Ed Winkleman has a good presentation on art fairs that he delivered at Sotheby’s Institute in May of 2014. The video is worth spending 15 minutes viewing or download the transcript below:
Art Fairs are having both a financial and a personal impact on the dealers. it’s shifting the culture from this genteel practice where you would wait for someone to come into your gallery or you would have this leisurely conversation with them, to one where you’re constantly on the road and everything is happening much more quickly.
The impact on artists is probably ten times worse in my opinion. At the fairs, the top metric of the success for any given artwork is whether it’s sold or not. And that starts to influence what artists give their galleries to take to the fairs. They want to be a success. They want the piece at the fair to sell.
