EGN NEWS DESK
Just 5 years in the past, it was an art-world article of religion that festivals have been the engine of the market. Serious collectors went on world artwork jaunts from Miami and Paris, to Venice and Basel, Switzerland, and attendance at elite artwork showcases might be counted on 12 months after 12 months.
TEFAF Maastricht, the European Fine Art Foundation’s annual March truthful, marked the normal celebratory kickoff to the spring season. It drew round 70,000 guests a 12 months, in line with TEFAF information, to a Dutch metropolis with cobbled streets, and Roman ruins and castles on the banks of the Maas River, for museum high quality artwork and antiques, simply because the tulips have been starting to bloom.
Covid modified all that, when TEFAF grew to become the primary truthful in March 2020 to undergo the rapid affect of the pandemic, which might quickly convey your complete cycle to a halt. It shut its doorways midway by means of the occasion, attendance dropped to 26,000, and a few attendees went dwelling contaminated with the virus.
Ever since, TEFAF and different festivals have confronted a reworking market, as Instagram and on-line artwork sellers like Artsy and Artnet threatened to displace bodily showcases. It didn’t assist that when Maastricht hosted its subsequent in-person version in June 2022, it suffered a jewellery heist in broad daylight.
As the 2024 version of TEFAF opens to the general public on March 9, the truthful’s organizers and exhibitors hope to maneuver previous these vexing years, and show that there’s no substitute for a real-life luxurious truthful, the place guests view objects and have interaction in discussions that may assist information their accumulating decisions.
“We know that the world has modified,” mentioned Hidde van Seggelen, the truthful’s chairman, who runs a gallery in Hamburg, Germany. “We felt for some time that on-line can be the answer, however everyone knows now that it’s completely not. If you need to see the actual factor, you must come, and contact, expertise, and speak to folks. Art is a folks enterprise.”
Some 50,000 guests are anticipated to reach on the MECC conference middle in Maastricht for the truthful, in line with TEFAF’s estimates, amongst them about 300 museum administrators and 650 curators, in addition to 30 or 40 museum patron teams. They’ll be capable to go to about 270 exhibitors from 21 nations, ready to showcase 7,000 years price of artwork, jewellery, furnishings and different treasures.
The excessive values of works headed to this 12 months’s truthful sign, to Mr. van Seggelen, that sellers are simply as desperate to take part. They embody a Vincent van Gogh portrait priced at $4.95 million; Artemisia Gentileschi’s “The Penitent Magdalene,” for upward of $5 million; 4 volumes of John James Audubon’s uncommon e book, “Birds of America,” priced at $12.5 million; and a Wassily Kandinsky portray supplied by the artwork seller Robert Landau at an undisclosed worth, that may exceed $50 million, he mentioned.
“TEFAF continues to be the largest place of change for the world’s nice museums, the highest collectors and the most effective sellers,” mentioned Mr. van Seggelen. “Travel has normalized and collectors are coming, and for that motive, individuals are bringing actually high objects to the truthful.”
Will Korner, TEFAF’s head of festivals, mentioned there’s no query that festivals must show their relevance to sellers, who’re going through rising journey prices, in addition to inflation, whereas additionally observing the success of on-line gross sales. Before the pandemic, he mentioned, it was “assumed” that the most effective galleries would “do the large festivals within the massive locations,” however now TEFAF can’t take that without any consideration.
“We really feel that we now have to remain on the high of the sport,” he mentioned. “We can not relaxation on our laurels, as a result of the dynamics have modified for festivals. There is a smaller pool of galleries on the earth which can be completely superb at what they try this have the time and assets to do festivals, and that’s affecting each truthful now.”
War, political upheaval and scrutiny of the artwork commerce over its dealing with of looted and colonial artwork, have additionally made festivals factors of further controversy. Mr. Korner has initiated the TEFAF Summit, on March 11, which can function discussions on such subjects with the World Monuments Fund, Cultural Emergency Response and the Netherlands’ Commission for UNESCO.
This 12 months’s truthful will probably be three days shorter than earlier editions. Last 12 months, TEFAF performed a survey of its taking part artwork sellers, asking what they’d change, and greater than three-quarters responded that the truthful was too lengthy.
“The purchasers or potential patrons present up for the previews, or the primary day or the second day,” mentioned Stephane Danant, co-owner of the Paris-based design gallery Demisch Danant. “We do solely like 0.02 p.c of our gross sales in that following week. I feel one week will probably be way more environment friendly. The incontrovertible fact that will probably be extra dense, extra focus, will probably be higher for the commerce.”
Mr. Korner additionally felt it was vital to ascertain a brand new draw for collectors who is likely to be much less conversant in sure artists or types.
That led to the institution of a brand new part, referred to as TEFAF Focus, wherein 10 galleries every arrange a smaller stand devoted fully to a single artist or idea.
London’s Bowman Sculpture gallery, for instance, will create a sales space at Focus that will probably be devoted to Auguste Rodin sculptures, together with a small model of his bronze “The Thinker,” certainly one of six identified casts the artist comprised of 1903 to 1914, priced at $7.5 million.
Attracting the correct mix of latest patrons and skilled collectors is essential to conserving TEFAF related for years to come back, Mr. Korner added. There’s little doubt that the big-ticket objects are a part of the attraction.
The multimillion-dollar Kandinsky, an summary panorama, “Blick auf Murnau mit Kirche II,” or “View of Murnau with Church 2,” is probably going to attract a crowd, each for its aesthetic attraction and for its extraordinary historical past.
Painted in 1910, it was a part of a group of Modernist work owned by the Jewish household of Johanna Margarethe and Siegbert Samuel Stern, however was looted by the Nazis.
For a long time after the struggle, it hung within the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, earlier than the Dutch state — after two restitution claims — returned it to the household’s heirs. They bought it at public sale a 12 months in the past for about $45 million, to Mr. Landau. He mentioned in an interview that he wouldn’t promote it for lower than $50 million, however wouldn’t identify his worth.
“The Maastricht truthful is essential to us, and it’s a wonderful truthful; we’ve been going for 25 years,” mentioned Mr. Landau. “We’re not taking the portray to Maastricht out of respect to Maastricht, we’re taking the portray to Maastricht out of respect for the portray.”
The New Orleans-based artwork seller Bill Rau is bringing van Gogh’s 1884 portrait “Tête de Paysanne à la Coiffe Blanche” (“Head of a peasant lady with a white cap”), a portrait painted one 12 months earlier than certainly one of his well-known works, “The Potato Eaters,” and in the same type.
Although he has by no means exhibited on the truthful earlier than, Mr. Rau feels that TEFAF is the most effective setting for him to supply the portray, due to the truthful’s intensive vetting course of.
“The quantity of paperwork and analysis that they require us to convey is mind-boggling,” he mentioned.
Mr. Rau mentioned that he’s satisfied that real-world festivals have been nonetheless vital to the market. “What I’ve found about TEFAF is that being there brings objects way more status,” he added. “People say, ‘Oh, you’re going to TEFAF?’ In truth, we’ve already bought quite a few items as a result of we have been planning to take them to TEFAF. So now we’ll have the prospect to convey one thing else.”
