ended first Internet art fair VIP Art Fair ( from Engl. Viewing In Private - «look at home"). It was preceded by a large advertising campaign, the organizers managed to attract well-known galleries, visitors are promised two thousand works by 130 dealers from 30 countries worldwide. Started debriefing, and almost all dealers, collectors and journalists agreed that the fair is almost a failure. Blame - technical problems. A dealer said: "The idea of ​​you liked. It would be even better if it worked. " And one columnist even invented its own abbreviation VIP: «Very Inactive Page» - «a very inactive page».

Difficulties began already on the opening day when I woke up American collectors. Many visitors could not even load the homepage, dealers complained that they can not make changes to the lists of works or to show clients the individual works in virtual negotiation. Intermittently worked and instant messaging.

From Monday the site has earned better after a brief prevention. To speed up the function of communication had to be temporarily disabled. Fair organizers explained problems congested traffic. Total working at the fair have been viewed 7.65 million times.

London collector Tiku Atencio (Tiqui Atencio) compared these technical problems with the "cutting teeth": she had to wait two days to get to access the page, but when she did it, she found many good works.

Yet because of problems with many dealers trade was not very good. New York gallery Tsvirnera David (David Zwirner) on the first morning managed to sell an abstract bronze sculpture by Chris Ofili (Chris Ofili) «Mary Magdalene (infinity) for 375 thousand dollars, but then until Friday Ofili and was the only sold works. Gallery Tsvirnera on regular fairs rescued from sales of at least a million dollars. However, as noted Marketing Director Julia Joern (Julia Joern), a gallery on VIP Art Fair would likely attract new customers, not chase the number of transactions.

Chris Ofili Mary Magdalene (infinity) Bronze. Source: online.wsj.com

Until Friday, the New York Lehmann Maupin Gallery never sold any work. Co-founder of the gallery Rachel Lehmann (Rachel Lehmann) intends to require the organizers of partial compensation - a free pavilion on the future of the project or anything like that. This requirement is supported and Gallery Michael Werner, paid 20 thousand dollars for one of the largest virtual pavilions on the VIP Art Fair. Proposed in it for 225 thousand dollars a bronze sculpture of Thomas' House (Thomas Houseago), and on his work at Art Basel, Frieze, and FIAC is always a demand, remained unsold. On an ordinary fair this type of work would be sold to one of the first, say officials Werner.

Total collectors were invited to 50 works valued at over $ 1 million. But while that among those works for sale are known for certain, the most expensive is called "pear" Shtingelya Rudolf (Rudolf Stingel), which was asked for 500 thousand to 1 million dollars.

Author the idea of ​​online fairs James Cohan argues that those visitors who paid $ 100 for the first two days of the fair and did not have access, compensation already paid. As for compensation to dealers, the organizers of it while it is not reported. In general, Kohan says that everything went well and next year they are going to the fair again.

material was prepared by Maria Onuchina, AI

Sources: online.wsj.com , theartnewspaper.com , bloomberg.com , artinvestment.ru