Queen Elizabeth, Ariel Sharon, Kofi Annan and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The most powerful work is perhaps that of Brazilian President Lula, whose throat is being cut whilst tied to a chair. 

Naturally there were some outraged reactions and efforts were made to get the paintings withdrawn. These attempts at censorship were angrily rebuked on television by Vicente who said: “They allege that it condones crime? Theft of public money is not a crime? And the reports on violence on TV is not a crime? Are only my paintings a glorification of crime?” According to Vicente, the violence does not indicate any personal grievance although he states that “as they kill so many people, it would be better to kill them.” 

Gil Vicente - George Bush

But who is Vicente? A search on the major art auction databases yields no previous recorded auction sales. A Google search similarly reveals nothing. I am sure some more research of Brazilian galleries may well dig up something, but it is clear that in one fell swoop Vicente has popped his head over the parapet and in to the view of the international art market. 

It will be interesting to see the reaction to the work, both critically and financially. As yet no UK art critics have made their views public. I doubt if many will and even if they do they will not be too excited, but the saying ‘all publicity is good publicity’ is certainly applicable here. From Picasso to Hirst negative critical opinion has rarely adversely affected future careers so long as the works itself attracts public interest. These certainly do have some appeal, are cleverly done and quite well executed (forgive the pun). 

Made in 2005/6 and entitled ‘Enemies’ they are priced at around £170,000 and only available in one lot  – a mistake in my view. He would have been better advised to sell to nine, possibly international, collectors to establish a wider potential future market. I would suspect that they will sell, maybe knocked down a little in price, but will establish Vicente as an artist to watch. It is hard to see where he will go from here to stay original and he will probably just fade away – we shall see, and I will try to let you know! 

DreamHost reviews

Related Articles

• Brazilian artist in the frame assassinating the Pope, the Queen and George Bush (telegraph.co.uk)

frieze – the bigger picture

If you like this post please make a comment or like it. If you enjoy the blog please subscribe for regular updates (see right).Thanks! akuta 

There is litle need to introduce Frieze – now firmly established as the premier art fair in the London calendar – the 2010 Fair should be inked in to your calendar for the 13 – 16 October. However, year on year an increasing number of events are piggy-backing on the fair looking to take advantage of the temporary influx of potential buyers. Last year’s satellite Zoo Art Fair is not taking place this year clearing the field for these new entrants.  Here is what we know:

Club Nutz at Frame 09

Deep down in the bowels of the University of Westminster the subterranean Ambika P3 is hosting Sunday (14 – 16 October), a fair for young international galleries. It is being organised by London gallery Limoncello, the Brussels-based Tulips & Roses and Croy Nielsen from Berlin and will feature about twenty galleries, some of which appeared in the Frame section in last years Frieze which hosted galleries under six years old. Initially launched as a one-day event in Berlin it here seems to be a competitor to the Frieze ‘Frame’ section for solo shows from young galleries.  Henrikke Nielsen of co-organiser Croy Nielsen Gallery notes that “Frame does not have the capacity. The focus in London will be more international, with galleries from New York “. Participants are selected on an invite-only basis. The low-cost has parallels with the Independent fair held during the NY Armory Show. Nielsen says “There are similarities, such as having open stands, but Independent is a bigger project.”

A McAttee courtesy Eyestorm

Over at Christies in South Kensington they are taking advantage of the move of the October Contemporary sale’s move to King Street by launching Multiplied – ‘an exciting new fair in the field of contemporary art’. The fair will be held 15-18th October ‘providing a platform to promote emerging talent in two and three-dimensional contemporary editions’. According to Richard Lloyd, Head of Christie’s Print department, when he attended the Editions and Artist’s Book Fair in New York last winter: “I was inspired to stage something similar in London and help to create a buzz and a platform for the very best in contemporary publishing”. He states that Christie’s are not taking any percentage of the sales; stands are competitively priced and fair entry to is free.

To assuage worries that they are in true competetion to the dealers at Frieze he adds “Previous divisions between the primary and secondary market are no longer particularly relevant. There will be no direct competition between participating galleries and Christie’s. Only five to ten per cent of what will be on show at the fair would have come up for sale at a Christie’s auction.” He says that “We will benefit simply from people visiting South Kensington. It is now a great space in which to view contemporary art, and we want people to feel comfortable just dropping in to see what’s on.”

Despite his comments Christie’s action is sure to put the backs up of the dealers at Frieze who will feel that they are, since buying Haunch of Venison, further intruding on dealer’s traditional ground.

Meanwhile, way over east at Village Underground there is a new urban art event, the Moniker International Art Fair (14-17 October). The fair ‘highlights the work of a generation of artists often overlooked in British mainstream fairs. These artists, extensively collected transcend various genres, readily exploring high and low aspects of visual language.’

Their spokesman says “The event will consist of six international galleries and six project spaces showcasing individual artists that will reflect the finer side of urban art with artists who have shown in major institutions and galleries.” Participants include New Image Art of Los Angeles and Galleria Patricia Armocida of Milan and admission is free.

There will be other smaller events and gallery tie-ins. Last year the wonderful Museum of Everything had a great pop-up exhibition - no doubt there will be more initiatives from the galleries year yet to be anounced… I will keep my ear to the ground and letyou know in due course!