{"id":2831,"date":"2014-01-26T17:32:32","date_gmt":"2014-01-26T17:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/raulmourao.com\/blog\/?p=2831"},"modified":"2014-01-26T17:32:32","modified_gmt":"2014-01-26T17:32:32","slug":"the-art-market-fairly-popular","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archive.raulmourao.com\/blog\/?p=2831","title":{"rendered":"The art market – Fairly popular"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saiu na edi\u00e7\u00e3o impressa da The Economists, de 18 de janeiro 2014 e eu peguei l\u00e1 no site<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"the_economists_fairly_popular\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The rapid growth of art fairs is changing the way galleries operate<\/strong><\/p>\n

SHORTLY after The Economist went to press, about 25,000 people were expected to turn up at the London Art Fair. Your correspondent visited just before, as 128 white booths were being filled with modern paintings and sculptures. Dealers clutched mobile phones to their ears or gathered in small groups. They seemed nervous\u2014as well they might be. \u201cI can earn a year\u2019s living in one fair,\u201d said one harried dealer while stringing up a set of lights.<\/p>\n

Before 1999 London had just one regular contemporary art fair, remembers Will Ramsay, boss of the expanding Affordable Art Fair. This year around 20 will be held in Britain, mostly in the capital. Roughly 90 will take place worldwide. The success of larger events such as Frieze, which started in London, has stimulated the growth of smaller fairs specialising in craft work, ceramics and other things. Art14, which started last year, specialises in less well-known international galleries, showing art from Sub-Saharan Africa, South Korea and Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

One explanation for the boom is the overall growth of the modern-art market. Four-fifths of all art sold at auction worldwide last year was from the 20th or 21st century, according to Artprice, a database. In November an auction in New York of modern and contemporary art made $691m (\u00a3422m), easily breaking the previous record. As older art becomes harder to buy\u2014much of it is locked up in museums\u2014demand for recent works is rising.<\/p>\n

London\u2019s art market in particular has been boosted by an influx of rich immigrants from Russia, China and the Middle East. \u201cWhen I started 23 years ago I had not a single non-Western foreign buyer,\u201d says Kenny Schachter, an art dealer. \u201cIt\u2019s a different world now.\u201d And London\u2019s new rich buy art differently. They often spend little time in the capital and do not know it well. Traipsing around individual galleries is inconvenient, particularly as galleries have moved out of central London. The mall-like set-up of a fair is much more suitable.<\/p>\n

Commercial galleries used to rely on regular visits from rich Britons seeking to furnish their stately homes. Many were family friends. The new art buyers have no such loyalty. People now visit galleries mainly to go to events and to be seen, says Alan Cristea, a gallery owner on Cork street in Mayfair. Fairs, and the parties that spring up around them, are much better places to be spotted.<\/p>\n

Some galleries are feeling squeezed. Bernard Jacobson runs a gallery opposite Mr Cristea. The changing art market reminds him of when his father, a chemist, was eclipsed by Boots, a pharmaceutical chain, in the 1960s. Seven galleries in Cork Street relocated this month to make way for a redevelopment; five more may follow later this year.<\/p>\n

Yet the rise of the fairs means galleries no longer require prime real estate, thinks Sarah Monk of the London Art Fair. With an international clientele, many can work online or from home. Although some art fairs still require their exhibitors to have a gallery space, increasingly these are small places outside central London or beyond the city altogether. One gallery owner says few rich customers ever visit his shop in south London. He makes all his contacts at the booths he sets up at fairs, which might be twice the size of his store. \u201cIt\u2019s a little like fishing,\u201d he explains. \u201cYou move to where the pike is.\u201d<\/p>\n