Noah Horowitz, the veteran director of Art Basel in the Americas, left last August to oversee Sotheby’s efforts to work with galleries and private dealers. At least two of the three most consequential farewells were triggered by job offers outside the art-fair gauntlet. Name-brand officials at major fairs pulled their ripcords at an alarming rate between August 2020 and September 2021, as my colleague Katya Kazakina covered. A minimum of two high-ranking art-fair executives will leave for jobs in other sectors of the industry. (Photo by Sean Zanni/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images) 2. White Cube’s booth at the VIP preview for Art Basel Miami Beach on November 30, 2021. In short, expect more of the same fair-entry procedures you begrudgingly accepted in 2021 to persist at every event held by Art Basel, Frieze, TEFAF, and the Armory Show in 2022. Why rush to dramatically increase the risk of getting sick during an important week just so your glasses won’t fog up?
Plus, my sense is that the overwhelming majority of exhibitors, collectors, and other industry players see mask and vaccination/testing mandates as a positive, especially with two years of elevated caution still tickling their brain stems. Remember, they must observe whatever regulations municipal, state, and federal officials require of large gatherings regardless of their personal preferences anyway. Every major art fair this year will still require attendees to wear masks and present proof of COVID vaccination, a negative test, or sufficient antibodies.įrom what I’m reading, Omicron’s off-the-charts contagiousness might make it the variant that finally transitions COVID into an endemic illness, meaning one so common and manageable that it no longer motivates states and businesses to maintain pandemic-level public-health restrictions.Įven if this proves true, however, I can’t envision any art-fair organizer retiring the measures that allowed major expos to return (in some form or fashion) last year until it’s indisputable that we’ve entered a post-pandemic era in every global art capital. ) With no further fanfare, here we go again…ġ.
MIKE LESSONS GROOVE SCRIBE PROFESSIONAL
‘Tis the season for freshly stripped Christmas trees to be abandoned on curbsides, for the post-vacation return to work to clarify how much every art professional actually loves or hates their job, and for yours truly to translate some of the industry’s dominant trends into a pack of predictions that can be objectively proven true or false by the end of the year. This week, squinting into the future again…
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