Viennacontemporary is an international contemporary art fair founded in 2012 in Vienna. However, at first, it was called VIENNAFAIR and was organised in cooperation with the city of Vienna. Since 2012, the fair's organizing team has included Dmitri Aksonov (also founder of the Aksevon Family Foundation), managing director Renger van den Heuvel, and two artistic directors, Christina Steinbrecher-Pfandt and Vita Zaman.

In 2015, the fair was rebranded: it moved to the new building of the renovated Marx Halle factory in the east of the city, and the new name, viennacontemporary, was introduced at the same time. Christina Steinbrecher-Pfandt became the artistic director, a position she held until 2018, and Johanna Chromik was the new artistic director of the fair in 2019.

The main focus of the fair is art from Central and Eastern Europe, but in general the organizers strive to keep a balance between local Austrian galleries, international galleries and galleries from Eastern Europe. The same goes for artists: viennacontemporary aims to present artists both young and established on the art scene.

«The successor of VIENNAFAIR, the fair has in its short history become an influential commercial art fair in Central and Eastern Europe. At the same time, it is also notable for its affordable prices (works by emerging artists can be bought for as little as €200). It owes its heyday mainly to its owner, Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Aksenov. Hence there is the stable presence of Russian galleries at the fair».

The formal abolition of VIENNAFAIR and the creation of viennacontemporary have not only brought the above menthioned changes, but also the composition and number of participating galleries has changed. And although the list of galleries changes from year to year, there are still a few regular exhibitors. For example the Berlin galleries Diehl and Michael Schultz, the Moscow galleries pop/off/art, Ovcharenko, Triangle and gallery 21, the Marina Gisich Gallery and gallery Iragui from St Petersburg, the Austrian galleries Mario Mauroner Contemporary (Salzburg) and Krinzinger (Vienna).

In addition, the fair has gained a board of experts, consisting mainly of Austrian gallery owners, who have rejected some of the former exhibitors, but have also attracted new ones from Paris, London, Köln, Copenhagen, Warsaw and Moscow, as well as from Amsterdam, Porto and Stockholm. Around 110 galleries exhibit at viennacontemporary each year.

For example, each year the Focus programme highlights a set of countries whose art the organisers want to open up to local audiences. In 2016, this was a focus on the Nordic Highlights countries of Finland, Denmark and Sweden, and then the focus shifted to the south-eastern European countries of the former Yugoslavia and Albania in particular.

Another section, Solo Expanded, features mini-exhibitions of individual artists united by a common theme, dialogue. As a result, there are some interesting figures, such as the Romanian sculptor and Anish Kapur's teacher, Paul Nega, or a host of Georgian artists from the perestroika era. There are also some celebrities - like Marina Abramovic or Gerhard Richter.

Besides these two programmes, there are also Reflections and Zona1, with Reflections focusing exclusively on young artists and Zona1 presenting solo exhibitions by young artists (note that young artists are defined as those under 35).

A special merit of the fair's organizers is the active cooperation with Viennese art institutions: close ties are maintained with the Albertina, the Picture Gallery, the Academy of Fine Arts, the Leopold Museum and other museums. This is reflected in the nature of the fair's parallel programme: it usually includes a series of panel discussions where representatives of the museum community, artists and gallerists interact. There are also film screenings. For the city of Vienna, this is a particularly important undertaking (it would certainly be more accurate to say a continuation), because this kind of event promotes the Austrian capital as a centre for contemporary art and culture.

In 2020, when almost all world fairs were cancelled, postponed or moved online, the platform vc_on, or viennacontemporary online, was launched. Following in the footsteps of other colleagues in the contemporary art market, so-called on-line viewing rooms were invented, where it was possible to view prepared exhibitions in digital mode. But the real achievement was the launch of the online magazine «viennacontemporarymag», which is still active today. It publishes weekly announcements of openings and art events «Vienna weekly» and interviews with collectors, curators and artists.

https://www.viennacontemporary.at/en/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/viennacontemporary/albums/72157719767140851/with/51419396593/

• RU:  Vienna Contemporary