Miami Basel season is upon us. A nagging question: Why are art fairs treated in the press as exhibitions? Is there anything new to say about art fairs?
You could say the same about galleries then - it’s all commercial.
Galleries–especially the best ones–do present exhibitions. Art fairs do not, as much as they try to package them that way. Commercial or non-commercial is not the point.
@AABronson, of course, but this question starts from a presupposition that art fairs do not present exhibitions that goes uncontested. I do agree with you, it’s impossible to imagine how a gallery could set up an exhibition in an art fair context at the same level than in their space, but what is the difference structurally? Is it because there are no walls or separation between booths, and so there’s no sense of starting and stopping? And I think writers who write “reviews” of art fairs do realise what they are doing and it’s kind of ironic writing in that way.
Art fairs are more like Bloomberg New Contemporaries, not particularly well-curated, packed with work - but that’s also treated as an exhibition by the press.