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19/4/2005

viennAfair

NewMessezentrum Wien, Wien

The International Art Fair FOCUSED ON CEE
All you need is art

Vienna to host international contemporary art fair

First viennAfair to be held from 21–24 April 2005 +++ Large-scale Central & Eastern and Southeastern Europe highlight +++ Around 90 galleries from 20 countries to exhibit +++ Artistic director Gabriela Gantenbein responsible for fair concept and programme +++ Exhibition and stand design by renowned Kühn Malvezzi office +++

Vienna (1 February 2005). – Reed Exhibitions Messe Wien will be hosting its first ever contemporary art fair, viennAfair The International Art Fair Focused On CEE, from 21–24 April 2005. Apart from galleries from Central & Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the 90 selected exhibitors will include leading galleries from Austria, Britain, Germany, Spain and Switzerland. “The fact that about half of the exhibitors will be top-flight galleries from abroad shows that we have made a reality of the show’s international alignment,“ commented Reed Exhibitions Messe Wien Director of New Business, CEE and Marketing, Matthias Limbeck, expressing satisfaction with the selection committee’s choice. Vienna galleries have recently moved into the big league in the international art market. “The galleries’ high standards are generally recognised, and the commitment to contemporary art shown by the cultural institutions is widely respected in Austria and abroad,” said Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, chair of the advisory committee. viennAfair The International Art Fair FOCUSED ON CEE is aimed at establishing Vienna as a meeting place for the contemporary art-going public.

Top quality
Event organisers Reed Exhibitions Messe Wien have succeeded in attracting a high-calibre advisory committee, and a dedicated and experienced artistic director in the person of Gabriela Gantenbein, to implement the project. Gantenbein attaches particular importance to the international focus of viennAfair The International Art Fair FOCUSED ON CEE. She said, “I am delighted with the positive feedback we have received from galleries and institutions at home and abroad on our plans for viennAfair. Visitors will be confronted with exciting artistic stances shown by courageous gallerists in an appropriate setting for contemporary works. And they will experience a related programme centred on networking that gives a role to domestic and international institutions, museums and collections.“

Young, bridge and established galleries
To prevent the quantity, quality and variety of the galleries’ exhibits from causing overload, the advisory committee has devised a clear programmatic structure in consultation with the organisers. The participating galleries are being divided into three categories. These are the established galleries with international activities, which will occupy 50 square metres (sqm) or more of exhibition space, and the “young” and “bridge” galleries which will be allotted 25sqm each. The “young” galleries include international ones that entered the art market no more than two years ago. Those classed as “bridge” galleries are those that create links with Central & Eastern and Southeastern Europe, and thus help to bring together the local Austrian art world with those of the focus countries.

Cultural crossroads
In addition to the exhibiting galleries’ contributions, viennAfair will feature a quality related programme that will underpin the credibility of the CEE focus.

The BRIDGE G — bridge to galleries project will enable some galleries from focus countries to participate in viennAfair The International Art Fair FOCUSED ON CEE. The aim is to boost their international exposure, thereby improving their access to institutional and private collectors, and making it easier for them to put their ambitious plans on a firmer long-term footing.

BRIDGE M — bridge to museums is all about building up large networks in Central & Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Museums from the focus regions will be showcasing their activities with financial support from the Federal Chancellery — which is holding a CEE conference at the time of the art fair. Curators, journalists and cultural policy-makers will play a major part in these meetings.

During viennAffair The International Art Fair FOCUSED ON CEE an international meeting entitled BRIDGE D – discussion will bring together representatives of 15 museums in Central & Eastern and Southeastern Europe, and Austria. The agenda will be agreed with the Austrian Museum Association. The meeting will take the form of a panel discussion, and will be open to the public.

Further projects are currently being developed and finalised. Museums of contemporary art, institutions and collections are playing a major role in this work, and will be contributing to the related programme.

The highlights of the viennAfair The International Art Fair FOCUSED ON CEE evening programme will include the opening event on 20 April and a dinner for people from the arts, business and political worlds. Such dinners will be held every evening to provide opportunities for international networking.

