Advisor: Thinking Outside the Booth

By: Sallie Brady

December 2007

Remember the old days when the only guide you needed at an art fair was that of the fair floor? Now, you not only need a GPS to find obscure satellite fairs and galleries without signs in dodgy warehouse districts, but it seems as if you need a social secretary to help you schedule your every move on the ground.

As Art Basel Miami Beach gears up this month, collectors will again be reminded of how competitive the art world has become and that much of the business of fairs these days takes place beyond the convention hall floor at private dinners with artists, exclusive gallery events, curatorial lectures and all the other happenings that are now part of the international fair-going experience. To learn how to make the most of your fair visit, we talked to art world professionals who shared their strategies.

CONNECT BEFORE THE FAIR. "I was just talking to a curator who was trying to make a plan of attack for Miami," says Helen Allen, founder and director of the PULSE Miami fairs in New York and London. "And a couple of days ago, a collector told me she was doing the same." Surprising? No, except that this was in mid-August, months ahead of the December fairs.

Courtney Plummer, the director of Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York, says serious collectors do need to be organized. She suggests that they talk to their favorite galleries before they attend a fair and request images of pieces the gallery will be bringing, or at least ask for a list of artists who will be on view. "I work with about 20 collectors who want to see images before a fair," says Plummer, who shows at both Art Basel fairs, Frieze, the Armory Show and the ADAA Art Show.

Citing the blur of activity that happens in the booth, Plummer also suggests that new collectors make an appointment to visit one of Lehmann’s two New York galleries if they are in town, outside of the fair. "That way, we can look at images together, cultivate opinions and taste, get to know each other," she says. "That’s a luxury we don’t have at the fairs."

ARRIVE EARLY. When the days leading up to a fair are booked solid with VIP events, collectors know that coming ahead of time can be more productive than staying late. The early bird also catches the first buzz on what’s new, what’s hot (and what’s not) from the art world’s movers and shakers who will be out in force before the first champagne bottle is popped at the vernissage. "It all happens in the first five minutes," says Plummer.

CREATE A STRATEGY. "When we started PULSE Miami in 2005, we were the fourth show," says Allen. "This year there will be 17." Now combine that with a 9 a.m. to 1 a.m. agenda of installation openings, museum events, VIP collector home visits and parties, and it’s conceivable that you might not even make it to Art Basel Miami Beach.

"It’s not the kind of thing that you go into blind," says New York–based interior designer Carl Lana, who with his design partner, Randall Beale, schedules to attend all the major contemporary fairs. With some of the country’s top art collectors as clients, the Lana-Beale duo—who themselves collect photography, works on fabric, works on paper and antiques—attack the fairs with military precision. "We get there early and do the VIP thing because we want to be at the events with artists and other young collectors like ourselves," says Lana. "We spend one day at the main fair, more for research and reference, to see who the galleries have found in the past year and what the internationals are showing," says Beale. "Then we split up with our camera phones and hit the satellite shows. There’s a certain pecking order. Some are very experimental. You have to have a sense of what is legitimate.""If I see something, I call Randall, send him a picture and might put it on reserve," explains Lana. "I’ll do the same for a client in New York. Even if they’re not ready to make the move yet, they like the fact that we’ve discovered an artist that they should consider."

KEEP THE SCHEDULE BLANK. When Connecticut architect Roger Ferris, a passionate collector of works by artists like Eric Fischl, Jenny Holzer and Damien Hirst, attends the fairs, he leaves his datebook at home. "I’m loath to attend the collateral events that are more social," he says. "You need to be well-rested to take the fair in. The experience of going from booth to booth is exhilarating. You get your spirits up and then get dumped. It’s a roller-coaster ride." Ferris is careful to leave evenings open for dinners with artists, which, he says, gallerists frequently arrange at the last minute because "artists are often reclusive carpet beetles. If it’s impromptu, they’ll show up."

