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‘See, Love, Buy Art’ was the slogan for Sydney Contemporary 13 (SC13). But it may as well have been written, ‘See, Talk, Buy Art’; for there has never been so much conversation in Sydney about contemporary art—almost a match for the singeing onset of climate change this Spring.
And that may be the legacy of (and prospect for) this first ‘high-art’ fair in the city. The loving (and the buying) were estimated to be a little less than hoped-for; but the teeming verbosity of the opening night, when more than two-thirds of fair owner, Tim Etchells’s predicted 15,000 total attendance turned up in one fell swoop, did actually lead many a gallerist to exult that a new clientele had come into their lives, some with wallets open. And the eventual total of 28,800 visitors was significant in (a) topping the numbers at Etchells’s equivalent new London art fair in the northern Spring, and (b) justifying his claimed loss of half a million dollars to get this first Sydney Contemporary up.
Now he simply has to keep his fingers crossed for two years that Sydney will not have moved on to some new fad before SC15 can occur. For an essential part of the deal to set up SC13 was that he also manages the established Melbourne Art Fair and ensures that the two do not get into pointless competition. So they will alternate, both in the hands of artistic director Barry Keldoulis, the former Sydney gallerist.
Why would a man at the cutting edge of selling art by the likes of Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro, Joan Ross, Jess MacNeil and Jonathan Jones move on to a vending system