'The Art Fair Story' : As Told By Melanie Gerlis, Financial Times Columnist
Art fairs: We love them. We hate them. Sometimes both.
They’re a great place to schmooze, network, and party, because as somebody once said, there’s nothing like facemail. Yet they can have a seen-one-seen-them-all aspect to them, because they're more about the sale than the art. And before the pandemic put a stop to them all, there were 365 fairs planned in 2020 -- one for every single day of the year.
Melanie Gerlis -- author of the Financial Times's weekly art market column, and art market editor-at-large for The Art Newspaper -- plots the rise and momentary fall of art fairs eloquently and succinctly in her new book “The Art Fair Story: A Rollercoaster Ride.” She starts with the first contemporary art fair, Art Cologne (established in 1967), and works her way up to mega-jamborees such as Art Basel and Frieze. The 100-page book is written in broad narrative strokes, not in tedious detail. It's a smooth read, and a very good one.
The story that Gerlis tells, of the mushrooming and ballooning of art fairs, is one that so many of you will be interested in. It's encapsulated nicely in a comment by Rudolf Zwirner, founder of Art Cologne, and father of the mega-dealer David Zwirner. "I had 12 clients in Germany," Zwirner Senior tells the author in 2020. "David has 12,000 around the world."
The questions Gerlis asks are:
Whither art fairs?
What will be left of them in a post-pandemic world?
Will they go the way of all flesh?
You'll have to read the book to find out. Gerlis takes the opportunity to list the many problems with the pre-pandemic art fair model. "The feeding frenzy of top-level collectors fighting to be the first through the gates on VIP days was already not a good look," she writes. "In an increasingly digital world, it has served its time."
Still, in-person fairs do have a raison d'etre, she concludes. It's not all doom and gloom!
"The Art Fair Story" is published by Lund Humphries and available everywhere.
The story that Gerlis tells, of the mushrooming and ballooning of art fairs, is one that so many of you will be interested in. It's encapsulated nicely in a comment by Rudolf Zwirner, founder of Art Cologne, and father of the mega-dealer David Zwirner. "I had 12 clients in Germany," Zwirner Senior tells the author in 2020. "David has 12,000 around the world."
The questions Gerlis asks are:
Whither art fairs?
What will be left of them in a post-pandemic world?
Will they go the way of all flesh?
You'll have to read the book to find out. Gerlis takes the opportunity to list the many problems with the pre-pandemic art fair model. "The feeding frenzy of top-level collectors fighting to be the first through the gates on VIP days was already not a good look," she writes. "In an increasingly digital world, it has served its time."
Still, in-person fairs do have a raison d'etre, she concludes. It's not all doom and gloom!
"The Art Fair Story" is published by Lund Humphries and available everywhere.
