Why the Swiss Fair Artgenève Is Expanding Once Again, This Time to Moscow

Despite a growing sense of
saturation when it comes to the number of art fairs
proliferating around the world, the small Swiss fair artgenève is
expanding next spring, setting its sights on Russia to launch a new
set of sister fairs, artmoscow and artmoscow/curated.

The added suffix denotes what fair organizers see as two
distinct but related commercial projects in Moscow. Starting in
2020, the fair will biannually organize an intimate curated
edition, debuting in the Russian capital in May at the Schusev
State Museum of Architecture. Then, in 2021, artmoscow (without the
suffix) will launch as a more traditional fair format—with more
“hermetic” booths, according to artgenève founding director Thomas
Hug—at Moscow’s historic Manège, just a stone’s throw from the Red
Square.

The Moscow event comes four years after the inception of another
edition of the fair in Monaco, artmonte-carlo. Each
fair tends to stick to what Hug has described as a “human scale,”
with participants hovering at around 80 galleries.

“There are a lot of art fairs that do not make sense; to run a
successful fair, you need to have the right cards in your hands,”
Hug tells Artnet News. One of those cards in artgenève’s deck is a
knack for opening in wealthy cities farther afield. “Destinations
like Geneva and Monaco work well because there are a lot of art
collectors, but there are not large bases of local galleries. That
means that there is a lot of positive potential for visiting
galleries,” he says.

The logic makes sense to me. Often enough on my own fair
circuit, I notice out-of-town dealers standing awkwardly at their
booths while local gallery directors clink champagne flutes and
give jovial hugs to their collectors, relaying details about an
opening they have timed to the fair.

What’s more, artmoscow seems determined not to exhaust
fairgoers, which is why it will rotate formats. The first
iteration of artmoscow/curated will be organized by Francesco
Stocchi from the Boijmans Museum and Samuel Gross from
the Schusev State Museum of Architecture. The two
have named their chapter of the curated fair “Flowing State,” which
will be largely focused on voluminous, inflatable art, as well as
light-based works. The pieces will be selected from 25
international galleries, and there is already a strong interest
from artists represented by dealers such as Kamel
Mennour, Massimo de Carlo, Emmanuel Perrotin, and Francesca
Pia.

Hug says the decision to alternate between a traditional fair
format and a more experimental one was also made out of respect to
established fairs in the area, such as Cosmoscow, which has been
operating annually since 2014 with a strong regional profile.

“It’s not a secret that there is buying power in Moscow,” Hug
says. “But with institutions such as Garage, V-A-C Foundation,
Pushkin Museum, or the New Hermitage, there is also an energetic
art scene and an understanding of contemporary art in the Russian
capital.”

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Again, This Time to Moscow appeared first on artnet
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