ART INTERNATIONAL ZURICH 2007

Press release

The 9th ART INTERNATIONAL will introduce current items of contemporary art. The main focus is based for the third time on visual art from Asia and outer Europe. The cultural importance of the city of Zurich is enriched and endorsed by 9 years ART INTERNATIONAL ZURICH. ART INTERNATIONAL is the art fair in Zurich with a large international audience and exhibitors from around the world. The fair became a favourite of the public and an important economic factor for the Zurich region.

Art Seasons Lake Zurich brings fast-rising Chinese Artists to ART INTERNATIONAL ZURICH 2007: As recently as 5 years ago only insiders of the international art scene knew that something hot was brewing in China. Then, driven through an explosion of demand from buyers and through widely published equally exploding auction results for a group of contemporary Chinese artists, Chinese contemporary art moved into the focus of the art world. Sotheby's, Christie's, and even more local auction houses like Koller seem to think that the Chinese will have a strong future in Europe as they diversify from New York and Hong Kong to London and Zurich. Initially, only 2-3 artists crossed the million US$ line with their achieved auction results. Now this group has widened further to another half dozen artists and even prices up to 2-4 mill. US$ have been seen. Klaus Hammer of Art Seasons recalls that the artworks, which Art Seasons collected from artists like Zhang Xiaogang, and sold to customers at their opening exhibition of Art Seasons Beijing gallery in 2004 might now have a combined market value of several million US$. Now in 2007, for their first participation at ART INTERNATIONAL ZURICH, the Art Seasons group has again pulled their long-established contacts with important Chinese artists and has assembled a collection of artworks which might have a similar potential. Feng Zhengjie, Zhao Nengzhi, Song Yonghong, Zhong Biao, Yang Mian, and Ma Liuming, which have already widely gained recognition, might be among the next group of Chinese mega-artists. Now their artworks are valued between 20'000 and 100'000 US$. With the still tremendous demand which can be expected from China's existing and upcoming millionaires it is almost a sure bet, that in a few years time some of these artists and their artworks might be valued many times higher.

South Korean contemporary art scene will be present for its 7th time at ART INTERNATIONAL ZURICH (Minjoo Lee and Jung Galleries, Seoul, and Hari Gallery, Seoul).

BB Contemporary Switzerland shows the german / swiss co-production of alpengluehen art group (aag) and the japanese multimedia artist Junko Matsumoto from Osaka with a serie of new digital works titled "Beuys reloaded", including works by Art Wolf with a retrospective of historical photographs of Joseph Beuys.

Among the large number of international galleries are the Frans Jacobs Gallery / Judith Bouwknejt Amsterdam, Art Seasons (Zurich - Singapore - Djakarta - Peking), EdeArte Buenos Aires, Taller Arco 2000 Mexico, Galleria Rizzi Ritter Milano, E-art Gallery Athens, Galerie Kunst im West Zurich, In Art Gallery Germany with young art from eastern Europe, Forster Art Zurich with a contemporary selection of Russian artists of St. Petersburg, Fernando Guerao Gallery and Botó de Roda Gallery from Spain, Schriever Cologne, a special presentation from Marshall Art Zurich with 6 International Graffiti artists, Bis Heute-Galerie Bern, Berengo Studio with Murano-glass objects and Art Promotion 02 Gallery with Baltic artists, Kro Art Vienna and Eberstaller Austria, Patrick Pryor USA, Gallery Bastejs Riga, Navitrolla Gallery Estonia, Canadian Arctic Gallery Basel, among many others.

Forum Sculpture in 2007 shows for its second year 10 European sculptors with always new discovery including Bea Abdelnour, Monika Siebmanns, Max Seiz, Christian Koller, Reto Schatz, Walter Kaufmann, Dominique Dardek and Jacqueline Urbach.

Photography special in 2007 by the young Swiss photographer Andi Empl with his giant print installation "Running to stand still" and the german photographer Sönke C. Weiss with a serie of C-prints in support for World Vision Children Fund. The video artist David Apikian from Paris shows a video-animation as "animated painting".