Hello dear readers and subscribers.
We're already February, so that means that the global art fair circuit is back to full swing.
But what are those art fairs?
Can we participate in them?
Can we visit them?
And where can we find them?
Every industry comes with its fairs and so does the art world.
The international art fairs are a great cog in this commercial art world, in the art market.
It's actually one big exhibition of all individual galleries or independent artists presenting their art in a booth.
When we talk about art fairs in the art world, we predominantly talk about the international art fairs, the Arbazels Fries, etc.
These high-tier fairs are very important because the entire art world comes together under the same roof and it also allows collectors or visitors to visit a tremendous amount or see a tremendous amount of art from all different galleries and artists that are usually spread across the globe, and you can see it under the same roof, which is, of course, very exciting.
If you would be interested in visiting such a fair, feel free to have a look at our recently published global art fair calendar, where we have listed 50 of the biggest and most important international art fairs in the world into a calendar where you can simply see when and where such an art fair will be coming to a city nearby.
We also link to the website of every art fair franchise, because sometimes it is the same franchise that organizes fairs in different locations.
For instance, our basel originated in basel but is also taking place in Paris, Hong Kong and also famously, at Miami Beach.
So you can find more information about the dates in those specific cities, as well as where you can buy tickets to visit them on their websites.
Ticket prices for fairs and this depends strongly, but the standard tickets are around 50 US dollars up to 100 US dollars.
Of course, if you want to go to VIP previews or VIP packages, then it can quickly become very, very expensive, sometimes exceeding thousands of dollars.
However, for 50 US dollars, you can see so much art.
One would even argue too much art.
If you go to an art fair and you want to see everything, well then, you barely have a couple of seconds in front of every single artwork.
What I like to do instead is really do a bit of research in advance the galleries that you follow and like see who they will be showing and then you can go with the fair and like focus on a couple of booths, and of course, when strolling through the different booths there always will be another booth that kind of catches your eye and surprises you.
And that's kind of how I like to navigate those fairs gathering some press releases in advance, seeing some artists that I really want to see in person or really enjoy seeing in person, and then, along the way, a few happy surprises.
With art fairs there are also a lot of different tiers.
At the very top end we have those international art fairs with Art Basel and Frieze being one of the biggest fairs. and there we at the center of the fair have the main avenues the main halls where all the big galleries are kind of at the center of the fair and then in the periphery we find the discovery sections or post-war sections where we have also younger or emerging galleries however these emerging galleries find it very difficult to get into those top tier fairs because to participate in such a fair you first have to apply which is already very expensive and when you are accepted you need to pay for your booth now how expensive is it to showcase work at a fair With these top-tier art fairs, that will be sometimes up to 100,000 US dollars for the booth, the lighting, etc.
At more medium-sized art fairs, that will be around 15-20,000 US dollars.
Think of Art Cologne or Art Brussels, for instance.
This is, of course, bearing in mind that the costs for transportation insurance, hotel accommodation, etc.
It all adds up and it's a very expensive thing to do.
And this makes art fairs somewhat controversial.
At one side.
It is a milestone for a gallery and for an artist to participate in such an international art fair, to be there with the big guns, so to speak.
You can place the artists you represent at the international stage where the entire art world gathers and will see them, and people with deep pockets will be there, the people that you can't attract so easily to visit your gallery.
So that's also why around 30 percent of the total value of sales of galleries from the art market report, which is predominantly art basel galleries that have given the data for these reports 30 comes from these fairs.
However, the costs that come with it are also very high, so at the same time, you can't afford not to be there and it's almost barely affordable to still be there.
However, there hasn't been found an alternative for these art fairs.
Being strategic about them and especially, for instance, some more local fairs, can be very powerful to have a nice grip on the local collecting art scene, to have new recurring collectors perhaps coming to your gallery.
So galleries really need to be strategic about this.
Now you might wonder can I participate as an independent artist in those fairs?
The answer is no.
These fairs are dealer oriented fairs.
So you need to be a reputable gallery and there are a lot of criteria.
Quality criteria, actually that one needs to be in business for X amount of years.
The program you present needs to have a certain stature.
So it is very difficult to get into those fairs and for independent artists it's not an option.
There are also a lot of art fairs that are specifically for independent artists, but this is kind of separated from those leading international art fairs.
However, very often these fairs for independent artists will also take place in the same city at the same time as, for instance, an Art Basel in Miami.
Those are called satellite fairs because there are a lot of art collecting people at that time in that place.
So they kind of try to combine it and it gives also artists the opportunity to present their work possibly to some higher-end collectors.
So in that case, the artist needs to pay for the booth and also needs to apply to it.
And this can range from quality.
Sometimes this is also of a rather high quality, up to certain fairs for artists, where they need to bring their own walls or have to present their work in tents, and then the quality of the art also drops, but especially also the quality of the collectors drops as well.
A rather worrying trend that we've been seeing the past five to ten years is some vanity art gallery businesses that try to find this new combination where they invite artists to present their work at the fair that usually only galleries can apply to, but they have to pay for the costs.
So they're actually playing the middle man here in this game for artists who really want to get into a dealer-oriented fair and they kind of solve that.
But they charge actually everything to the artist and actually make money on top of that on behalf of the artist, which is kind of worrying because it negates the quality checks.
It also negates the idea of representing an artist at an international stage.
Here it's more exploitation than it is representation, in my opinion.
So if you receive emails about galleries inviting you to present at a fair at this model where they share the cost is how they formulate it, but make no mistake, all their costs are covered, based on the artists alone then be wary.
Sometimes that will be just a thousand us dollars.
I've also heard artists who are being asked 15 to 20 000 us dollars, albeit for a slightly fairly slightly higher up.
If you would be interested in seeing a similar list, but perhaps for fairs for independent artists, then definitely let me know and i'll try to cover that topic in the foreseeable future as well.
To conclude, I warmly invite everyone to visit contemporaryartissuecom, where we have our online magazine and also a segment dedicated with educational resources, with advice for artists.
Thank you so much for tuning in today.
Feel free to watch our video on why writing is very important for artists today next.
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Bye.
