Frieze Art Fair in London
ARTinvestment.RU   14 октября 2008

Galleries participating in the Art Fair Frieze, mostly offer works of young, not very well known artists. Hear doubts that Frieze is successful: European and American buyers are now to part with money is very reluctant

From 16 to 19 October in London Ridzhents Park will host the art fair Frieze. This event, along with Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach, considered one of the most important fairs of modern art. This year at Frieze will involve 152 galleries from 27 countries, representing the work of more than 1 000 artists. Among the participants - Moscow gallery «Ridzhina» and XL. As part of the fair will be lectures of famous artists and art historians, including Boris Groys, Yoko Ono (Yoko Ono), Kozi Fanny Tutti (Cosey Fanni Tutti) and Carsten Heller (Carsten Höller).

In addition to the Frieze in London, will be small «Fair-satellites» - Zoo Art Fair, Scope Art Fair, Kounter Kulture and The Future Can Wait. They should have been more, but the organizers of trade fairs Pulse and Year 08 Projects abandoned them during Frieze. Another fair, Bridge, instead of London, will take place in Berlin. According to its director Michael Uorkmana (Michael Workman), hold a Bridge in the German capital will be twenty times cheaper.

«Financial question» - the main thing that worried organizers and participants of Frieze. At the fair, many gallery earn a third of its annual profits. The fair is traditionally popular with collectors: in the past year, for example, it was visited by 68 thousand people. The experts are closely monitoring the activity of buyers at Frieze - this fair is a good indicator of the state of the art market. It makes findings of a popular art, and what not. This year, however, the main «legislators mod», American collectors at Frieze did not expected too much. The financial crisis, the deepest since the Great Depression, is making its presence felt. New York collector, Carlo Bronzino (Carlo Bronzini), who visited Frieze last year, said that this October in London, he did not go. «People just do not have the mood to buy something», - he said. He echoed Hakert Nicole (Nicole Hackert), a partner in the Berlin gallery Contemporary Fine Arts, which represents the level of artists Georg Baselitz (Georg Baselitz) and Peter Doig (Peter Doig). «I do not think that the [Fair Frieze. - Ed. ] will be very successful. We can not insulate oneself from the world economy ».

In the past month was solo Demiena Hirst auction , once again confirmed the thesis that the main hope of the art market - collectors from Asia and the CIS. One of the main buyers at the auction Hirst became Ukrainian billionaire Viktor Pinchuk . But the head of the gallery «Ridzhina» Vladimir Ovcharenko, the rich from the former Soviet Union did not expect it: in the last month of the financial situation in Russia and neighboring countries, much worse. Even the most sverhbogatye collectors because of the falling stock markets have lost billions of dollars - how much is art. While some dealers are watching the situation with optimism: they believe in hard economic times to best invest money in a work of art. That Taylor (Tot Taylor), director of the London gallery Riflemaker, which participates in the Fair Zoo, said that in September 2008 was the best month in its history. «We are working with those who have never bought a work of art. Perhaps they think that the arts - this is exactly what you need to buy at the moment ». At the Zoo gallery Riflemaker will present two paintings 28-year-old artist Francesca Lowe (Francesca Lowe) at a price of 25 thousand pounds each. Taylor said that over the past two years the price of its work grew by 10 times. Other dealers, such as the Rachel Lehmann (Rachel Lehmann) of the New York gallery Lehmann Maupin, no hope for «young so early» buyers. Last year at the stand were presented to the gallery a few graphic works, which usually attracts novice collectors, but this year, Lehmann bets on museums and private foundations, which must be before the end of the year to spend the budget money allocated for the purchase of new works in the collection. To this end, it commissioned a major work of its artists.

By the Frieze Fair in conjunction several major auctions. October 17 in London will be Sotheby's with «skulls» Andy Warhol (Andy Warhol) , October 18 - Phillips c 7-meter-high sculpture of Takashi Murakami (Takashi Murakami), and October 19 - Christie ' s in «Portrait Henrietta Moraes» Francis Bacon (Francis Bacon) . It was expected that bidding will be about 107 million pounds (183 million dollars). Some analysts fear that these auctions may repeat the fate of the recent Hong Kong auction Sotheby's, which had 142 million dollars - half of all estimeyta. On the other hand, at the October auction in London, exhibited works are not just artists from around the world, but this superstar, «heavyweight» art market - and in such work is safest to invest: perhaps they are down in price, but only slightly, and the cost will always be. Moreover, as noted by the London dealer Thomas Dein (Thomas Dane), auctions and galleries all the same things. In the galleries are less inclined to «blow» prices for fashionable artists to immense sizes, as do speculators at public auction. Therefore, it is possible that the exhibition will take place quietly and remain satisfied, at least as far as possible in the current situation.

Material prepared Yulia Maksimova

Sources: Bloomberg.com , online.wsj.com , friezeartfair . com , artinvestment.ru