"Do-it-yourself": alternative art fairs of the 1990s and their spaces in Europe and the USA

This thesis reconstructs and critically interrogates the history and spatial formation of a group of small, dealer-organised commercial art fairs that emerged in the 1990s. Labelled as ‘alternative’ at the time, Unfair in Cologne (1992 and 1993), the Gramercy International Contemporary Art Fair in New York (1994-1998) and Liste: The Young Art Fair (1996 to date) in Basel, took place in unusual spatial settings: abandoned factories, office buildings, and hotels.

As the first in-depth study of these three art fairs, I ask if and how the mode of an ‘alternative’ influenced the organisation of these fairs and the choice of space in which they took place. In what ways did their spatial contexts operate and impact the works exhibited? How were these fairs subsequently perceived? And, did these alternative art fairs create visibility for emerging artists in an art market which allocated contemporary art at most a peripheral space?

Based upon extensive archival research in public and private collections, site visits and oral histories, my visual, textural and auditory analysis of the three case studies demonstrates the importance of spatiality in art historical research. In particular, I demonstrate how the appropriation of spaces and a DIY approach to event organisation could form a deviation of norms that enhanced experimental artistic practice within commercial art fairs and fostered new networks that enabled critical discourses about art and its systems of distribution.

After an initial introduction to the history and spatial typology of contemporary art fairs, I focus on analysing the three case studies interconnecting the history of each fair with their respective spaces. In addition to a critical analysis of the primary sources, each case study is informed by a theoretical framework that emerged from the material, such as institutional critique (Unfair), heterotopia (Gramercy) and the social production of space (Liste).

My findings show that alternative art fairs became a significant catalyst for the promotion of contemporary art in the 1990s. They developed innovative art fair models, both organisationally and in their use of space, and fostered experimental art production, such as site-specific works and performances. A focus on not-for-profit initiatives led the fairs to become important platforms of information exchange.