WORK THE LECTURE CIRCUIT. Twenty-five years ago, London dealer and now famed fair organizer Brian Haughton and his wife, Anna, had the genius to create a ceramics fair with an academic component: lectures. "We wanted the best dealers, showing the best items, with the world’s top curators in attendance," says Brian Haughton. The museum professionals did not come just to shop but also to exchange original research in the seminars which are open to the public, creating an exciting climate for the porcelain collector. Today London’s International Ceramics Fair & Seminar is one of the most convivial fairs, where even new collectors can rub elbows with curators from the Louvre and Victoria & Albert museums and readily establish relationships with the category’s top dealers.

GO CLUBBING. And then what happens when those collectors of soft-paste French porcelain find one another at the annual ceramics fair? They form a club. The French Porcelain Society, the English Ceramic Circle and other collecting clubs will typically schedule their annual dinners to coincide with their major fair. Join a collecting club, and you’ll benefit from your fellow members’ wisdom and expertise at navigating shows. Museum clubs such as the Whitney Young Contemporaries or MoMA’s Junior Associates have groups that travel to the major fairs. Journey with them and you’ll typically receive a curator-led VIP tour and collecting advice.

MEET THE ARTISTS. More than ever, artists are showing up at fairs, not just to check out the huge concentration of art but to meet their collectors. At PULSE Miami this year, fair-goers will be able to buy art not from a dealer, but directly from the artist at Geisai Miami, the first American branch of a fair model that Japanese artist Takashi Murakami founded six years ago in Japan. Unlike the 1,000 emerging artists who might be found at Geisai Tokyo, the Miami launch will feature 20.

As Lana and Beale have learned, meeting an artist can result in getting first crack at new pieces, conceiving exciting commissions and forging enduring relationships. The designers discovered glass artist Rob Wynne, who shows at Scope Miami. Since then, the couple has commissioned numerous pieces from Wynne, including a hand-poured, 13-foot mirrored-glass installation to illuminate a hallway. Twenty-eight-year-old Argentinean artist Santiago Rubino’s pen-and-ink drawings were another find. The team included Rubino and Wynne’s works in a much-praised, art-filled Kips Bay Showhouse installation, which ended up photographed in The New York Times this past April.

AND IF YOU ONLY HAVE TWO DAYS... "I would use one for the fair and the other for galleries," says Plummer, describing the method she applies if her time is limited when visiting fairs like Maco Mexico or Art Moscow. "I hear collectors who say, ‘I’m going to the main three and then I’ll wait to hear the word on the street about the others,’" Allen reports. But if you’re looking for emerging artists, you might want to work in reverse, focusing on the satellites.Fair veterans also recommend hooking up with an expert who can quickly edit the fair for you, either an art advisor, a curator from your local museum who might be attending or even a specialist from one of the auction houses. "Arrange to meet them at a place where you can think and relax, like those phenomenal restaurant cafés that you find at the fairs these days," says Plummer, "or a fantastically curated video lounge, like ours at PULSE Miami, where you’ll also get inspired."

"The buzz, the noise of a fair can be stimulating and exciting," says Ferris. "Most museums are viewed in silence." But that din can be overwhelming in a brief visit. If you need more time to think through a purchase, "take a card," says Ferris. "A lot of business takes place once the fair is over."

MIAMI EVENTS
Aqua Art Miami, Dec. 5–9
aquaartmiami.com

Art Basel Miami Beach, Dec. 6–9
212.627.1654 artbaselmiamibeach.com

Design Miami, Dec. 7–9
305.572.0866 designmiami.com

flow, Dec. 5–9
216.990.3349 flowfair.com

Miami Beach Art Photo Expo, Dec. 2–9
305.407.2855 artphotoexpo.com

New Art Dealers Alliance Art Fair, Dec. 5–9
212.594.0883

photo Miami, Dec. 5–10
323.937.4659 artfairsinc.com

PULSE Miami and Geisai Miami, Dec. 5–9
212.225.2327 pulse-art.com

Scope Miami, Dec. 6–9
scope-art.com

The AIPAD Photography Show, Dec. 5–9
aipad.com/photoshow