TEFAF 2015 TO INCLUDE NIGHT FISHING – A NEW CURATED SECTION

To be launched at TEFAF 2015, Night Fishing is a curated show of work by post-modern and contemporary artists designed to complement the TEFAF Modern section. Artists will be chosen on the basis of a body of work that makes art historical reference to the objects that are exhibited throughout the fair that between them represent over 7,000 years of art history.

TEFAF has invited Sydney Picasso, the author and collector, to curate the first edition of this new area. It has been decided that the focus of the first such project will be sculpture. Sculpture is the subject of a current and on-going redefinition and Sydney Picasso plans to use the post-modern and contemporary canon to re-examine traditional sculpture. Entitled Night Fishing, this a reference both to the ancient technique of fishermen using a lamp to attract fish to the surface of water at night and Picasso's famous 1939 painting, Night Fishing at Antibes, which is in the collection of MoMA, New York. The concept behind the new section is to emphasise the wealth of objects to be found in different sections of the Fair, from archaeology to medieval art and weaponry, which serve to inform visitors' understanding and view of contemporary production and vice versa.

Ten galleries will each be invited to present a single artist exhibition in a specially designed area. Sydney Picasso will curate the way in which the works are exhibited in close collaboration with exhibitors.

New Entrance Hall
The entrance hall to TEFAF is the very first thing that visitors to the Fair see and experience. The metaphor “Palace of the Arts” was the starting point for a completely new design of the entrance hall by TEFAF's architect Tom Postma. The new design will incorporate the play of light on different textured transparent and translucent materials.

This transparent volume creates the canvas for a special play of light. The light-design is therefore crucial and will be developed in co-operation with Pieter Huijgen, head of the lighting department at the Dutch National Opera.

Tom Postma commented: “It is in the TEFAF entrance hall that people make the transition from regular daily life to the magic and mystery of the art. To allow this process to happen the entrance has to be something spectacular, something truly out of the ordinary.”

TEFAF Loan exhibition
This year the loan exhibition at TEFAF is entitled Teyler's Legacy. The special exhibition will show a selection of twenty-eight remarkable drawings from the Renaissance to the 21st century and will be held in TEFAF Paper section. Highlights from the exhibition include works by Michelangelo (1475-1564), Rafael (1483-1520), Claude Lorrain (1600-1682) and Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), Hendrick Golzius (158-1617); Jan van Goyen (1596-1656); Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1635) and Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606-1669). These fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth century works will be contrasted with drawings by contemporary European artists like Guiseppe Penone, Carel Visser Marlene Dumas and Pavel Pepperstein. This selection comes from the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, which first opened to the public in 1784 and is the oldest museum in The Netherlands.

Pieter Teyler van der Hulst (1706-1778), a wealthy cloth merchant and financier, was a true child of the Enlightenment, who believed that knowledge enriches humanity. He had a lively interest in the sciences and arts and built up extensive collections in both fields. His considerable fortune was left in his will to a Foundation to stimulate an interest in the arts and sciences.

Art Symposium

The concept of the private collector is also explored at this year's TEFAF Art Symposium. Private goes Public looks at what moves private and institutional collectors to share their collections with the public and what motivates individuals and companies to start collecting in the first place.

TEFAF Hotel Alliance
The TEFAF Hotel Alliance seeks to extend TEFAF's values beyond the Fair to improve the visitor experience. The Alliance is a grouping of 18 hand-picked, high-service luxury hotels in the Aachen-Maastricht region, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Brussels, Amsterdam and Paris. Each of the chosen hotels will offer guests a seamless TEFAF experience by having a dedicated concierge service for TEFAF visitors.

TEFAF Maastricht
TEFAF Maastricht, the world's leading art fair, is renowned for its commitment to excellent, expertise and elegance. This is reflected not only in the magnificent range of rare works that are offered for sale at the Fair, which will be held in the MECC Maastricht from 13-22 March in 2015, but also in the number of art collectors, both private and institutional, that regard TEFAF as a must-see event in the art market calendar.

Art, more than an Asset
TEFAF shares its view of art as more than an asset with its principal sponsor, AXA Art. Their partnership provides art collectors with unique expertise covering the full range of risk prevention, conservation, recovery and restoration, to enable them to maintain their collections in the best possible condition. www.axa-art.com

The European Fine Art Fair
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Telephone: +31 411 646 442