ART Innsbruck

At ART Innsbruck, we combine diversity with internationality and have offered our audience a high-quality yet unpretentious approach to contemporary art since the very beginning. The founding concept of ART Innsbruck 25 years ago was: “Art for beginners (new collectors) and experienced collectors”, in other words to pick up people where they are and to introduce them to the touching and fascinating world of international contemporary art. It is precisely this interplay between world-renowned artists and young, up-coming talents that has been spontaneously embraced by our visitors, inspires them in the long term, and has been the reason for ART Innsbruck’s many years of continuing success. Another important aspect in the basic program of the ART Innsbruck is its internationality that fertilizes the regional and Austrian art scene. More than half of the exhibiting galleries and art dealers come from other European countries and from overseas and, in combination with the resident art offerings, form a sparkling symbiosis.

The major part of the admitted exhibitors are galleries and art dealers of contemporary fine art. This includes both the dazzling era of the 19th century as well as the period up to the 21st century, with programs from 1960 to the present forming the main part of the fair’s program. An important criterion for admission is a gallery program that is built up in a sustainable manner, enabling collectors and art lovers to trace the path and artistic development of their admired artists. In modern terms, this could be manifested in the sense of a “block chain”. It is also important to present young art and to highlight new developments and trends on the international art scene in the annual program.

The price range of the artworks shown at ART Innsbruck starts from graphic edition objects and multiples or exhibits by young artists around € 500 and reaches renowned classics of modernism and pop art around € 1.5 million. I would not want to define an average buyer, as our audience is very diverse. We see young people with smaller budgets buying art in entry-level price ranges, as well as financially extremely potent people of the high-end segment.

I cannot identify THE typical visitor. Our buying public is a broad spectrum of art lovers – young people, employees with average incomes and the well-off middle class, as well as first-class entrepreneurs and wealthy private collectors or museums and institutions.

“Art is allowed to do anything but standing still and boring people”, this is our credo in the future too. The ART Innsbruck manages to reinvent itself again and again. Right from the beginning, we have been eager to offer our audience an exciting mix of exhibitors every year, always maintaining the well-known high standards of previous years, and to present complementary inspiring specials and special shows. There is going to be a new and trend-setting virtual extension of the ART Innsbruck available all year round between the fairs, and after evaluation of the initiatives shown so far on the international art market, this is going to be an exciting virtual accompaniment of the art fairs in order to address and attract even more a younger target group.

Paris Photo and Frieze London