Unique exhibition architecture
Reed Exhibitions Messe Wien has commissioned the renowned architectural practice Kühn Malvezzi with the design of viennAfair The International Art Fair FOCUSED ON CEE. The Messezentrum Wien’s uncluttered glass and steel architecture is the ideal backdrop for the show, and meets the very highest European standards in terms of functionality and utilities. The stands’ basic equipment, such as the strong partition walls and the special light fittings, will help give the fair a unique visual impact.

Mattias Limbeck, New Business Manager at Reed Exhibitions Messe Wien, explains: “The new design of Vienna Trade Fair Centre creates the perfect environment for the 90 selected galleries from 20 countries to present themselves. This art fair puts specially focuses on galleries from Central and South Eastern Europe, and these exhibitions are very promising".

Gabriela Gantenbein, 'viennAfair'’s artistic director states that “'viennAfair' will offer our visitors the opportunity to become acquainted with the artistic programme of young galleries, art spaces and museums from these countries. Because of the selection presented at the fair it will be difficult to assign inappropriate attributes, derived from stereotypes, to the art world of a specific region.”

Dealing with society’s problems
The gallery “Remont – independent artistic association” from Belgrad will present works by artists, belonging to different generations, who are mostly from Serbia. “Remont” is an untranslateable, yet very common term in Eastern Europe; it contains various notions such as service, recovery, renewal and preservation. Sasa Janjic, curator, and Remont together with the gallery’s artists in cooperation with experts (among them historians, critics, arts managers) aim at recognising existing problems in society quickly, dealing with and reacting upon them appropriately.

The Czech Republic will be represented at 'viennAfair The International Art Fair FOCUSED ON CEE' by – amongst others – a young gallery from Prague, “Display – space for contemporary art”. The gallery focuses on international art projects with a local context. Furthermore, Display also focuses on cooperating with young Czech artists.

Interested in life
Another very young, and independently working, art space from a very active art world is Raster, founded in 2001, from Warsaw. Lukasz Gorczyca (b. 1972) and Michael Kaczynski (b. 1974) are the creative directors. Raster developed out of their active careers as critics and curators; initially it was an art magazine (founded 1995), published monthly since 2000, later on Raster became also a gallery.

Gorczyca and Kaczynski explain their approach to art: “We are interested in art, we work with art, yet at the same time we also like to repeat the catchphrase by Rafal Bujinoki: I am not interested in art. Actually, we are not interested in art for art’s sake. What we are interested in is life itself – private and public life. We are interested in the way people live together – in society, and also sexually. Art is to be understood as a huge intellectual and existentialist experiment revealing different events in life and the possibilities life offers.”

Also, galleries from Hungary and Slovenia, beginning to be prominently present at international fairs, present artistic statements across all types of media; with their intellectual approaches they enrich the national and international art worlds.

Vienna as a hub for an international audience and collectors
'viennAfair The International Art Fair FOCUSED ON CEE' functions both as mediator between the international galleries on the on side and a broad audience on the other, and, at the same time, establishes Vienna as a hub for international audiences and collectors.

With “vienna special”, the fair also incorporates in its social programme art spaces, interesting art projects and initiatives by cooperating with renowned institutions and museums like, for example, the Essl collection, Vienna's MUMOK, Kunsthalle, Generali Foundation and Secession.
With this initiative the board of trustees and the artistic director of 'viennAfair' want to demonstrate how important networking for the art world is - networks should be created between galleries, art spaces and institutions. (+++)

Show dates:
Thursday, 21st April 2005 12 am until 7.00 pm
Friday, 22nd April 2005 12 am until 7.00 pm
Saturday, 23rd April 2005 11am until 7.00 pm
Sunday, 24th April 2005 11am until 6.00 pm

Preview & opening:
Wednesday, 20th April 2005

NewMessezentrum Wien
Messeplatz 1
Wien

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