Art fairs are being rethought thanks to Covid-19. The former focuses on bringing people together, while the latter demands people are kept apart – it is hardly a match made in heaven.
Yet an industry in which keeping ahead of the curve ensures its survival, the art world has responded to the pandemic in a range of ways. For some, digital fairs were the only solution, while others have cancelled events outright, instead choosing to delay them until next year.
Masterpiece London, has reinvented itself for the pandemic. Now, known as Masterpiece online, 135 galleries go live from 28 June, with VIP days beginning on the Monday of the same week. Some 70 per cent come from the UK.
According to Lucie Kitchener, the managing director of the fair: “You and six friends can book a session to be shown around, like a Zoom call.”
She said that the response to the decision to move online had been “really positive”, continuing: “Everyone has met this crisis with great imagination and resilience.”
The first edition of Masterpiece online took place in 2010, with the mission to “encourage a mix of eras, styles and media — what organizers call cross-collecting” according to The New York Times.
Chairman, Philip Hewat-Jaboor, said that: “To me, the challenge was to preserve the ethos of the fair: cross-collection, educational and very high quality.”
He concluded that the online edition means: “We’re going to have to learn to appreciate the complexities of art online, though it will never ever replace having an object in your hand.”
