Hamburg still has no major art fair. But it does have ambitious art dealers who continue to be overshadowed. The ‘Kunst am Rothenbaum’ initiative wants to change that.
Hamburg. Hamburg, the city with a disproportionate number of millionaires, has not yet produced a major art fair. A new marketing initiative was launched last year to prevent art dealers and gallery owners from disappearing from the public eye and only being visited by the same Hanseatic customers.
Stefanie Busold, the regional representative of the Sotheby's auction house in Hamburg, was the first to come up with the idea. She planned and organised a gallery tour focusing on the elegant Rothenbaum district near the Inner Alster.
Under the ‘Kunst am Rothenbaum’ umbrella, galleries and dealers - 17 in total - are now coming together for the second time to open their exhibition spaces for an additional weekend in order to attract many new visitors to their exhibitions at a low threshold.
The spectrum is deliberately broad. Jessica Bauer is showing contemporary art by Henrik Eiben and Giovanni Castell in a cosy setting at JB Fine Arts in Tesdorpfstraße. Stella Melbye-Konan's gallery, which quickly made a name for itself with art from Africa and is now abandoning the profile it has so convincingly developed in order to continue with established or up-and-coming international artists on 400 square metres of exhibition space, is presenting works by the Ivorian artist Ngoye and the German artist Karolin Schwab.
For Hidde van Seggelen, who migrated to the Elbe from London because of Brexit and is very well connected as the chairman of the Tefaf Executive Committee, Hamburg functions more like a ‘pied-à-terre’ (a small neighbourhood). He will be showing a comprehensive selection of drawings and sculptures by Dutch artist Ansuya Blom, whose film ‘Lola Magenta’ will also be screened in his gallery.
