By George Chapman and James King

Thursday, opening night. Sandton Convention Centre is awash with potential investors, collectors, buyers and loiterers dressed in expensive suits. The centre is a veritable JSE floor: trading art as stock to the first buyer. Trading commenced on the floor at 6pm and ended four hours later, with Everard Read finishing dangerously in the red. Investors are warned that if they do not act decisively there may soon be nothing left. Other companies reported similar trends, such as Gallery AOP’s editioned prints earning them many red points.
The news comes as a welcome change from the pessimistic figures that clouded last year’s fair, causing some galleries to adopt more conservative strategies to ensure sales this time round. Michael Stevenson’s considerably safe choice of solely exhibiting works by Penny Siopis has earned them three red stickers at roughly R300 000 apiece. Retrospectively, many gallerists feel optimistic about their clientele’s contribution to this year’s show. Those who seem more reluctant to make trend predictions use vague phrases like “it went well” to mask (non-existent?) sales figures.
Galleries representing East and West African artists (Gallery Watatu and CCA Lagos respectively) remain on the sales periphery so far, with their stable of African artists lesser-known within our borders attracting lookers but no takers. Peter Herrmann’s gallery however has successfully used this strategy of displaying prominent artists of the continent not necessarily known to our buying public, and has struck gold in his third year, trading at prices between R6 000 – R12 000.
International investors have expressed much interest in works on display, but the locals still dominate as the primary buyers. Investors hailing from an altogether different periphery – the young nouveau-riche art collectors – have been drawn to Whatiftheworld’s younger talent, selling works by Stuart Bird, Dan Halter, Athi Patra-Ruga and the newly-signed Daniella Mooney.
The trade report indicated a trend of galleries holding smaller works, such as Gallery AOP, Galerie Béatrice Binoche, and Bailery Sieppel all reporting a positive sales response. Rooke Gallery also reported a positively not only to the smaller and more affordable stock but also to those works that were deemed more alternative by a generally conservative public.
The report summarized these trends as indicative of younger artists being sidelined for older, more conventional names (it would surprise us all greatly if the Modernist Booth does not make a similar killing in the market to Everard Read by the close of Sunday). These safer strategies appear to be the result of a market crash in the previous financial year, with effects still looming. Conditions now appear sunny.