Bloomberg reports on postponed art fairs and belt-tightening among Russian collectors:
“As long as the price of oil stays low — and this looks to be the case for the next few years — then Russians won’t be able to spend the large sums of money on art like over the past few years,” said Emelyan Zakharov, a Russian art collector and owner of Triumph Gallery, a contemporary art gallery in Moscow.
- Geneva-based Art Culture Studio canceled the Moscow World Fine Art Fair planned for the last week of May. Last year, it brought to Moscow about 1 billion euros ($1.26 billion) of art from 70 international galleries.
- Art Moscow, one of Russia’s biggest contemporary-art fairs, has been postponed to September. The 13th Annual Art Moscow will now be timed to coincide with the state-run Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, which starts Sept. 24, said organizer Expo Park Exhibition Projects Ltd. Art Moscow was originally planned to open May 14. “By September, everyone will have gotten used to the new reality of the crisis,” said Vasily Bychkov, Expo Park’s general director. “Foreign galleries will be more willing to come to Art Moscow when they know it coincides with the Biennale, which attracts leading international curators and collectors.”
Moscow Art Fair Postponed as Russia’s Rich Curb Purchases (Bloomberg)