Fresh Paint is a contemporary Art Fair that takes place every year in Tel Aviv. It’s considered to be one of the biggest, most influential annual events in the Israeli art world, with more than 30,000 visitors during the six-day fair. Many of the top galleries and main art institutions in Israel attend, including the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Design Museum Holon, as well as international auction houses and art institutions like Sotheby’s. But don’t worry - you don’t need to be a millionaire to shop the fair. Fresh Paint has a unique model - the Independent Artists’ Greenhouse – which serves as a launch pad for selected, local Israeli artists whose work you can snag at wallet-friendly price points (at least by highbrow art standards). Also on deck is Fresh Design, a section dedicated to showcasing industrial and product design studios and projects.
So how did this major fair get started? Recognizing a need for a boost in the Israeli art scene, two female entrepreneurs, Yifat Gurion and Sharon Tillinger, joined forces nearly ten years ago, to create Fresh Paint. Five years later, having acknowledged that there’s the same need in the Israeli design world, they added a design section.
“One of Fresh Paint’s strengths is that aside from the “immediate suspects” – Israeli businesses, the cultural and social elite, art collectors, and the most active top Israeli galleries – it also attracts the masses,” says Gurion. “The fair is an anticipated annual event, perceived as a high-quality mixture between culture and entertainment, thus bringing a new audience to art circles.”
In general, per Gurion, the prices of art in Israel are considerably lower than elsewhere. While each exhibitor prices their artworks autonomously, the prices in the Greenhouse have an upper limit of NIS 14,000. It’s, in fact, these lower priced artists that Gurion is most excited about. “We’re excited about the group of 53 independent, young artists of our Greenhouse this year: fresh voices, very diverse in disciplines, work methods and thought processes. We’re also excited that we’ve had such an enthusiastic response from the international community – embassies and cultural institutes – willing to support and collaborate in various art and design projects at the fair this year.”
Another aspect of the fair that excites visitors is that it’s always held at a different location – and it’s usually one that is still in construction mode, meaning it’s fresh even for the most in-the-know Tel Avivian. This year, Fresh Paint is inaugurating the building of the new Natural History Museum in the University of Tel Aviv, the first Natural History Museum in Israel.
Lastly, since its inception, the fair has always had a charity component. Fresh Paint’s main project for the community is the Secret Postcard project, done in collaboration with the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Postcard-sized original artworks created by art students, emerging artists, and well-known artists are displayed, anonymously, and offered for sale at the fair. The artworks are sold on a first-come-first-served basis for NIS 180 each. Only after the artworks are paid for can the buyers flip them over to discover whether they have purchased a work by a well-known artist or the work of a potential future art world success. All proceeds from the project fund scholarships for youth who excel in the arts, from underprivileged backgrounds, for studies at the Tel-Aviv Museum of Art’s education center’s program. 900 postcards are sold each year.
