TEFAF, one of Europe’s biggest and most prestigious fairs devoted to art, antiques and design, is expanding into New York. Collaborating with the New York art advisers Artvest Partners, it is launching two editions a year in New York – something that will certainly shake up the fair circuit!
Tefaf New York Fall will open in late October 2016 to showcase dealers specializing in artworks from antiquity to the 20th century – just two weeks after Frieze Masters in London and clashing with FIAC in Paris. Tefaf New York Spring, scheduled for May 2017, will focus on high-end modern art and design (and will have to compete with Frieze New York). Each fair is to feature about 80 to 90 international exhibitors at Park Avenue Armory – if there will be tribal art for sale is not yet stated. You can find more info here. In the meantime, the 29th edition of the original Tefaf Maastricht fair will open in the Dutch city on March 11 and run though March 20, with a roster of 270 dealers from 20 countries.
Tefaf has been looking to widen its reach for some time. In March 2013, the fair announced that it would collaborate with Sotheby’s to hold an event in China, provisionally titled Tefaf Beijing 2014. Nine months later, Tefaf tersely announced that the fair in China was “not viable at the present time” (more info here). Tefaf’s New York venture — essentially two new boutique fairs — certainly is an audacious move at a time when the art world’s calendar has never been more crowded with high-end fairs.