Sunday read: How to make the most of art fairs

Got this from a friend? Click here and join up . No Images? [Click here]( 'The Exile According To The Elder' by Athi-Patra Ruga (est. £20,000-30,000) goes on view as part of the Modern & Contemporary African Art at Sotheby's on 23 March 2018 in London, England. (Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Sotheby's) Dear {NAME}, In May 2018, a Pulitzer Prize winner and US art critic Jerry Saltz wrote a piece for Vulture titled: A Modest Proposal, Break the Art Fair. In it, he pointed out that art fairs benefit only “those at the very top more than anyone else, and this gap is only growing”. Yet, the number of art fairs around the world has grown from 55 in 2000 to more than 260 in 2018, says the Art Basel and UBS Art Market 2019 report. And closer to home, in September, not one but[two art fairs](will be opening their doors in Johannesburg to galleries, buyers, curators and visitors interested in works by South African artists from local galleries, studios and institutions. That’s not all: a multitude of other smaller exhibitions, fringe fairs and festivals that serve as a meeting place to connect buyers and sellers are popping up across the country. Always wanted to invest in art but never quite knew where to start? In this newsletter, we tell you (almost) everything you need to know to make the most of an art fair. “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” Pablo Picasso 'Harvest Scrolls' by Alexander Skunder Boghossian (Left) (Estimated 30,000 - 50,000 GBP) and 'Zebra Crossing 2' by El Anatsui (Middle) (Estimated 550,000 - 750,000 GBP) and 'Preparation of Incense - Zr Ceremony' by Kamala Ibrahim Ishaq (Right) (Estimated 70,000 - 90,000 GBP) on view at Sotheby's on March 29, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Michael Bowles/Getty Images for Sotheby's) The art of the fair Give me the background… In an interview with the Washington Post, Jamie Smith, an art historian and co-founder of Washington’s (e)merge art fair, explained that “fairs […] harken back to the late 15th century, when a group of Flemish artists set up stalls near the Antwerp cathedral to hawk their wares”. A-ha. And today? Art fairs are primarily a marketplace, the convergence between galleries, artists and possible buyers and collectors. I’m neither of those. Can I still attend? Absolutely. But you should know that although fairs are a great opportunity to keep up with what’s happening in the art world, and even spark informal business conversations, they are all about commerce, in contrast to simple exhibitions. But are they not there to enjoy the art? Well, sort of. Some say it’s great to have so many artists’ works and galleries under one roof; it’s like eye candy, a real spectacle. Some say it’s impossible to appreciate the art because it is a spectacle – or even a “circus”; it’s often crammed with people, there’s too much noise and artworks are clustered tightly together. What’s the buzz then? Depends: if you’re interested in buying, it is a good place to see what’s happening, get a snapshot of emerging and established artists’ work, and visit galleries you might never have seen before. It’ll also save you time: galleries are just booths apart. Is it important for galleries? Oh, yes. Depending on the size and prominence of the art fair, gallerists and art dealers will work for months before the event, sometimes hiring architects and lighting experts to help them conceptualise the best and most impactful booth possible. Impressed. You should be, as the stakes are high too: art fairs occupy prime estate in major megalopolises (think Regent’s Park for Frieze London) and the prices for booths can be mind-boggling. Add to the bill costs for the shipping of artworks, staff travel and hotel expenses, and the pressure on galleries just to cover the cost is real. Visitors viewing artwork at Art Basel on March 27, 2019 in Hong Kong, China. (Photo by Theodore Kaye/Getty Images) Is it a thing? Despite some heated debates between art critics around the world, it still is indeed! Maverick Life’s Nicole Williamson notes that, “According to the Art Basel and UBS Art Market 2019 report authored by Dr Clare McAndrew, founder of Art Economics, art fair sales were estimated to have reached $16.5-billion in 2018, indicating a 6% rise year-on-year, with art dealers reportedly spending an estimated $4.8-billion attending and exhibiting at fairs, which is 5% higher than in 2017. “Although the majority of art fairs, a total of 52%, were held in Europe in 2018, Africa and the Middle East contributed to 5% of the global art fair market.” [Read the full story here](. A visitor takes photos of an installation by Mit Jai Inn at Art Basel on March 27, 2019 in Hong Kong, China. (Photo by Theodore Kaye/Getty Images International Art English (IAE)… Wait, is this also a thing? It pains us to say so, but yes, it really is a thing. Back in 2013, David Levine, a US artist, and Alix Rule, a doctoral student in sociology at Columbia University, published in