Along the Beach

Fran Kauf­man

Fol­low­ing Miami Inter­na­tional Art Fair, IFAE will orga­nize Art Palm Beach from Jan­u­ary 15 to 19, at the Palm Beach County Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. The show presents mod­ern and con­tem­po­rary art, design and pho­tog­ra­phy. Rid­ing high on last year’s unprece­dented suc­cess, and sus­tained inter­est in con­tem­po­rary art among investors and art col­lec­tors world­wide, Palm Beach 2010 offers an even more com­pelling, multi-disciplined exhi­bi­tion of mod­ern and con­tem­po­rary art designed to appeal to both sea­soned and novice collectors.

Those of us who travel the world­wide art fair cir­cuit have noted that sales at the mid-level of the mar­ket remain active despite recent tur­moil in the global finan­cial mar­kets. This is great news for the inter­na­tional deal­ers at Palm Beach as our fair has reported con­sis­tent robust sales. That’s due in part to the “mag­i­cal geog­ra­phy” of Palm Beach and its ultra-affluent sea­sonal pop­u­la­tion, but also to the qual­ity of the art brought to Palm Beach each year. Sales are always strong because this fair is one where deal­ers can spend qual­ity time with their clients. “…Palm Beach is a well-organized show that has clar­ity, good deal­ers, and good art,” says Michael Goed­huis, New York gallery owner and long-time exhibitor. “It’s that sim­ple. And it’s a refresh­ing exam­ple of an event that has been able to steer away from being fash­ion­able first, like Basel, and focus on sell­ing well-constructed art.”

In addi­tion to qual­ity art­work, Palm Beach fea­tures a strong spe­cial exhi­bi­tions pro­gram: a high-profile lec­ture series that includes inter­na­tion­ally renowned museum direc­tors, col­lec­tors, and crit­ics as fea­tured speak­ers; and a VIP pro­gram with off-site col­lec­tor events at venues that include col­lec­tor homes, the Break­ers, and the unique Ann Nor­ton Sculp­ture Gar­dens. This year we devel­oped and launched two new pro­grams at the fair, includ­ing a cura­tor pro­gram designed to attract more noted art pro­fes­sion­als nation­wide, and have con­firmed par­tic­i­pa­tion from cura­tors at the Asia Soci­ety in New York, the Katonah Museum of Art in New York, and the Akron Art Museum in Ohio, among oth­ers. Our designer com­mit­tee, also new this year, includes top-level inte­rior design­ers, such as inter­na­tion­ally known Juan Mon­toya, who also par­tic­i­pates in fair pro­gram­ming. Addi­tion­ally, we have strength­ened our Florida Museum Part­ner Pro­gram to bring even more groups of their top col­lec­tors to shop the fair. We now have close to 20 par­tic­i­pat­ing insti­tu­tions, includ­ing the Wolf­son­ian, MOCA, Viz­caya muse­ums in Miami, Naples Museum of Art, and the Nor­ton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach.
The fair con­tin­ues focus­ing on the major dis­ci­plines of con­tem­po­rary art, pho­tog­ra­phy, and design within a sin­gle fair, which makes Palm Beach unique, and pro­vides a con­text for under­stand­ing the rapidly chang­ing and increas­ingly inter­dis­ci­pli­nary con­tem­po­rary art world. In closely fol­low­ing the impor­tant trends in the global art mar­ket, we show­case only the best in con­tem­po­rary art—ranging from museum-quality works by artists such as Ger­hard Richter and Robert Rauschen­berg, to pre­mier works by estab­lished mid-career artists as well as the lat­est from emerg­ing artists. Last year’s fair fea­tured 96 gal­leries from 16 coun­tries, broke all prior atten­dance records with more than 25,000 vis­i­tors, and received the most far-reaching and pos­i­tive press in its his­tory. We are con­fi­dent that the 2010 fair will con­tinue that demon­strated tra­di­tion of success