Are art fairs still relevant intermediaries in today's art world?

Given the still predominant but changing economic and social role of fairs in today’s art world, this chapter comes back to their specificities and complexities. Specifically, it aims to assess the role of art fairs for their main stakeholders in today’s ever-evolving global art ecosystem, to increase understanding of art fair practices, and to highlight some of the issues faced by the organisers of art fairs. In the first part, we offer a survey of the literature on trade shows before looking specifically at fairs in the creative industries. The review is built on research undertaken by scholars from various but complementary fields, such as marketing, economic geography or sociology, to offer readers a comprehensive understanding of the topic. The second part addresses the perspective of the art fairs’ main stakeholders, i.e., galleries, and investigates the reasons why securing and curating a booth in a reputed art fair is still so important to them despite the astronomical costs it entails. Here, through the exploration of top-tier contemporary art fairs such as Art Basel, Frieze or Arco and the analysis of interactions taking place at such venues, we explore the role they have carved for themselves in the art ecosystem. Finally, we look at ways in which art fairs might reinvent themselves to remain current and meet the needs of a new generation of gallerists and visitors.