Collect International Art Fair

For our December talk, we were fortunate enough to have Isobel Dennis, Fair director of Collect coming to explain more about the International Art Fair for Modern Craft and Design which is now in its 16th year. I have taken some information from the Collect website about the art fair:
'Collect is the only gallery-presented art fair dedicated to modern craft and design. Through the years Collect has been instrumental in defining and growing the market for contemporary craft.
Collect celebrates over 400 artists presented by galleries coming from across the globe to this London stage, showcasing exceptional works in ceramics, glass, metal, wood and textiles to makers working in non-traditional materials with experimental techniques.
For 2020, Collect is moving to a striking new home at Somerset House and is excited to be taking over a large number of beautiful rooms presenting a new environment for Collect exhibitors to contextualise and curate modern craft.
 In addition to the main fair Collect Open presents new ambitious craft installations by individual artists and collectives and a lively talks programme explores contemporary craft with leading voices from the worlds of craft, design, architecture, fashion and art.'
Isobel Dennis was introduced by Erik Burnett-Godfree, he been instrumental in inviting her to come and talk to us about Collect, and it transpired that they knew each other at school.

 Here's Isobel below explaining that there has been a huge change in attitude to Craft since 2004 when Collect began to bring top galleries from around the world together. Hauser and Wirth opened Make, Roche Court a design house, Tate St Ives and Tate Modern have also been involved in matters of craft and why craft matters. There have recently been record sales prices with buyers from the Fitzwilliam and the V&A and there's also a Loewe Foundation Craft Prize won last year by  Japanese lacquer artist Genta Ishizuka, beating 2,500 entrants from more than 100 countries to scoop the prestigious international award.

 We were shown lots of examples of the best works at the fair, below people looking at exhibits

 I made notes and hoped the lovely Collect catalogue Isobel gave me would help, I think this was a red glass bull's eye from Oregon. It was a fascinating talk, and apologies that my notes now seem insufficient to the task of writing up the evening.

 Glass is very much on trend at the moment

 I think this piece above is Caithness thermoformed and pushed through chicken wire, and I think the teapot shaped piece below is Czech fused glass

 And at the end of the talk, we asked Isobel to pose beside the Collect slide.

 Thank you once again for coming and shining a light on the Craft Fair, and most generously giving us tickets to the event which runs from 27 February - 1March.