Inside Art Fairs
Have you every wondered what it’s like at an art fair from a gallery perspective? One of the View team shares her experiences of exhibiting at four art fairs in one year, with mixed feelings!
Copious amounts of champagne, superb assortments of locally sourced cakes, a huge selection of tea and coffee, upbeat music and a plethora of (usually) friendly, glamorous gallerists; art fairs must appear like a weeks holiday to many visitors. They are one of the highlights of the gallery calendar for us, but it’s not always a fun-loving, pleasurable activity.
Applications for the fairs start months before the event and this is when the battles for the stands begin. Seasoned exhibitors usually get preferential treatment, but for the newcomers it can require some very persuasive arguments to get accepted and to get a prime position. For some art fairs, acceptance is at a gallery level and for others it’s for every artist. We like this rigour as it ensures the fair has a good variety of quality artwork within the contemporary theme (although we have noticed that ‘contemporary’ can mean very different things to each fair). We tend to take 5-6 artists and adapt the brief for them to produce new work for the fair, whilst remaining in keeping with our general ethos of ‘high impact’ art.
As we approach the week of the fair we start the set up process. We usually have a theoretical stand plan that we have worked on in the gallery. This would involve designing the layout with each piece of work in its position and then a number of pieces to replace those that sell. A typical set up day begins any time from 6.30 am, depending on how far the away the fair is and what our time slot is for unloading. We meet our lovely driver, Guy, at the gallery to help load all the artwork into the van before taking us to the venue. The tradition on the journey is to tune into Radio 2 to listen to the music quiz with Ken Bruce. You may be thinking that this is a rather jolly activity… you’d be wrong, it has now turned into a hugely competitive half hour (Nick thinks he’s good at this but his knowledge seems to stop in the last millennium!).
Once arriving, the bedlam begins. Imagine 80-120 galleries all attempting to unload their art, sculptures, tools, ladders and furniture at once… up ramps! Despite the time slot approach, it is nonetheless a bit of a manic scramble. Once unloaded, its time for a well deserved coffee and cake before the curating (arguing) begins. Despite my attempt at pre-planning we never quite manage to keep to the plan, mainly because Nick tries to ‘improve’ it (but usually comes round to my way of thinking).
The unpacking is a somewhat nervous process, particularly with sculpture, but thankfully we’ve only needed the super glue once! The hanging itself is very rewarding as we turn a blank white space into a beautiful gallery inside a few hours. However, we have managed to build a reputation for our ‘unique’ set-up process. We believe in lots of white space between the artwork and so we typically only have 8-10 pieces on display at once. Many other galleries take half the time to set up and put up three times as much art, which is why we are now subjected to numerous comments in a similar vein to, “seriously though, what does take you so long?” (answer: arguing with Nick!).
The private view evenings are high in energy and the gallerists are full of optimism. With free drinks flowing and many regular clients in attendance there is usually a great buzz and we enjoy discussing art with a range of people, from buyers to artists and journalists. It often takes a while for the adrenalin to slowly leave the system and the retinas to calm down after an explosive attack of colour.
The first full day starts off equally positively and full of expectation, but the days can be very long and energy levels have to be managed. If you were to ask the majority of gallerists to sum up an art fair week in 3 words, I think a common reply would be, “fuelled by caffeine”. Whilst they are enormous fun socialising with other galleries and meeting lots of new art lovers, they certainly require several trips to the cafes. Nick admits to his own lack of physical and mental stamina and wisely replaces himself with Sarah for the long haul. Even for us hardy girls we need the energy boost but you can have too much caffeine in your system, as evidenced by Sarah talking to customers at a turbo pace with a somewhat crazed look in her eyes!
The selling process at an art fair differs enormously from that in the gallery. Decisions can be made instantly or over days and you have to work out instantaneously whether people would like to be spoken to or left alone. It is possible to tell the more experienced visitor, from the pen and paper in their hand, marking down various artists to aid their culling process. Some buyers will make several rounds of the fair before reducing their choices and others know what they want immediately. We try not to do the hard sell but are always sad when people ignore our advice of “decide now” and come back disappointed to find their favourite piece has just gone. Once the buyer’s decision has been made and the sale secured, there is often another challenge to overcome. You may witness panicking exhibitors running around, waving their card machine frantically in the air as they attempt to find a signal.
Every fair is different and the extremes are often immense. We spent one long day this year hardly speaking to anyone, amusing ourselves with the ‘guess the jellybean flavour’ game. Then, at the end of the day, we sell our 3 largest paintings in a crazy 6 minutes.
The ‘breakdown’ is a stark contrast to the setup process. After days of intense mayhem we have to wrap up (hopefully not too much) art and pack everything into the van. The mood often depends on the success of the event, but exhaustion is a common feeling. Guy is as ever full of enthusiasm but our chat tends to be somewhat limited on the journey back. Indeed, I am usually asleep by the time we leave the venue! Of all of the fairs’ ups and downs, I think the journey home from Hampstead this year was the most challenging experience. A few miles from home at 10:30pm, the van got a flat tyre. It was dark, cold and, following road safety advice, we stood in a bush on the hard shoulder waiting for the AA… 3 hours later the relay team arrived. A whole range of emotions had been experienced; unsurprisingly the comedic value quickly lost its novelty as we then went through hope, despair, anger, acceptance, and finally joy when the bright lights of the AA van came into view.
The emotional roller coaster of art fairs is not for the faint-hearted!