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The Good the Bad and the Ugly
by Deborah White
With an invitation every other week to attend an international art event and a limited amount of time, funds and resources to take advantage of all the offers, careful consideration and research went into our decision to take a stand at the LA Art Show.
After attending fairs in Melbourne, Sydney and the UK in the past we felt like a new challenge. With a spattering of clients in Los Angeles and some good connections with curators there, we decided to take the plunge and invest a considerable amount of energy and resources and take a stand at the 13th LA Art Show.
The show was held in the Barker Hangar at Santa Monica airport with 125 galleries taking part and with the addition of the 23rd LA Fine Art Print Fair this year, additional space was provided in a large marquee. The Fine Art Dealers Association of Los Angeles was founded in 1990 and is supported by the LA Art Association which was founded 82 years ago. These organisations own and organise the LA Art Show but also encouraged and promoted an alternate fair - Art LA held the same weekend also in Santa Monica. This is a smaller and less developed event and showcased installation and experimental art and complimented the LA Art Show perfectly.
Arriving the week of the fair to set up held all the usual stresses of finding our crates, delays in our Californian seller’s license, coming to terms with having to cross everyone’s palm with cash to get anything delivered or fixed. The opening gala night was well attended in spite of the shocking weather. It is hard not to take up the Californian habit of star spotting and great to see the local celebrities turning out for a visual art event. Some notable guests included William Shatner, Steve Martin, Owen Wilson, Rebecca de Mornay.
The LA Art Show was founded in the traditional art market and is still coming to terms with fully embracing the contemporary market. Areas were clearly defined as one or the other,
Stands featuring works by David Hockney, Lynn Chadwick, Jim Dine and Robert Motherwell, to name a few, added diversity and interest to a fabulous event. As with all art shows of this kind, some of the local West Coast work on view was a mixture of good, bad and fantastic.
One of the most positive aspects for me was the opportunity to engage with art professionals from the US and UK. It is reassuring to know we all share the same frustrations and delights in our chosen vocation. Artists need to note that when a dealer has invested a large sum of money and resources to attend an art show and there are 25,000 potential clients coming through - it is not a good idea to demand that anyone look at your portfolio.
Yes, it’s a great opportunity for artists to check out the galleries and gather information, but please leave the approach to a more suitable time.
Californians responded well to the work we exhibited. Artists Virginia King and Nicky Foreman attended the show and visitors to the fair were genuinely interested in talking to them about their work. Some great contacts were made for the future. James Ormsby’s large drawings created a buzz with one gallery offering him a show and curators interested in including his work in upcoming curated shows. Many visitors related his work to the movie Whale Rider. The movie industry has done New Zealand a great service in providing a context for all the creative industries.
In fact New Zealand seems to be flavour of the month in California. If people hadn’t been here already many planned to come. We spoke to about 1000 people a day over a four day period and handed out over 3000 brochures. The fair received fantastic press with over 30 publications featuring articles. Venice Magazine showcased Whitespace specifically. Since the fair our website has had a huge number of hits from the US and still receives continued interest and enquiries.
Where is the ugly in all this? It is something that overwhelms me every time I take a show away and return to New Zealand. It is the negativity that exists in New Zealand about anyone who puts their head up and the institutional disrespect offered to all but a select minority. Creative NZ declined support for freight for any of our artists work and suggested to one from the comfort of their Wellington office that we were attending the wrong event.
NZTE demanded a fee to forward an email invitation to LA based New Zealand companies to attend a cocktail party we provided. No one from their LA office attended our function or the show. Of course financial support would help, but what about one introduction, some advice or even more startling a word of encouragement.
On our first week back full of plans for future collaborations and synergies with our new audience, we attended an Auckland event and had a supercilious blond from the local arts community delight in telling me what a waste of time our efforts were.
After 20 years in the art scene I should be used to it. Fortunately the Californians don’t know or care that they are not cool according to smug Aucklanders and Wellingtonians - they plan a bigger show next year in downtown LA and we plan to be there.
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