KEY POINTS:
If you go down to the Viaduct Harbour this evening and look across the water to the former Alinghi-Oracle headquarters, you'll see a giant man's head, blue in the face, thumping against the building. It's New York artist Tony Oursler's Head Knocking, a 20m-high video work from the Influence exhibition shown in London's Soho Square and New York's Madison Square Park.
Head Knocking sets the scene for what's inside the building, these days bereft of yachts and more recently the home of NZ Fashion Week. For the next three days, the cavernous space - thousands of square metres - will be transformed into the second biennial Auckland Art Fair, which kicked off in 2005 in a space behind the Britomart.
Back then, works from 14 galleries were on show, and the festival attracted a crowd of just under 5000 people. This time, the project has swollen to 34 galleries showing more than 600 works - all for sale. Organisers Jennifer Buckley and Deborah White, both full-time gallery dealers and members of the Auckland Art Fair Trust, say they expect 10,000 visitors this time around.
The irony, says Buckley, who owns Oedipus Rex Gallery in Khartoum Place, is that just over two years ago, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise investigated the viability of an art fair - based in Wellington - and concluded there was neither the market nor the audience to sustain one. "That came out within two months of when we were launching the first event. There are close to 70 galleries in Auckland. People are very supportive of the visual arts here."
Says White, of the Whitespace gallery in Ponsonby, "Most of the galleries in the fair have been going for more than 20 years so there is a real solid base and depth to the professional practice here. When you look at the experience within the arts community, of course it's viable. We thought the time was right and we have had to soldier on and convince people the time was right."
Last time, some big-name galleries were noticeable because of their absence. Now they are in. "Fair enough," says Buckley. "Like anything, people do need to prove a serious intention. I think some of the big galleries had no reason to think we could pull it off. But having done it once and having such a good response, we had to do it again.
"Within weeks of the last one finishing, we had galleries contacting us asking when would we be doing it again."
Art fairs are familiar in the cultural calendars of other countries, with Art Cologne, established in 1967, regarded as setting the way. Melbourne Art Fair has grown into a huge event, supported by state funding. The Auckland Art Fair, run as a non-profit charitable trust, gets no government funding, but is supported by sponsors, Heart of the City and Auckland City, which operates the venue. "They have helped facilitate all the planning permission and the red tape which would have buried us," says Buckley.
The space has been divided into gallery stands, lined by $120,000 worth of MDF walls substantial enough to bear the works from galleries from Auckland, Christchurch, Wanganui and Dunedin, as well as six from Melbourne and Sydney. At a later stage, White and Buckley would like to include galleries from Asia and the west coast of the United States.
The art itself is not tat "ransacked from the stockroom", says Buckley. "Without exception, everyone has pulled together and is giving really specific exhibitions. They have contacted their top artists, commissioned works and some are doing full installations."
While the works are for sale, the fair is not exclusively commercial. "Only a small percentage of people who come to the event will buy a work," says Buckley. "It's more about expanding their horizons and their knowledge, establishing new relationships and networks and increasing the audience."
The fair has added layers of cream on the cake: tonight's Vernissage opening party; a talk by no-nonsense British art critic Matthew Collings on Friday night; scheduled school tours; a series of three talks by Auckland Art Gallery's Chris Saines, Mary Kisler and Ingrid Ford; and a Sculpture Court featuring works by 14 of the country's top artists plus a rare chance to see a Len Lye work in public - his 1976 Fountain.
EXHIBITION
* What: Auckland Art Fair
* Where and when: Marine Events Centre, Viaduct Harbour; entry via Halsey St or across pontoon bridge from Te Wero Wharf, city end; May 18-20, from 10am
* Plus: on-site public lecture series presented by Auckland Art Gallery, each day 11am-noon
