The ADA Gallery booth at the 2017 Current Art Fair (Photo by Terry Brown courtesy Glavé Kocen Gallery)
Current Art Fair
Oct. 24-27 at Bon Secours Washington Redskins Training Center
The Current art fair began in 2016, where most things do these days, in Scott’s Addition.
The 2017 edition landed at Main Street Station, and a Current Book Art event was held in March 2018 at Studio Two Three. How Current should proceed became a question that BJ Kocen and Jennifer Glavé sought to answer.
The couple operates Glavé Kocen Gallery, and, as Kocen observes, “Jen and I met as event planners in 2000. It’s what our partnership grew out of.” After an extensive location search, they strode into Level 2 of the Bon Secours Washington Redskins Training Center and caught a vision. The WTVR Channel 6 tower, used as Current's logo, looms above the center with a panorama of Scott’s Addition beyond. The 250 parking spaces helped.
“This was easily the best rental facility, technically and aesthetically, that we could find,” Kocen says. “And so many people haven’t been here yet.”
Perhaps, then, this is one issue the art fair can tackle: bringing an audience to the sports palace where art is introduced into what may seem an unlikely space.
The 20 arts organizations included in the fair come from the region and beyond, including Les Yeux du Monde of Charlottesville, Linda Matney from Williamsburg and Virginia Beach’s Bojuart. Long-established Richmond galleries making their Current debut are artspace (1988) and the Crossroads Art Center (2002). They join the 40-year-old artist run 1708 Gallery, and the taste-setting Reynolds Gallery. Organizations such as the Richmond Street Art Festival and RVA Makers will be present, along with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ VMFA on the Road artmobile and Art on Wheels.
In the midway section of the fair, would-be artists of all ages can participate in various demonstrations directed by artists. A theater space will host films curated by Enjoli Moon of the Afrikana Independent Film Festival; “Antiques Road Show” appraiser Ken Farmer will tell stories from the road; and Shockoe Artspace will present a documentary called “The Builder” about a Richmond contractor who collects art. That dovetails into the Current concept of collecting and creating.
For early arrivals, there will be Himalayan bowl singers for mediation and on Sunday, a jazz brunch.
Art fairs strive to present quality paired with quantity. Curiosity and a little sense of adventure help, too. “People don’t know how robust our art community is; this gives a snapshot to people who’ve not collected, or seasoned collectors who want to see something new,” Kocen says.
Preview party at 6 p.m. Oct. 24, $55. Noon to 8 p.m. Oct 25-26 and noon to 5 p.m. Oct. 27. Tickets: general admission, $10 per day, with weekend passes for $15.
3 MORE ART EVENTS
"Edward Hopper and the American Hotel"
Oct. 26-Feb. 23, 2020, at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
This exhibition features paintings by Hopper and others depicting settings at hotels, motels and boarding houses. This is the exhibition's only East Coast showing. $10 to $16.
An illuminated art installation from a previous InLight (Photo by Zephyr Sheedy courtesy 1708 Gallery)
Nov. 15-16 at Chimborazo Park
This year, the light-based art and performance event lands in Richmond's Chimborazo Park. The event will feature art referencing the park’s complex history as a Confederate hospital and a community for formerly enslaved African Americans. Free.
Nov. 22-24 at Main Street Station
A long-running juried show that showcases contemporary crafts from local and national artists at the renovated train shed at Main Street Station. $10 to $80.
