Designing a major art fair is like creating a temporary metropolis. It involves months of research, imagining and planning; weeks and weeks of building; and, above all, it requires a singular vision: to bring hundreds of presenters and thousands of attendees together.
Based in Amsterdam, Tom Postma and his firm, Tom Postma Design, have designed installations and exhibitions for museums, galleries, boutiques and art shows like Art Basel (in Miami Beach, Paris and Hong Kong), Art Brussels and Art Düsseldorf. And since 2001, they have been directing the design of TEFAF Maastricht, considered to be the world’s leading art fair by many in the art world.
The firm creates the fair’s overall experience — including its striking entrance, inventive lighting, intricate flower arrangements and varied public spaces — and devises many of the booths for its wide-ranging tenants, from ancient to contemporary art, antiques, design and jewelry. “You can have a lot of fun in how you display each type of art,” Mr. Postma said, noting that “if you don’t understand what the art is, and what it’s about, it’s really difficult.”
In a recent interview, Mr. Postma and Dani Mileo, the firm’s design director, shared the joys of translating art into architecture, the logistics behind building “a city of art,” and the visual marvels this year’s TEFAF attendees can look forward to. The following conversation has been edited and condensed.
Tom, let’s talk about your journey as a designer. You started your career as a sculptor. Can you talk about that part of your career and how it evolved into what is a very artful, experiential approach to exhibition design?
TOM POSTMA: I studied and worked as an artist for 20 years, working with galleries and creating exhibitions. Parallel to that, I started to do more and more monumental sculpture for buildings and parks. I began to get more interested in the design world and the architectural elements within it. At a certain moment — I think I was 39 — I had to decide between the autonomous life of an artist or the collaborative life of a designer. I ended up as a designer in the art world, and that’s where I found my market.
I first did galleries. I started working on bigger shows. Then TEFAF asked me to do what was then a small art fair for them in the Netherlands. I like working within the art world. It’s a much more aesthetically aware world than, say, the commercial world.
How has your approach to exhibition design evolved?
POSTMA: I love art in the broader sense — the contemporary but also the classical. As an artist, I know that art should be the center of an exhibition and not the other way around. We really try to serve the art. You have to look at how to tell the story of the art pieces, whether by one artist or several artists. How do you translate that into architecture? What are the view lines? How do you enter the gallery? What do you see? What are the most important pieces? What are the through lines? What is the rhythm?
DANI MILEO: It’s also about the identity of the presenter. Galleries have an identity in themselves. At an art fair, you’re looking at how you approach each particular booth. How will its design complement the works? We design everything in 3D. We look at all the view lines, the different materiality, the lighting. We’re really lucky, because we work with amazing clients who are specialists in what they’re showing. We talk with them about their intention — what do they want to get out of it? We do research on sites or go in person to explore.
It’s also understanding the audience. If it’s a show at the national maritime museum, there will be schoolchildren coming as well as scholars. There are different layers and different ways that people will engage.
Can you talk a little more about your history and approach with TEFAF?
POSTMA: It started small and grew to be the most spectacular show in its category. There is no more elaborate fair in terms of public spaces and the display of art. TEFAF and Art Basel are very different animals. For contemporary fairs, it’s much more about white cubes. At TEFAF, it’s about 7,000 years of art that you can buy. It’s a feast of aesthetic experience. Each booth has its own atmosphere, its own story. You have to cater to all that and create a world where everybody fits in.
MILEO: You create a whole world for TEFAF. You step out of the car park at the convention center, you head for the entrance and suddenly enter something completely different.
You forget about the world outside. It’s like a city of art. At the moment you need to rest, there’s a place to rest. At the moment you need to eat, there’s a place to eat. There’s always fatigue — there are a few hundred galleries. You have to know where the right moments are.
Every year, you create a large installation from cut flowers. How did you start working with flowers for the show?
POSTMA: It has to do with the Netherlands, which is one of the world’s largest exporters of flowers. The Netherlands is flower country. People want to see the flowers.
We grew slowly into that at TEFAF. Now, many people come just to see the flower arrangements.
MILEO: This year, we’re doing something really fun. In previous years, we’ve had light walls — thousands of LED lights backlighting the entrance.
This year, there’s a glowing skylight above and an incredible cascade of flowers coming over the top of the wall, almost like a waterfall. Beautiful white flowers, then pink. At the bottom, there are larger and heavier blooms. At the rest of the fair, this approach is translated into flower clouds, bubbles. They’re more lightweight and floaty and friendly.
Where did this idea come from?
MILEO: During the pandemic, TEFAF removed the show’s ceilings for airflow. We were playing with compression and tension and making the space feel more open. The emerging and flowing flowers were inspired by the idea of the show coming back from the pandemic.
Let’s talk about logistics.
POSTMA: There are hundreds of truckloads coming in. It’s somewhat of a logistical nightmare. People don’t realize that they’ve built these structures in weeks. They think they’ve been there forever.
MILEO: It’s a huge operation. There are four or five weeks of build. For us, it’s a year-round project. We start the next one as soon as this one’s done.
How do you keep it fresh every year?
MILEO: The minute one is finished, there’s a moment when you’re most inspired. You can see the potential of things again. You have a glass of Champagne and you’re on a high. We come back into the office, and we’re super inspired and we feed off each other.
POSTMA: Every time, there’s a new story to tell. The key is you have to be a little crazy about art.
