The annual Manchester Art Fair has returned to the city once again and is bigger and more inclusive than ever with more than 600 artists.
Visitors will be invited to purchase art, enjoy talks, art classes, book signings and more from today until Sunday (November 17).
The Denton-based Lazerian Creative Studio is one of more than 170 exhibitors showcasing their art. The studio offers a unique opportunity for visitors to create their own prints during the fair.
Find stall 211 to experience ‘Press and Play’- a seesaw which uses your weight to move levers which release paint, draw with crayons, and spray paint circles onto a work you can take home.
The event will also feature some famous faces. These include talks from renowned music photographer Scarlet Page – daughter of Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page – along with a display of some of the famous faces Page has photographed.
Hacienda-night-club-DJ-turned-author, DJ Dave Haslam, will also be in attendance signing copies of his books.
The fair has grown hugely since 2008 – starting with just around 60 exhibitors in its first year, to now hosting more than 170 exhibitors and showcasing over 600 different artists.
Founder Thom Hetherington grew up no stranger to the art world.
He was acutely aware of the near absence of commercial galleries in the city and noticed that “it wasn’t really easy to buy art”.
From this, Manchester Art Fair was born in hopes of leaving the London-centric art world in the past and allowing an audience for art up north like never before. Today it is one of the largest art fairs in the UK.
The art fair stands on its own as an attempt to make art more accessible, and also has naturally over time become a space for lesser known galleries, and artists of diverse backgrounds.
And the buyers are as diverse as the artists.
Hetherington said: “You’ve actually got an art fair with someone who has never stepped foot in a gallery before, or someone who’s a curator for a public institution, and everyone in between – whether they’re paying £50 or £50,000 – can come and buy art, and find their space and their dynamic within the fair.”
I-Hsuan Liao is the founder of Gallery San, which is among the newer galleries and currently working mostly online. Gallery San will be exhibiting at the fair for the first time this year, although Liao has participated in the fair before.
Liao said: “It’s a thing in the local galleries and museums that the artists they’re exhibiting are 97% white male artists, and this caused the minority community to feel it’s unrelatable, so they wouldn’t go in.”
Inspired by refugee artists in need of a segue into the sometimes insular world of art, Gallery San will feature work from mostly Northern Artists at this year’s fair but is working hard to curate meaningful art from artists of diverse backgrounds, refugee backgrounds, and underrepresented groups to a scene that is traditionally reserved for a niche echelon of England.
The fair is open on Saturday, November 16 (10am – 6pm) and Sunday, November 17 (10am – 4pm). Tickets for both days will be available at the door for £15 plus a booking fee.
