Cologne Fine Art & Antiques, Cologne - Gallery news: Cologne Fine Art & Antiques 2009

Cologne Fine Art & Antiques 2009 (3.11.2009)

Conceptual development of Cologne Fine Art & Antiques

With the successful presentation of the newly structured Cologne Fine Art & Antiques 2008, which was held under a new management, with reorganized exhibit categories and with a new look, important steps were taken to ensure the art and antiques fair in Cologne would be an outstanding event. Cologne Fine Art & Antiques 2009 will build on this success.

'Over the past few months we’ve received a lot of positive feedback regarding our conceptual changes to Cologne Fine Art & Antiques. Particularly noteworthy are the clear profile, the new crossover approach for the featured areas and the trade fair’s elegant ambience,' said the Director of Cologne Fine Art & Antiques, Ulrike Berendson. Once again this year, the hall layout will take current trends in art collecting into account: It will place ancient and modern art, non-European art, arts and crafts, jewellery and textile arts in close proximity to one another.

The sector's positive response to these changes is demonstrated by the list of exhibitors who have registered for the fair. Many leading galleries and dealers will be returning to Cologne Fine Art & Antiques in 2009 or exhibiting for the first time in the categories of classical art, 19th century works, modern art and non-European art.

Design adds crossover market

Cologne Fine Art & Antiques continues to make important strides in its development as a crossover event. A special section for design specialists will be a first at this year's fair. 'We've focused on design and the central role it has traditionally played in the applied arts. We want to illustrate historical developments in design from their beginnings through to the twentieth century while continuing to show a rich mix of exhibits. This is to provide fairgoers with a fresh and exciting interplay of visual relationships. This concept is unique in the German art-fair world,' said Ulrike Berendson, Director of Cologne Fine Art & Antiques. In November 2009, the new design section will be showcasing six design specialists for the first time.

A highlight of the new section will be Amsterdam-based designer Satyendra Pakhalé's Design Lounge. Gabrielle Ammann (Cologne) will be working with Pakhalé on the project. Pakhalé - who also works in his native India - uses new technologies and state-of-the-art materials in combination with traditional techniques and age-old materials. This synthesis of modernism and tradition complements the rich palette of artworks on show.

Cologne Fine Art Prize goes to Georg Baselitz

Georg Baselitz is the winner of this year’s Cologne Fine Art Prize. Worth €10,000, the Prize is sponsored by Koelnmesse and the Cologne-based Bundesverband Deutscher Galerien und Editionen. The Prize is awarded every year in recognition of outstanding achievement and innovation in the fields of printmaking, photography, serial imagery and graphic reproduction techniques. The prize-giving ceremony will be a feature of the Fair Preview on Tuesday, 17 November at 3 pm.

An exhibition marking the award will showcase prints from Baselitz’s early career juxtaposed to important examples of his later graphic work. Forty of the prints, executed between 1964 and 1972, are part of a gift donated by Prinz Franz von Bayern to the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in Munich. The exhibition also features more recent work – aquatints and woodcuts from the ‘Remix’ series dating from 2006 to 2008. The selection of graphic work is designed to provide new insights into his iconographic preoccupations and innovative reworking of earlier subject matter – processes present in this later phase of his career and which have dominated his work since 2005.

Special exhibition ‘Ancient Contemporary’
Cologne Fine Art & Antiques will be staging a special exhibition titled ‘Ancient Contemporary’. This rather unusual exhibition showcases over forty examples of traditional textile art – rugs, carpets and kilims from many countries and cultures. They demonstrate the wide diversity of designs, craft skills and cultural traditions characteristic of traditional textile art. They also highlight the astonishing parallels between traditional textile art and modern art, and provide a fascinating cross-cultural experience. The exhibits are illustrative of the imaginative strength and creative skills required to fashion these vehicles of powerful visual expression from simple materials like wool, cotton, felt, linen and feathers. Professor David Galloway, art critic and former chief curator at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, will be curating the exhibition.