CHART Introduces Cut-price Programme to Hook New Collectors

Participating galleries will present works under $3,000 to entice first-time buyers.

Nordic Art Fair CHART is introducing a new programme to hook budding collectors.

Start Collecting with CHART asks participating galleries to present a single artwork for less than 20,000 DKK (U.S. $2,900).

Works in the Start Collecting programme will be free to view in the foyer of the Kunsthal Charlottenborg when the fair returns to Copenhagen from 24 to 27 August. Fixed prices will be clearly displayed with the goal of demystifying the art collecting process.

'The purpose of the exhibition is to encourage first-time buyers and those who are curious about contemporary art, but perhaps haven't started their collecting journeys yet, to meet the galleries at CHART,' said Director Julie Quottrup Silbermann.

This year's fair includes 37 exhibitors presenting works by more than 100 artists.

Quottrup Silbermann said the fair would look non-traditional.

'Instead of walls separating each of the booths, the galleries share the exhibition space, so the fair looks more like one well-curated exhibition,' she said. 'We want to promote an idea of the Nordic art scene as a space where there is a strong emphasis on high-quality curated presentations, and where galleries share resources, information and collectors with one another.'

Among the highlights of this year's booth presentations are abstract landscapes by American photographer Catherine Opie and Ida Ekblad's found-detritus sculptures at Oslo's Peter Lund Gallery. Reykjavik-based i8 Gallery' will present works by Ragnar Kjartansson, whose retrospective is currently showing at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

A kiss-themed all-female presentation by Copenhagen's Galleri Bo Bjerggaard will feature artists such as Eva Schlegel and Janaina Tschäpe.

Public performances will be presented around Kongens Nytorv (The King's New Square) including Molly Haslund's Flower Drop, in which she wanders the city with an oversized bouquet of flowers. The Danish artist aims to engineer moments of kindness by deliberately dropping flowers. Passers-by who stoop to return the flowers will receive them back again as gifts of gratitude.

CHART's expansion to Tivoli Gardens for the second time will see contemporary sculptures installed at Europe's third-oldest amusement park from 24 August to 24 September.

'The collaboration with Tivoli in 2022 for the 10th edition of CHART was very well received,' Quottrup Silbermann said. 'Visitors at Tivoli were so enthusiastic and the response from the galleries was overwhelmingly positive.'

Visitors to Tivoli Gardens this year will encounter works including a slick pink rocket sculpture by Swiss artist Sylvie Fleury, and the large neon sign Leaking Fountain (2023) by Danish artist FOS. —[O]