August is usually quiet, but while most dealers have disappeared to their Tuscan villas, the news has been quietly leaking out that several lesser art fairs have been turning up their toes and dying, while the rest of the market is merely asleep.
The first casualty was the trendy young art fair Year '08, which launched only two years ago to coincide with Frieze. Year '08 was being organised by the Keith Talent Gallery, based in London's East End, and was supposed to open with 46 galleries in the Old Sorting Office, just south of the British Museum.
Its demise was rapidly followed by that of Bridge, another fair for young artists, which will continue on to Berlin and Miami. The decision was blamed on worries over the strength of the market and the poor dollar-pound exchange rate.
While Bridge and Year '08 were never the strongest of the Frieze "satellite" fairs - if Zoo falters, however, there should be real worries - it was a surprise to hear that 2009 will be the end of the line for the Contemporary Art Society's Art Futures fair.
Traditionally held in March, the next edition would have been its 25th. The society blamed the proliferation of other fairs, saying it was no longer necessary to have its own fair in the capital, and added that it had only ever broken even.
Meanwhile, two of the 20 fairs scheduled in Miami last year to coincide with Art Basel Miami Beach in December have already folded, and more casualties are now predicted. Is this a sign of the market unravelling or an inevitable correction after the excesses of last year?
Jane Morris is an arts journalist and editor
The first casualty was the trendy young art fair Year '08, which launched only two years ago to coincide with Frieze. Year '08 was being organised by the Keith Talent Gallery, based in London's East End, and was supposed to open with 46 galleries in the Old Sorting Office, just south of the British Museum.
Its demise was rapidly followed by that of Bridge, another fair for young artists, which will continue on to Berlin and Miami. The decision was blamed on worries over the strength of the market and the poor dollar-pound exchange rate.
While Bridge and Year '08 were never the strongest of the Frieze "satellite" fairs - if Zoo falters, however, there should be real worries - it was a surprise to hear that 2009 will be the end of the line for the Contemporary Art Society's Art Futures fair.
Traditionally held in March, the next edition would have been its 25th. The society blamed the proliferation of other fairs, saying it was no longer necessary to have its own fair in the capital, and added that it had only ever broken even.
Meanwhile, two of the 20 fairs scheduled in Miami last year to coincide with Art Basel Miami Beach in December have already folded, and more casualties are now predicted. Is this a sign of the market unravelling or an inevitable correction after the excesses of last year?
Jane Morris is an arts journalist and editor
