Hands-on: VIP Art Fair

In 2008, The Guardian' s art critic Adrian Searle wrote a cautionary guide to those looking to write about art. One of the sections of that inclusive and inviting monologue that always sticks in my mind, "Never write about what you haven't seen." But the premise of the online-only VIP Art Fair 2.0, which kicked off on February 3, and carries on until February 8, is that seeing isn't really all that necessary to enjoying. Not seeing in the tactile, real, in-front-of-your-eyes sense. Art, it would seem, can be digested and decided upon (and hopefully bought) simply via the power of the jpeg. Here's me stood in front of Haneen (2000) by the Moroccan artist Hassan Hajjaj, on Dubai gallery The Third Line's booth . More than 130 exhibitors are taking part this year, in the second edition of the fair. Galleries haven't had to worry about shipping works to some trade hall, nor do they have to wear plastered-on smiles and make chit-chat with even the most passing interested party. Everything takes place through the screen: fielding questions from buyers and collectors, earnest discussions about the market of the sort that get banded around in non virtual fairs, and even occasional performative 'happenings' taking place at allotted times. It's entirely free for public browsing, and he sheer scale of it can be daunting save for those either extraordinarily curious or at least fairly in the know. Works tend to be accompanied by descriptions, some written by the artist, which are useful if often too lengthy for snappy browsing. Similarly, the 'Tours' are basically just selections from the dizzying amount of works across the 'halls' (how some of these tourmasters managed to organise from this 1,787-strong mass of artworks really is beyond me), with occasional one-liner comments from the curator. Among the big-hitters, there's the usual bunch (Gagosian, The Pace Gallery, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac), but have a good look through the mid-table for some promising and daring spaces. Locally, The Third Line, Carbon 12 and Lawrie Shabibi are taking part. Interaction with galleries is, however, slightly tepid. Given that exhibitors are coming from all over the world and varying time zones (look out for the Latin American galleries, some sparky works in there), there's no live chat capabilities built into the front-end of the fair. Contact details are all there, but it would be great to be able to have just quick couple-of-line conversations in the manner of how one tends to wander a real fair. Being able to filter according to geography is quite useful, and makes exploring some of the lesser known spaces a pleasant experience. The system is also so well-wrought that the process of exploring is fast and user-friendly. But the VIP Art Fair really does raise questions about how we digest art these days. If this is, as one Dubai gallerist suggested to me over the weekend, the future of art fairs, then importance seems to be shifting away from physical interaction with a piece for those who intend to buy. This online-only world seems to dismiss the necessity for a face-to-face confrontation with a piece that, really until now, was the basis of how we consume art. Sure, an art fair tends to be a hectic, crammed-in trade fair of objects produced in the very private, introverted kiln of an artist's imagination. While the VIP Art Fair makes looking through works a far more relaxed experience, I still think there's something to be said for looking at and wandering around a piece. This is most evident in the sculptures here (sculpture is the second most predominant medium in the fair after painting). Reduced into a 2D world of images and silhouettes for scale, we have to imagine the spatial relationship we might have with a piece, coupled with verbose gallery descriptions, and hope to have some moment of serendipity with a piece. It'll be interesting to see how sales come out at the end of play this week. But however cerebral and opaque much contemporary art has become, at the crux of how we appreciate a work is a physical, bodily relation to it, surely? Not just looking, but seeing as well. Decide for yourself. It's free to enter. Head to www.vipartfair.com