TEFAF is back!

“We are delighted to have the opportunity to bring together the world’s major art collectors and enthusiasts in an environment where they can exchange, appreciate and immerse themselves in Art History like nowhere else on the planet“. Hidde van Seggelen, Executive Chairman of TEFAF.

After the prematurely shortened 2020 edition and a cancellation last year (leaving an exclusively online event), the prestigious and eagerly awaited The European Fine Art Fair is making a comeback. Usually hosted in March, this year the TEFAF is scheduled for the last week in June, a key period in the global art market calendar, just a week after Art Basel and a few days before Masterpiece London. The 35th edition of the TEFAF has been programmed for a shorter than usual period (3 days less), with a reduced number of exhibitors, but still very carefully selected. Nearly 242 international galleries will be present at the MECC (Maastricht Exhibition & Congress Centre) – including 21 first time participants, compared with 286 galleries two years earlier. For the majority, it represents a ‘return’ after two years of sales concluded almost exclusively online. Directly inspired by these online activities, a series of live conferences featuring collectors and art experts will be one of the major novelties of this 35th edition.

French and British galleries will be relatively dominant this year representing almost half of the international exhibitors, with 53 and 57 galleries respectively. The “showcase” participants consist of five young French galleries and one from London.

One fair… three perspectives

Artprice has selected three galleries – all of which participated in last year’s online edition – to share with you exclusively the treasures that will soon be presented on their TEFAF booth:

Galerie Piacenti
London
5th participation

Portrait of Giovanni Battista Belzoni, 1822. Oil on canvas, cm 55 x 44.8

For its 5th participation, the Piacenti gallery, specializing in European painting and sculpture from the 14th to the 20th century, will be presenting a striking portrait of Giovanni Battista Belzoni by an as yet unknown artist. Belzoni was an Italian explorer and pioneer archaeologist of Egyptian antiquities, who in 1818, was the first person to enter the Pyramid of Khafre (Chefren) at Giza (where his signature is still visible). According to an inscription on the back, the portrait was painted in 1822, exactly two centuries ago and just one year before the subject’s death. Belzoni’s adventurous life gave rise to numerous books and even comics and is commonly considered a source of inspiration for George Lucas in the creation of his famous Indiana Jones character.
To acquire this masterpiece you will need a budget of around €120,000.

The duo that runs the Piacenti Gallery has high expectations for the upcoming edition of TEFAF. Emmanuele Piacenti tells us that “the pandemic has accelerated certain processes already underway and forced many cultural operators to reinvent themselves, but the art market in the past two years has never stopped. Moreover, the thrill of admiring a work of art in person is irreplaceable and Tefaf will finally be an opportunity to meet collectors, scholars and colleagues in person again”.

Galerie Pauline Pavec
Paris
2nd participation

“Despite the fact that the organizers have decided to reduce the duration of this 2022 edition, we are very enthusiastic about the idea of presenting our artists at TEFAF, because it remains for us the most important international fair”. Pauline Pavec, gallery director.

For its second physical participation (the first was exclusively online) the Pauline Pavec gallery (invited to the ‘Showcase’ section) will be presenting the work of two artists: Jacques PRÉVERT with his colorful Éphémérides from the 1950s/60s, and Jacqueline LAMBA (1910-1993) with her Surrealist/Abstract works from the 1960s/80s.

Lamba’s canvas Ciel Noir is a major work painted in 1985 and comes directly from the artist’s estate with whom the gallery is pleased to collaborate. A key works in the gallery’s presentation, the painting, one of Lamba’s last creations, may be regarded as one of the best examples of her research into landscapes and clouds. The work is being offered in a range of €30,000 to $50,000 and is apparently already eliciting much interest.

Ciel Noir, 1985 Oil on canvas cm 124×146, Photo by Charles Maze

Bartha Contemporary Gallery
London
2nd participation

The Bartha Gallery, also invited to the ‘Showcase’ section, has chosen to show the work of three contemporary artists: Jill Baroff (1954), Clay Ketter (1961) and Susan Morris (1962).
The works shown are the product of extensive research and are made using various media. The sources for some of these works are at the intersection between science and art, using information derived from Big Data. Meanwhile, all the works include a temporal element and are shaped by natural phenomena.

Jill Baroff’s hand-made drawings on Japanese gampi actually plot tidal data , which the artist sources on internet. Like fingerprints of geographic locations and highly sensitive to atmospheric changes, these works illustrate the movement of water around the planet. Determined by periodic changes in gravitational forces, geology and the atmosphere, they are visual representations of continuous fluctuations that otherwise go largely unnoticed.

Tide Drawing, Hurricane Isaias, 2021 Ink on Japanese gampi mounted on cotton rag 81 x 81 cm Copyright Jill Baroff Studio, Courtesy Bartha Contemporary Ltd. London

Susan Morris’s tapestries depict sound recordings modulated using algorithms or display data collected using an ‘actiwatch’, a tool employed by chronobiologists. The artist arranges the data according to principles set out by scientific methodology or structures outlined by John Cage in his “Lecture on Nothing”. The computerized data was then entered into the first binarily programmed industrial machine, a Metier Jacquard (Jacquard Machine) which then produces these sensual tapestries.

Silence (Project for a Library) No 1 to 6, 2020 Jacquard tapestry, Cotton, Silk and Polyester yarn Edition 2 of 3 Each 63 x 88.5 cm Copyright Susan Morris Studio, Courtesy Bartha Contemporary Ltd. London

On closer examination, the abstract appearance of Clay Ketter’s photographs reveals their source in the real world. Capturing moments between the unstoppable forces of nature and subsequent human redevelopment, they depict the remains of holiday homes swept away by Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast of the United States. Made using an analogue camera without any digital manipulation, the images in these photographs suggest a contemporary version of the disaster that befell Pompeii in 79 a.d.

Miramar 3, 2007 C-Print Diasec Unique (Printed in 2022) 215 x 178 cm Copyright Clay Ketter Studio, Courtesy Bartha Contemporary Ltd. London

Niklas and Daniela von Bartha are very enthusiastic about exhibiting again after so long: “Covid has changed the outlook for galleries and underscores the importance of the online business, particularly for galleries like ours that represent contemporary artists. We get the impression there is a real interest in experiencing art fairs again, although clients have generally become far more selective when choosing which events they want to travel to, a factor that highlights the importance of TEFAF as a leading platform that captures the imagination of clients from all fields of art”.

The Bartha Gallery also expressed enormous enthusiasm about returning to the fair in the future.

Behind Art Basel, TEFAF remains the 2nd largest art fair on the international art market. Although clearly marked by the scale-backs that affected the previous two editions, the enthusiasm of its participants as the opening of the 35th edition approaches does not appear to have diminished. The art world’s key players are clearly delighted to have an opportunity to meet and exchange in the company of so many masterpieces, some presented exclusively for this event. But it nevertheless remains to be seen whether all of the art world’s major players will be manage to participate in this year’s somewhat concentrated calendar of major art fairs!