Sydney, Australia: A major new biennial contemporary art fair will be launched in April 2013 by the founder of one of the world’s most respected and successful art fairs, ART HK
Sydney, Australia: A major new biennial contemporary art fair will be launched in April 2013 by the founder of one of the world’s most respected and successful art fairs, ART HK.
The inaugural Sydney Contemporary will be held from Friday 12th until Sunday 14th April 2013 at the Hordern Pavillion and Royal Hall of Industries at Moore Park in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, with the Vernissage held on the evening of Thursday 11th April 2013.
Featuring established and emerging galleries from Australia and overseas, Sydney Contemporary will cater to a broad spectrum of experienced and potentially new collectors. It will celebrate the work of artists across a diverse range of mediums with a focus on global trends that span the modern and contemporary timeline and include painting, photography, works on paper, sculpture as well as featuring performance and new media.
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Read Spear’s on Sydney’s Contemporary art scene
Sydney Contemporary is organised by Art Fairs Australia Pty Ltd, a company founded by Tim Etchells of SME London Ltd. Etchells is founder of ART HK, the Hong Kong international art fair, which has grown to become a major fixture on the international art calendar.
Etchells recently founded a new modern and contemporary art fair in London, called Art13 London, and is pleased to confirm he has entered in to an agreement with Melbourne Art Foundation to manage and operate the Melbourne Art Fair from 2014. Both organisations will be working together collaboratively at a strategic and operational level to ensure great Fairs work for artists, their galleries and art lovers.
“Sydney Contemporary represents the first time this city has hosted a serious, high-end art fair. We expect it to play a significant role in helping to focus attention on the Sydney art scene in the same way that ART HK focused attention on Asian art,” said Mr Etchells.
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“The fair provides a vital new platform from which galleries, artists and collectors can deepen and grow networks and relationships both with local contacts and throughout the broader Asia Pacific region,“ said Mr Tim Etchells.
“We are launching at a time when the market is rapidly changing and art fairs are a significant part of any gallery’s marketing strategy, by catering both to existing markets whilst also creating new ones. Sydney Contemporary will educate and excite the wider community about the work of contemporary artists by offering a dynamic program of events,” said Mr Etchells.
Art Fairs Australia is pleased to announce the appointment of Fair Director, Francesca Valmorbida, a visual arts specialist and curator who brings more than two decades of experience to the position. Valmorbida produced a number of visual arts projects for leading contemporary arts organisations including the Sydney and Melbourne Festivals and has worked on audience development for commercial and government art enterprises such as Artbank.
“Sydney Contemporary arrives at a time when this city’s passion for contemporary art is stronger than ever. The recent launch of the contemporary galleries at the Art Gallery of NSW, the growing popularity of the Biennale of Sydney, and the MCA welcoming its 100,000th visitor in the first month of re-opening is clear evidence of this interest,“ said Francesca Valmorbida.
“The fair will offer international and domestic cultural tourists the chance to engage with the best of the Sydney arts scene that includes foundations, commercial galleries, public art projects as well as world class institutions,” said Ms Valmorbida.
Valmorbida will work with a curatorial panel to provide a robust schedule of artist commissions, talks, tours, workshops and education programs to be run in partnership with leading Sydney art institutions.
The program will cater for everyone, from the most passionate collector through to new art buyers and even the smallest art enthusiast, who will be able to take part in an interactive school holiday program.
Sydney Contemporary will include specialist sections such as New Contemporary that is dedicated to the support of living artists and profiling artist run initiatives (ARIs) and younger cutting-edge gallery spaces. The fair will also offer an extensive VIP program designed to rethink ways in which art is collected, experienced and understood.
Picture: Extension to Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art, opened 2012
Read Spear’s on Sydney’s Contemporary art scene
