News round-up: TEFAF Maastricht and Art Dubai

(Art Daily)
“A painting by Velazquez priced at a “reasonable” $14 million is among works on show at the world’s biggest art and antiques fair, which opens to VIPs today. The head-and-shoulders portrait of a bearded man is being offered for sale by the New York-based dealer Otto Naumann, one of 265 exhibitors at the 26th edition of the European Fine Art Fair, Tefaf, in the Netherlands. The 10-day annual event in a conference center on the outskirts of Maastricht presents 4 billion euros ($5.2 billion) of museum-quality artworks and jewelry ranging in date from antiquity to the 21st century. It will attract more than 60,000 visitors.”

(The Telegraph)
“Known in jargon as ‘the Maastricht Art Fair’, it is indeed the most glamorous, lavishly presented and visually attractive of all international art fairs. It is not all appearance, though: there is a lot of substance, because TEFAF is perceived – accurately – as the most serious and distinguished ‘rendez-vous’ for the most demanding and sophisticated art collectors in the world. Established in 1987 by a group of entrepreneurial and pioneering Old Master dealers, it celebrated its silver jubilee in 2012.”

(Blouin ArtInfo)
“The European Fine Art Fair is in full swing in Maastricht. Every time ArtInfo covers a major art fair, we try to show you as many of the highlights as we can. Here are 60 works in 60 seconds from TEFAF.”

(The Art Newspaper)
“The most striking aspect of Art Dubai (20-23 March) is that the Middle Eastern event has become a fully fledged, paid-up member of the international art fair circuit in only six years, notably in the shadow of the global financial crisis which hit the emirate hard. A strong VIP programme, solid public art commissions, educational workshops and an excellent talks programme featuring more than 40 contributors (the Global Art Forum) make the fair a credible hybrid of cultural and commercial concerns.”

(Bloomberg)
“A huge curved bridge on the beach by Chris Burden, laser-cut steel sculptures by Belgium’s Wim Delvoye and Yayoi Kusama works are among as much as $45 million of contemporary art on sale at Art Dubai. Kusama’s collection, shown by London’s Victoria Miro, is the first display of the Japanese artist’s work in the Middle East. The fair, which in 2012 had 22,500 visitors, opened yesterday. It includes 75 museum groups from 30 countries.”

(Condé Nast Traveller)
“The seventh edition of Art Dubai focused on artists from the Arab world. Galleries brought fewer pieces by established Western and Iranian artists; work was far more affordable—perhaps reflecting the increasing volume and popularity (among Arab collectors in particular) of young, emerging artists who work with political themes—starting at $1,000. One of the most expensive objects offered for sale was not a painting, sculpture, video, or installation but a pair of 20-carat Colombian emeralds, mounted as earrings with yellow diamonds, with a $25 million price tag at the fair’s Cartier booth.”