There’s been a lot of buzz lately about the growing interest of Internet entrepreneurs in the art world. The art fair gods have heard them. Next year, their enthusiasm will be rewarded with a boutique art fair of their very own, right in the heart of tech culture itself: Silicon Valley Contemporary 2014.
The newest addition to the roster of Hamptons Expo Group — a producer of art shows like ArtHamptons, ArtAspen, and the Houston Fine Art Fair — Silicon Valley Contemporary will gather roughly 60 exhibitors from around the world from April 10-13 at the San Jose Convention Center for an exhibition of work selected to parallel the rise of Silicon Valley itself, historically and spiritually. “It will feature work created from 1980 to the present,” said Rick Friedman, founder and president of Hamptons Expo Group. “We think that’s in sync with Silicon Valley. We want it to be cutting edge, but accessible to people.”
As with Hamptons Expo’s other boutique fairs, Silicon Valley Contemporary will be a regional show, catering to the interests of Silicon Valley’s three million locals. It will target the “intellectually curious and visually-oriented” from some of California's wealthiest zip codes, including Los Altos, Los Gatos, Palo Alto, and Menlo Park. The fair is also seeking to collaborate with local museums, like the San Jose Museum of Art, for fundraising events and parties.
While visitors will be local, the galleries to this invitation-only event will be global with spaces hailing from India and Asia, as well as some from nearby San Francisco and Los Angeles. “The level of response is through the roof,” said the fair’s director Peter Bodnarchuk. Having closely studied the “impasse” between the art world and the tech entrepreneurs, Bodnarchuk, a long-time startup consultant who ran one of the first luxury goods auction sites (Finelot) and also has years of experience in the art world (most recently, he ran a gallery called Art Futures in Miami's art-centric Wynwood neighborhood), says the fair will be a “very open platform,” and especially geared to making visitors feel welcome. Everything will be accessible online and a good portion of the work displayed will involve new media and digital photography, computer-driven work, and high-tech installations.
“We have one company that is doing something earth-shattering,” Bodnarchuk promised, though he couldn’t yet get into the details. “It’s a game-changer. It’s very futuristic — something that has never been experienced in this world before, with an art component.”
Apart from such ground-breaking works, the fair will be much like any other fair, with booths and swag. Organizers, however, are aiming to minimize the inherent hierarchies of the bigger art fairs, where established galleries command pride of place. “You can’t get around the hierarchy,” he avers, “but I think it’s about being open and intelligent about it.”
Click here for more information on Silicon Vallery Contemporary.