START Art Fair now in its sixth edition in London, presented at the iconic Saatchi Gallery, will run from September 26-29, 2019. START provides a world class platform for early career and emerging artists from around the world, reflecting London’s position of importance as a global arts capital; the second largest in the world. Working closely with its Founders David and Serenella Ciclitira. START has appointed Grey Skipwith as the fair’s Director.
Grey is a London local who has been in the art world for over 20 years and runs his own gallery while collaborating with museums around the world.
“So many of the world’s great artists have had important and enduring relationships with London that it has created an incredibly rich and diverse landscape of galleries, museums, schools and artists with international influence. I want to develop what START has done so well in continuing to bring exciting artists from around the world who we feel have great careers ahead. START is unique in the London landscape in focusing on bringing together great smaller galleries and emerging artists to present in a world class venue for all to see,” stated Grey Skipwith.
START will bring together exciting young galleries and self-representing artists from around the world. The fair’s new late September date brings it shoulder to shoulder with the opening of FRIEZE London and will kick off London’s autumn art season with exhibitors’ presentations and curated projects, featuring some of the most talented emerging contemporary artists from around the world.
In compliment to START’s ethos of presenting up and coming artists and galleries are a series of curated projects that reflect the fair’s global agenda. START 2019 Projects include;
- A teaser exhibition ahead of the international presentation of Korean Eye 2020, presented by parent company PCA and marks the Global Eye Programme’s 10th Anniversary. The exhibition is co-curated by PCA Founder and CEO Serenella Ciclitira, Dimitri Ozerkov, and Saatchi Gallery Director Philly Adams. This exciting teaser will bring a group of the most forward- thinking and pioneering young contemporary artists in Korea today to central London and an international audience. The full show of 30 artists will open in Russia in Spring 2020 before travelling back to the Saatchi Gallery and finishing in Seoul next autumn. Korean Eye 2020 is supported by Principal Sponsor KEB Hana Bank.
- In compliment to Korean Eye 2020, START 2019 has formed a partnership with worldrenowned Fashion designer Roland Mouret to present the START x Roland Mouret space. Aligned with Mouret’s devotion to the promotion and celebration of strong women, Mouret will co-curate the ground floor space with Korean Eye 2020 Curator, PCA Founder and CEO Serenella Ciclitira. START x Roland Mouret will feature works by two female Korean artists; Seoul-based Hyojin Park and London/Seoul based Meekyoung Shin. Following START the works travel to Mouret’s Flagship Boutique at 8 Carlos Place, Mayfair for an extended pop-up exhibition.
- The third project is a fully immersive installation of Philip Colbert’s Lobster world, complete with its own currency. This virtual reality room will amaze and delight attendees as they step into Colbert’s “World of Art”. Following on from his recent solo exhibitions at the Power Long Museum, Shanghai, China and MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art), Chengdu, China, Galerie Nichido, Tokyo, Japan and the Kasama Nichido Museum of Art, Kasama, Japan. Colbert’s practice encapsulates the spirit of Pop Art through his humorous, colourful, and flamboyant creations. Described as “the Godson of Andy Warhol”, by Andre Leon Talley, Colbert continues the dialogue established by artists such as Richard Hamilton, James Rosenquist and Roy Lichtenstein. His multidisciplinary approach, with a focus on oil painting, updates the legacy of Pop Art collage for the internet age, pushing the boundaries of artistic imagery.
- 2017 Prince’s School of Traditional Arts winner of the Ciclitira Prize Hana Shahnavaz will return for a second year as a Project following her (2018) sell out at last year’s fair and 2018 winner Fang Fang Liu will exhibit her beautiful and delicate works for sale in a booth on the second floor.
- Following the addition last year of a lounge bar, the 2019 lounge this year becomes the START x Oblique Eco Lounge and Bar operated by the Oblique Life, an online Members’ Club. Inside the lounge visitors will find the START x Formula E car which will feature a nose and rear wings painted by Korean Eye 2020 artist; Doowon Lee and a Union Flag livery in celebration of the recently announced inaugural FE Seoul race May 2020 and new London race in July 2020. Coffee company Illy Café, the most sustainable coffee company in the world will serve their coffee from an electric Piaggio coffee truck adjacent to the bar.
- Building on from 2018’s announcement to build STARTnet a digital art platform in collaboration with Korean gallery ARTWA, thanks to investment from START and PCA Founder David Ciclitira, START Projects will launch the platform at the fair.
- START continues its support of artists from emerging art scenes internationally with Mumbai based Michelle Poonawalla’s multimedia installation Introspection, which was first exhibited as a collateral project at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2018 and then at Alserkal Avenue, Dubai in during Art Week Dubai in March 2019, Michelle Poonawalla brings the project to START 2019. ‘Introspection’ was born from a sense of discomfort and unease with the way images of violence and displacement are consumed today, in endless news cycles. Developing on her experiments with digital technology, with this piece, Poonawalla turns to sound, using a combination of audio clips from newsreels and ambient sounds, combining these with motion sensor technology and digitally mapped visuals to create an uncanny sensorium. The end result is a work of art that creates an intense immersive experience, which the artist hopes, will push the audience into a contemplative space. The installation will be accompanied by a separate exhibit of Poonawalla’s recent paintings that encapsulate her varied practice. Michelle Poonawalla pictured below in her installation Introspection.
David Ciclitira, co-founder of START, said:
“This year START will present 100 artists and 25 galleries from 30 countries- these are young artists and galleries that are not hugely wealthy, we try to support them as much as possible. As we all know, London isn’t the cheapest place in the world, nor is it the cheapest place to buy art, so the key thing is to help them sell their work on an international stage. I believe that collectors – and especially younger collectors – are hugely important to that mission; it’s why we’re here. I am further delighted that following an extremely high volume of quality applications from galleries and self-representing artists we have opened a waiting list of accepted artists and for early applications to the 2020 show. This overwhelming volume of applications from so many exceptional un-discovered artists has led to an international expansion of the START brand details of which will be released in the coming months.
Philly Adams, Director Saatchi Gallery commented:
“With a long history of fine art tradition, contemporary Korean artists are fast reaching international audiences through film, pop culture, fine art, music and new technologies. Big changes on a global scale bridge divides with art, music and technology uniting the younger generations with a new appetite and diversity. Saatchi Gallery are excited and honoured to present Korean Eye 2020, the new voices of contemporary Korea, at the Saatchi Gallery, London.”
On the subject of Korean Eye 2020, Serenella Ciclitira co-founder and CEO of PCA and Korean Eye 2020 Curator commented:
“I welcome this wonderful opportunity from KEB Hana Bank to revisit the rich artistic scenario of Korean Contemporary Art. A world of creative imagination and exciting ideas laying beyond the obvious and commonplace and with tremendous ability to engage and surprise.”
START also confirms additional partners including; Art World Forum who return to START for the second year staging a half-day conference on the theme of “the bigger picture’, together with the START team, and Oblique, AWF have devised an exciting programme of in-lounge events including live music, in-conversations, talks and more that will run for the duration of the fair. Official Hotel Partner MY Chelsea, situated just a stone’s throw from the Saatchi Gallery is perhaps one of the first genuine neighbourhood hotels in Chelsea.