The Fair Unseen Amsterdam Declares Bankruptcy After Key Backers Pull Out

The organizers of the Dutch photo art fair Unseen Amsterdam have
declared bankruptcy after losing a partner and key financial
support in recent years. The fair confirmed the bankruptcy to
Artnet News but was not able to provide further details. It is not
yet clear whether the young fair, which has been taking place since
2012, will find a way to reboot in some new form next fall.

The international contemporary photography platform’s
international arm, its media arm, and the fair are all bankrupt,
while the Unseen Foundation, its independently-run charity, remains
standing. The fair was hosted in a historic former gasworks
factory, Westergasfabriek in the Dutch capital each September.
According to organizers, last year’s edition attracted around
25,000 visitors in 2019 and hosted 52 galleries.

The news comes as a surprise considering the positive note on
which the last iteration ended last autumn. “This year’s edition of
Unseen Amsterdam has been a great success,” artistic director
Maurina Paulenka boasted in a statement at the time. “Every element
of the programme has thrived over the past three days.”
International fair participants included Gallery 1957 from Accra,
Ghana, and Zilberman Gallery from Berlin and Istanbul.

Unseen Platform, the umbrella for the four ancillaries, was
founded by the Amsterdam photography museum Foam, the Vandejong
Creative Agency, and the agency Platform A in 2011. According to
the Dutch newspaper Volksrant, the
fair suffered a considerable setback in 2017 when Foam pulled out
of the partnership. That same year, its two backers, BankGiro
Lottery and the Blockbuster Fund, both withdrew their financial
support. With that, the fair’s fate was apparently sealed, although
it managed to ride out the turbulence for a few more editions.

Willemijn de Vries, coordinator of the Blockbuster Fund, told
Volksrant that the investors could not see the possibility
for growth in any platform that only lasted for three days a year.
The BankGiro Lottery had donated a total of €3.3 million ($3.6
million) between 2012 and 2017; the Blockbuster Fund lent a total
of almost €1.4 million ($1.5 million) to Unseen fair in that same
time period. De Vries told Volksrant that all the loans to
Unseen have been repaid.

Fair curator Angelina Bakker told the Dutch newspaper that she
hopes a reboot will still be possible. Bakker added that the fair
was in talks with “interested” parties. For now, it remains
unclear whether the upcoming edition, which is set to take place on
September 18 to 20, will go ahead.

The post The Fair Unseen Amsterdam Declares Bankruptcy After
Key Backers Pull Out appeared first on artnet News.