KAMIAR’S MONTHLY REPORT

GREAT TO BE BACK IN ACTION AND TRAVELING AGAIN.

I was very excited to go to Denmark for the first time and visited Enter Art Fair. A fabulous regional fair that was the first art fair to open after the Covid-19 shut down. It was interesting to observe Denmark’s relaxed atmosphere. The clientele was very local but it was a busy fair that had no social distancing and no face masks were mandatory and and people were openly hugging and greeting each other. I was very careful though and kept my distance.

During the fair I had the opportunity to speak to some long time VOLTA galleries and some of our previous exhibitors, discussing our various plans for the future and all the changes we have made since Ramsay Fairs have taken us over. I met with Martin Kudlek from Cologne, Alfred Kornfeld from Berlin, Kristin Hjellegjerde from London, Montoro 12 and Anna Marra from Rome, local gallerist Martin Asbæk and also The Hole from New York.

The next day I took a chance to visit Andersen Contemporary on Bredgad, as well as longtime VOLTA and PULSE exhibitor Morten Poulsen in The Brown Meatpacking District. The Louisiana Museum is a must see art museum, which I was able to visit, which currently shows "Fantastic Women“, as well as works by "Tetsumi Kudo“ and "Per Kirkeby“.

Two weeks later I went to Berlin for Gallery Weekend and Positions Art Fair as well as photo basel/berlin. It was an action packed few days, visiting amazing galleries, and shows in addition to the well organized Positions Art Fair. 

While in Denmark the fair was very relaxed in regards to Covid-19, the fair in Berlin was on supercharge. A one hour line was followed by temperature checks on three parts of your face to then register yourself before you were faced with another line to get into the building. Numbers were limited to around 750 people in the entire fair. We all had to wear face masks to enjoy the experience. Overall it was great to see a socially distanced approved fair, with the correct safety measures in place. I posted a picture on my Instagram story, saying I was waiting in line and immediately their head of communications team member came out and got me in. A great touch!

The quality of the fair was mostly regional and once again had many VOLTA exhibitors participating. I met with Galerie Heike Strelow from Frankfurt, Galerie Thomas Fuchs from Stuttgart, Galerie Von&Von from Nuremberg, Livingstone Gallery from The Haag, and Rutger Brandt from Amsterdam, as well as locally based Luisa Catucci Gallery and X-Pinky. Great to meet our Lithuanian galleries Meno Parkas from Kaunas, as well as (AV17) Gallery from Vilnius at the fair.

In regards to shows my highlights was the STUDIO BERLIN exhibition at the Berghain, a carefully curated exhibition by the Boros family in one of the world’s most famous underground clubs. The exhibition shows 117 works by artists living and working in Berlin and the energy was electric. 

Another must see, when in Berlin is Katharina Grosse’s exhibition "It Wasn’t Us" at Museum Hamburger Bahnhof. Both shows are still on view by the end of 2020.

Text and images: Kamiar Maleki