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Returning to the Palexpo for its 13th iteration, Art Gen\u00e8ve<\/a> is carving out its own niche in a crowded European art fair circuit. This year was the second edition of the fair under director Charlotte Diwan, and her first with a full year to plan\u2014her predecessor, Thomas Hug, was ousted three months before last year\u2019s edition over allegations of fraud and theft. <\/p>\n Diwan has put the fair through a makeover: There is a new logo, a more modern graphic design, and the fair\u2019s name is a more sensible two words (it used to be called artgen\u00e8ve).<\/p>\n Last year, Diwan slashed the number of galleries down to around 80 from 100 or so. \u201cIt is very important to have a more restrained selection so that the quality level is more regular,\u201d Diwan told Artsy. \u201cWe had a large turnover of international galleries, so we felt like the program lacked stability in terms of quality.\u201d That\u2019s what attracted Anne-Sarah B\u00e9nichou, founder and director of her eponymous Paris gallery, to come for the first time this year. \u201cThe new direction has reoriented the quality of booths and gallery selection,\u201d B\u00e9nichou said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Diwan has also instigated the introduction of Swiss institutions, including Centre d\u2019Art Contemporain Gen\u00e8ve and Fondation Opale. The point of bringing institutions from all over the country to show at the fair is to raise it from a \u201cregionally important one,\u201d as Diwan characterized it, to one of national (and even international) significance\u2014more galleries with a Parisian presence participated this year than last. \u201cWe had a large turnover of international galleries,\u201d Diwan said, \u201cso we felt like the program lacked stability in terms of quality.\u201d <\/p>\n Her goal is to create loyalty with the galleries who come to Art Gen\u00e8ve; the fair will continue with its cap of around 80 galleries to maintain quality levels. Although a number of larger galleries didn\u2019t return this year\u2014including Opera Gallery<\/a>, which has a Geneva location\u2014Diwan said they\u2019d be welcomed back if they wanted to return. Should Art Gen\u00e8ve continue to grow in significance, this could yield hard decisions if the fair is to keep its tightened scale.<\/p>\n As the second-largest fair in Switzerland, it\u2019s only natural that Art Gen\u00e8ve is compared to its larger compatriot, Art Basel. Many collectors and gallerists point to the more conversational aspect of smaller fairs. \u201cI think that today, compared to 10 years ago, we see the grand global fairs\u2014the Art Basels, the Friezes\u2014are becoming more vulnerable,\u201d noted Galerie Nathalie Obadia founder Nathalie Obadia. \u201cThe small fairs are more intimate, more like salons. I think there is a place for very serious fairs like Art Gen\u00e8ve.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThere is no comparison,\u201d Hauser & Wirth<\/a> senior director S\u00e9verine Waelchi noted of Art Basel and Art Gen\u00e8ve, instead calling them \u201ccomplementary.\u201d She has noticed that the vast majority of those coming into Art Gen\u00e8ve speak French: Not only does this mean that the Swiss collectors attending are from the francophone part (unlike Basel or Z\u00fcrich), but also from France and Belgium as well. Many gallerists noted that there\u2019s a large split between the Swiss collectors who speak German to those who speak French\u2014many of those who attend Art Basel don\u2019t come to Art Gen\u00e8ve, and vice versa. Diwan agreed that \u201cin Switzerland, people struggle to mix.\u201d<\/p>\n Art Basel itself, as multiple gallerists said, faces an issue in that its Swiss fair is partly supported by an older generation of (germanophone) Swiss collectors who aren\u2019t being replaced. In Geneva, Ketabi Bourdet<\/a> director Charlotte Ketabi-Lebard said that she saw quite a few francophone Swiss collectors in their thirties who grew up in families that view \u201ccollecting as a lifestyle,\u201d as she put it. With a newer generation of Swiss collectors coming from the francophone part, it makes Geneva an important\u2014and growing\u2014center.<\/p>\n This momentum is bolstered by Geneva\u2019s considerable infrastructure. The city is used to hosting foreigners, as it\u2019s where the European headquarters of the United Nations is, as well as its banking institutions that bring in the wealthy from all over the world. It is also easily accessible by train\u2014Parisian collectors can get there in just over three hours.<\/p>\n The cosmopolitan nature of Geneva is reflected in the kinds of artworks shown at Art Gen\u00e8ve. Ketabi Bourdet mounted a solo presentation of American artist Jo Fish<\/a>, who only started exhibiting in 2023, and sold six works\u2014one for \u20ac20,000 ($20,489), and three for prices ranging from \u20ac8,000\u2013\u20ac12,000 ($8,195\u2013$12,293) each. \u201cYou have to level up when you bring works to Geneva,\u201d Ketabi-Lebard said. \u201cYou can\u2019t just bring eye-candy works,\u201d as collectors are knowledgeable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Hong Kong gallery Tang Contemporary Art<\/a>, which has regularly participated in Art Gen\u00e8ve, brought Western artists, like Studio Lenca<\/a> and Von Wolfe<\/a>, but also Chinese artists, like Cai Lei<\/a> and Yue Minjun<\/a>, and Chinese artists living in Europe, like Jade Ching-yuk Ng<\/a> and Xiyao Wang<\/a>. Works were sold by the gallery for prices between \u20ac12,500 ($12,811) and \u20ac73,000 ($74,818). \u201cThe fair is very good for us, this year we are happy about it,\u201d director Willa Yip said. The only other non-Asian fair it does regularly is The Armory Show in New York; Art Gen\u00e8ve is chosen as its usual European presence because of advantageous timing\u2014it is always held in January.<\/p>\n Galerie Nathalie Obadia sold works across a wide range of styles too, from artists Shirley Jaffe<\/a>, Laure Prouvost<\/a>, Wang Keping<\/a>, Joris Van de Moortel<\/a>, Fiona Ra<\/a>, and Antoine Renard<\/a>. It had just done the BRAFA art fair in Brussels<\/a> a few days earlier, but for Obadia, Art Gen\u00e8ve\u2019s been worth doing for well over a decade: As the gallery has a location in Brussels, BRAFA participation is practically obligatory, but Art Gen\u00e8ve is very much a choice. <\/p>\n For her gallery, Obadia sees the germanophone-francophone split in these fairs and Geneva\u2019s place as an international hub as important within the Swiss art world: In addition to francophones, she\u2019s personally met Italian collectors and other foreigners who live in Geneva. She told Artsy: \u201cI think that Geneva is a very international city, much more than Z\u00fcrich,\u201d the other major Swiss financial hub. \u201cGeneva is a pole of stability that\u2019s very international,\u201d Obadia added, \u201cand I think that\u2019s reflected in the fair.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Returning to the Palexpo for its 13th iteration, Art Gen\u00e8ve is carving out its own niche in a crowded European art fair circuit. This year was the second edition of the fair under director Charlotte Diwan, and her first with a full year to plan\u2014her predecessor, Thomas Hug, was ousted three months before last year\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[1885,17365,11614,35997,4365,4315,35996,35995,35994,1905],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-67235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","tag-art","tag-basel","tag-compelling","tag-counterpoint","tag-fair","tag-fairs","tag-geneve","tag-hauser-wirth","tag-ketabi-bourdet","tag-swiss"],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n