Triple Canopy [an in-depth essay]( after digging through piles of art press releases going back to 1999 and indexing English art jargon from around the world. Here is a brief extract from their essay: “The language we use for writing about art is oddly pornographic: We know it when we see it. […] “IAE has a distinctive lexicon: aporia, radically, space, proposition, biopolitical, tension, transversal, autonomy. An artist’s work inevitably interrogates, questions, encodes, transforms, subverts, imbricates, displaces — though often it doesn’t do these things so much as it serves to, functions to, or seems to (or might seem to) do these things. IAE rebukes English for its lack of nouns: Visual becomes visuality, global becomes globality, potential becomes potentiality, experience becomes … experiencability”. Brain orgasm, anyone? 'Why Should I Hesitate: Putting Drawings to Work' by William Kentridge at the Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa (Image courtesy of the Zeitz MOCAA) Money talk $53,000 (about R806,000, probably more tomorrow): A 60-square-meter booth at Art Basel $125,000 (about R1.9 million): A large booth at New York Frieze [$350]( (over R5,300): The price allegedly paid by a gallerist to have an electric socket installed at the Armory Show, “the International Exhibition of Modern Art” R58,000: A 29-square-meter art-platform at the 2018 FNB Joburg Art Fair Between R1,500 and R2,400: One square meter at the 2018 Investec Cape Town Art Fair 'Why Should I Hesitate: Putting Drawings to Work' by William Kentridge at the Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa (Image courtesy of the Zeitz MOCAA) Art investment Want to start your own collection but not so sure about art fairs? Maverick Life’s Malibongwe Tyilo speaks to two South African curators: “The buzz around contemporary African art has exploded over the last two decades, and so have the opportunities to get into the game and start building your own art collection. Where to begin? Who should you speak to? How do you decide what to invest in?” [Watch the video and read the full story here.]( Pin it [FNB Art Joburg]( 13-15 September 2019, Sandton Convention Centre [Cape town Investec Art Fair]( 14-16 February 2020, Cape Town Convention Centre [1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair]( 22-23 February 2020, Marrakesh [Turbine Art Fair]( July 2019 [The Venice Biennale]( until November 24th 2019 [Art Dubai]( 25-28 March 2020, Dubai Mighty words “The reason that art fairs have become so important has to do with the shifting demographics of wealth. Wealth is more and more in the hands of people who are working, rather than those who’ve inherited it.” Marc Spiegler, global director of Art Basel "I'm the first one to break this rule because I go for glam over pain, but high heels at fairs really kill." Maria Brito, art advisor to P. Diddy and Gwyneth Paltrow Also on [Maverick Life]( ART: William Kentridge captures history, ‘putting drawings to work’ in Cape Town On the 24th and 25th of August, Why Should I Hesitate: Sculpture and Why Should I Hesitate: Putting Drawings to Work, the largest exhibition of William Kentridge’s work on African soil, opens simultaneously at the Norval Foundation and the Zeitz MOCAA. [Watch the interview here.]( ART: New Beginnings: Three new platforms in a revamped Joburg Art Week The second week of September will be bursting with new attractions for art enthusiasts. [Read more here.]( LIFE: Hues & Blues – The darkness and light that colour brings to great television Colour and tone have come to play a key role in some of the best television dramas, alongside the actors; hues, light and shade are used the way a painter uses them – to add drama, to bring down the mood, to lift the spirit. Look at Chernobyl, and at The Handmaid’s Tale, as among the best examples of how an exceptional eye for colour can take something really good and make it even better. To read the story, [click here](. LIFE: The Gene Genie – Family tree and genetic data privacy In April 2018, genetic genealogy helped solve the case of the ‘Golden State Killer’, behind at least 50 rapes, 13 murders and 100 burglaries in California, US, committed over a decade in the 1970s and 1980s. How did they do it? Authorities used DNA samples collected on the scene, a free genealogy and DNA database called GEDMatch, and a simple family tree. [Read Emilie Gambade's story here](. LIFE: Last week in pictures – 24 August 2019 This week, Kalk Bay, the small suburb in Cape Town, is ranked in the world’s top twelve coolest neighbourhoods according to a report in Forbes Magazine and a traditional tomato fight, "Tomatina", takes place in St. Petersburg Russia. [Enjoy our gallery of images here.]( Copyright © 2019 Daily Maverick, All rights reserved. You are receiving this mail because you are awesome and on the Maverick Life & Books subscriber list. Getting too many emails from us? Click "Preferences" below to manage your newsletter list. "Unsubscribe" removes from all newsletters. [Preferences]( | [Unsubscribe](