LONDON — Tefaf Maastricht, Europe’s biggest and most prestigious fair devoted to art, antiques and design, is expanding into New York.
The Netherlands-based event, organized by dealers under the umbrella of the European Fine Art Foundation, a nonprofit body, is collaborating with the New York art advisers Artvest Partners to hold two annual fairs at the Park Avenue Armory, Tefaf said on Wednesday.
Tefaf New York Fall will open in October to showcase dealers specializing in artworks from antiquity to the 20th century. Tefaf New York Spring, scheduled for May 2017, will focus on high-end modern art and design. Each fair is to feature about 80 to 90 international exhibitors.
The fairs will replace the Armory’s international fine art and antiques show, in the fall, (formerly organized by Haughton International Fairs, but now acquired by Tefaf and Artvest) and, in 2017, the Spring Masters fair (organized by Artvest). The new fairs will expand beyond the Armory’s huge Wade Thompson Drill Hall and into some of the period rooms on the first and second floors, which are being restored by the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron.
In the meantime, the 29th edition of the original Tefaf Maastricht fair will open in the Dutch city on March 11 and run though March 20, with a roster of 270 dealers from 20 countries.
Awkward to get to (unless by private plane), overstocked with unfashionable old masters and situated in the middle of a continent with plenty of economic problems, Tefaf has been looking to widen its reach for some time. In March 2013, the fair announced that it would collaborate with Sotheby’s to hold an event in China, provisionally titled Tefaf Beijing 2014. Nine months later, Tefaf tersely announced that the fair in China was “not viable at the present time.”
“On numerous occasions, our exhibitors in Maastricht have expressed the need and desire for a Tefaf platform in the U.S., as have many private and institutional collectors,” said Patrick van Maris, chief executive of Tefaf. “Among the different possibilities Tefaf has explored over the past couple of years, this partnership with Artvest in the Park Avenue Armory New York really stood out. As the world’s most buoyant art market, New York is a perfect match.”
Tefaf’s New York venture — essentially two new boutique fairs — is an audacious move at a time when demand in the art market shows signs of cooling and the calendar has never been more crowded with high-end fairs.
The more historically focused Tefaf New York Fall will be held from Oct. 22 to Oct. 27, just two weeks after Frieze Masters in London, and it clashes with the FIAC modern and contemporary art fair in Paris. Tefaf New York Spring, scheduled for May 4 to May 9, 2017, will coincide with the marquee auctions of modern and contemporary art at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips, and will also complement — and have to compete with — the hipper Frieze New York fair, which features the cream of the world’s contemporary art dealers. Cutting-edge contemporary has never been a strength at Tefaf — none of that market’s mega-galleries, such as Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth or David Zwirner, will be represented in Maastricht this March.
It also remains to be seen if Tefaf’s new ventures will enhance or diminish the appeal of the original fair. At present, Tefaf Maastricht attracts about 75,000 visitors and representatives from more than 200 museums. But will they want to visit three Tefafs?
