Contemporary Istanbul closes to enthusiastic crowds

It was possible to hear things like "Now let's go and see some Andy Warhol, before some Picasso," from visitors to Contemporary Istanbul this year. World renowned galleries – such as the Marlborough Gallery, Haunch of Venison, Mam- Mario Mauroner Contemporary Art, Cordeiros Galeria, Opera Gallery and Micheal Galerie Schultz - brought artists such as Warhol, Bottero, Picasso, Andreas Gursky, Banksy, Damien Hirst, Roy Lichtenstein, Slinkachu and Keith Haring to Istanbul for the fair. Art lovers, audiences, curators and artists were thus brought together at the four day art extravaganza. Being at the fair and seeing the works has become something of an annual trend in Istanbul, with many more visitors coming to Contemporary Istanbul year on year. The 7th edition of the fair featured around 100 galleries, 600 artists, and 3,000 works of art, while also hosting events as part of the CI Dialogues Conference Series. The "New Horizons" section of the series explores contemporary artistic expression in the region's surrounding countries, with the focus this year on Central and Eastern Europe. In honor of 400 years of diplomatic relations between Turkey and the Netherlands, Contemporary Istanbul also hosted a special selection of Dutch galleries, with an important number of Dutch artists and collectors participating. Both Turkish and foreign galleries were satisfied with the interest shown by the audiences, but they did admit that sales were not as high as they had hoped. Sales were around 50 percent, according to most Turkish galleries, while international galleries' total sales by the end of the fair stood at around 66 percent. Eva Coster, from Amsterdam's Grimm Gallery, said her sales were not high, "but we got to know many Turkish collectors and were able to discover the Turkish art market. This was our first year." Carl Johns, gallery manager of C24, which was showing Charles Lutz, said they had experienced a good fair both in terms of sales and in terms of the interest of the crowd and collectors.