The 6th Moscow World Fine Art Fair (MWFAF) closed in Moscow on December 18th, the Fair took place in Russia for the first time after a four-year pause. The organizer of MWFAF Mr. Amaury Chaumet said in his official statement, “From year to year, the Moscow World Fine Art Fair has been a meeting place for leading antiquarians, collectors, auction houses, jewelers, and art lovers from all over the world. We hope to continue this good tradition and present unique collections and exceptionally beautiful artworks to the Russian public at the Fair.” All in all, 50 galleries and jewelers participated in the 6th Fine Art Fair.
The opening ceremony was attended by many honorable guests such as Vladimir Gusev (director of State Russian Museum), Olga Sviblova (director of Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow) Vasily Tsereteli (executive director of the MOscow Museum of Modern Arts), Natalia Avtonomova (vice director of State Pushkin Museum), Catherine de Zegger (curator of the 5th Moscow biennale), as well as by following notorious collectors: Peter Avven, David Yakoboshvili , Alex Lahman, Stella Kesaeva, Andrey Eremin, Marianna Sardarova, Sohia and Roman Trotsenko, Yulia Milner.
According to the estimates provided by the organizers the amount of deals concluded during the work of MWFAF equaled circa 50 million Euros.
Summarizing the work of MWFAF the director of the Fair Thierry Salah said, “Before everything, we were very honored to present an international fine art and jewelry fair in Moscow. To create such a project is a huge task and challenge and we had the chance to organize this fair with its own flaws and successes. We have met the expectations of most of the exhibitors and we will enhance our performance in order to remain a focal point for any art admirer. Therefore, we are continuing the MWFAF. The dates of the seventh fair will be moved earlier, in 2013 the fair will take place from November 29th till December 4th. We will enlarge the number of galleries and jewelers. It will be an honor for us to present fine art and jewelry in 2013 in Moscow.”
Sixtine Crutchfield, consultant of MWFAF and executive director of Art Culture Studio, also made an announcement, “The foundations have been constructed for a very successful fair in the future. In general all the stands of all the exhibitors maintained exceptional level of presentation. There were exhibited some very important artefacts, the jewelry was of very high manufacture, the old masters presented by De Jonckheere, World of Arts, Suslov Fine Arts galleries were museum pieces. The modern art pieces from such galleries as Chowaiki Gallery, Opera Gallery Group and Rudolf Budja Gallery were outstanding as well and they did not disappoint. The contemporary art pieces both Russian and European were innovative and fit into today’s international trend.
The organization of the fair has a lot of work ahead to improve and to ensure that next year Moscow receives the world-class art event it deserves. The organization very much hopes that the public and the collectors will support the event and the exhibitors as they have done in the past. Considering today’s environment Forum Pavilion in Expocenter that was enhanced by the design of Patrikc Hourcade as the venue for the Fair is preferable to that of the old Manezhe. Most Muscovites young and old told us that they liked the venue. Already, for the next year we are planning more jewelry, design galleries and contemporary design workshops, photography. There were successful sales for some of the exhibitors, others made contact for the future. And we are happy that over 50% of the galleries have signed for the next event.”