Art16, London’s springtime Modern and contemporary fair, has undergone substantial changes over the past two years, including a move to the smaller Olympia National hall and an abrupt change in directorship. Nathan Clements-Gillespie, the former director of external affairs for Macro, Rome’s Museum of Contemporary Art, takes the reins following Kate Bryan’s departure last year after just one edition.
A more streamlined version launched Thursday night, 19 May, with 100 galleries from 33 countries, down from 135 galleries last year. “People tell me how exciting it is to see galleries that are not on the traditional fair circuit,” Clements-Gillespie says.
Some of the strongest presentations come courtesy of the unconventional and non-profit projects. The Baghdad-based Ruya Foundation, which supports Iraqi artists, makes its debut this year with a bijoux display of works by 12 artists encompassing photography, ceramics, painting and textiles. “Exhibiting at Art16 is a lifeline for these artists, most of them have not exhibited internationally,” says Tamara Chalabi, the co-founder of the foundation. Dilan Abdin and Qasim Hamza are among the lesser-known names on the stand.
Independent UK dealers Julian Page and Joanna Bryant, who have no permanent space, are presenting a reproduction of the London-based artist Kostas Synodis’s 160cm-square, windowless sculpture studio—formerly a cupboard. The work of art is priced at £6,000. “Shortage of studio spaces and rising rents are challenges for which serious artists have to find solutions in increasingly inventive ways,” Bryant says.
Elsewhere, London’s Riflemaker gallery provides a photo opportunity for fairgoers with a giant oil and ink mural by Wolf von Lenkiewicz, priced at £160,000. The work, titled The Flower Women (2015), fuses Picasso with the Japanese “floating world” style of painting.
Prices at the fair range from £20 to £1m. There were not many sales at the top end on the first full day, but works priced for the lower and middle markets fared better. The Hungarian gallery Kálmán Makláry Fine Arts sold works by Suh Jeong-Min (£35,000) and François Fiedler (£50,000). Sundaram Tagore Gallery, which has spaces in Hong Kong, Singapore and the US sold two works by Kamolplan Chotvichai for around £10,000 each. The gallery is also showing a painting by Anselm Kiefer priced at $580,000.
Notable newcomers include First Floor Gallery Harare, which is part of the Emerge section, organised by Ikon Gallery director Jonathan Watkins. The gallery is showing paintings by the Zimbabwean artists Gresham Tapiwa Nyaude and Wycliffe Mundopa, whose feminist paintings won him the inaugural Villa Lena award. Prices on the stand range from £2,000 to £2,500.