Apart from the two galleries (Brunswick St. Gallery and Kozminsky Gallery) that I identified in my last post as having the best stands at Art Melbourne 09, there were two other stands that really impressed me. The ‘Off the Wall’ and ‘The Studio’ stands, both run by the fair organisers, gave emerging artists the opportunity to show their work without having to being attached to a gallery. Some of the best works exhibited at the fair were by these emerging artists in particular the work of Matthew Quick, Emily Valentine Bullock, Jessica Price and Jordana Maisie all of whom produced work that generated lots of interest from visitors to the fair. One couldn’t help but be excited by the cutting-edge work of the emerging Australian artists on show at Art Melbourne 09 which added an air of sophistication and energy.
When I made a return visit to the fair on the last day (Sunday 16th April) I was pleased to see plenty of visitors once again as well as plenty of red dots. As I made my way round the fair it was plainly obvious that there was a definite buying trend being exhibited and demand for certain types of work. But more on that later. Having been impressed by the Brunswick St. Gallery stand on my first visit on the Friday I was pleased to see that their effort had been well rewarded with a significant number of sales. In fact, I counted a total of 51 works that had been sold by Brunswick St. Gallery eleven of which were Perran Costi’s amazing sky boxes which I referred to in part one of my review.
Artist Emma Hack who had a stand devoted entirely to her ‘body art’ was doing a roaring trade with limited edition prints of her photographs priced at between $2200 and $3600 each flying out the door. The 45 prints that had sold when I visited her stand on Sunday afternoon is testament to the ingenuity and creativity that Emma shows in her work. At the end of the Fair Emma would have sold well over $100,000 worth of her work which is a pretty incredible total for a three day fair. Kosminsky Level 1 gallery didn’t have all that many works on show and consequently didn’t make very many sales although they did make two significant sales both of which were works by Michael Georgetti one of which sold for $10,500 and the other at $4000. The work of Melbourne based artist David Mellows proved popular for Pivotal Galleries who managed to sell 15 of his beautiful small scale paintings of Melbourne streetscapes, maritime settings and regional landscapes. 28 Spring Street Gallery also faired quite well with 15 works having sold when I visited their stand.
As I mentioned, there was an obvious trend that emerged as the fair progressed. This trend was the interest and demand being displayed for works of street/urban art by Australian and international artists. A total of three urban/street
