Fairs, breeding grounds for Frac acquisitions?

“These fairs allow us to take the pulse of the year and discover new artists”, notes Fabien Danesi, the director of Frac Corsica. Art Basel Paris is by far the fair most frequented by Frac directors. But many also travel to Marseille for Art-o-rama, and even cross borders regularly to make sure they don’t miss events such as Art Basel in Basel, Artissima in Turin, Arco in Madrid, Art Brussels and Frieze in London. While the fair is conducive to scouting and networking among art-world professionals, it is far from being the preferred venue for art acquisitions by the Frac. “We do not operate on the same timeline as the fairs, explains Claire Staebler, director of Frac Pays de la Loire. Frac acquisitions are very long processes.” These institutions cannot, in fact, buy works during art fairs: acquisition leads are discussed and debated by members of their acquisitions committees, which meet only once or twice a year, generally in May and October. Their decisions must then be validated by the boards of directors. The committee meetings never take place during or immediately after fairs, so several months can elapse between the two – half a year, in the case of Art Basel Paris. “Galleries won’t hold a piece for such a long time”, notes Étienne Bernard, director of Frac Bretagne. Lack of budget visibility This lack of simultaneity is the first obstacle to identifying works at fairs that might be acquired a few months later. “We do not yet know our acquisition budget for the following year when we visit the fairs”, points out Fabien Danesi. This lack of budget visibility is problematic because some works carry price tags far too high for a Frac, making forward planning particularly difficult. “The works exhibited in booths are often beyond the acquisition budgets of Frac Lorraine”, observes Fanny Gonella, its director. Beyond this financial issue, the ultra-ephemeral nature of an art fair can hardly align with a long-term process. “The fair is a space of saturation – it’s not where ideas take hold in the most obvious way, remarks the director of Frac Corsica. The immediacy of the fair makes it harder to remember.”Despite these constraints, it does occasionally happen that Frac institutions acquire works spotted by an acquisitions committee member at a fair. But the frequency of this occurrence varies greatly depending on the institution’s leadership. No work exhibited at a fair has been proposed for acquisition at Frac Lorraine or Frac Corsica since the arrivals of Fanny Gonella in 2018 and Fabien Danesi in 2021, whereas in 2023 both Frac Pays de la Loire and Frac Grand Large – Hauts-de-France acquired works by artists discovered at Paris+ par Art Basel in 2022. Different approaches while visiting fairs “Everything depends on the composition of the acquisitions committee, which draws on the expertise and working habits of its members”, explains Keren Detton, director of Frac Grand Large. The institution’s director determines the committee’s makeup shortly after taking up the post. They can include researchers, gallerists, artists, curators, art critics or even professionals from contemporary art institutions, each of whom “has their own way of discovering artists”, adds Keren Detton. But acquiring works spotted at fair booths depends above all on the specific mission of each Frac. “Unlike private collectors who can buy on a whim, we essentially operate by following artists’ careers”, explains the director of Frac Corsica. This approach is the opposite of that of Frac Picardie. “We try to approach [the fairs] with a curious eye and avoid gravitating toward artists already present in the collection”, emphasizes Pascal Neveux, its director. The members of this Frac’s acquisitions committee attend the Drawing Now Art Fair in Paris and Paréidolie in Marseille each year: “Attending these events is part of the Frac’s artistic and cultural mission, whose goal is to support the ecosystem of contemporary drawing.” Of the 15 artists added to its collection each year, two or three are discovered at fairs. Regardless of the Frac, acquisition work cannot be reduced to simply attending contemporary art fairs. Studio visits and exhibitions, scouting trips, keeping an eye on Instagram… This process relies on an “interweaving of different layers of sedimentation”, to borrow the words of Fabien Danesi.