Even among the numerous jumbo-sized boats that dot Chelsea Piers on any given day, it was impossible to miss the SeaFair this past week. The shiny white megayacht, complete with its name in (neon blue) lights on either side, has garnered a lot of media attention recently with its novel approach to the game of art dealing.* Both ArtInfo and the New York Times had articles covering the boat in the past week. The ArtInfo piece focuses on the background story of the yacht and what it means for the art fair industry; the NYT was more concerned with describing the lavishness of the boat’s contents and the people onboard it.
Maybe that’s because the Times reporter was one of those people. If the SeaFair’s visuals make it hard to miss in one sense, it was quite easy to miss in another: attendance on the boat is by invitation only. I never went on board (you can request an invitation–perhaps it’s relatively easy to get; I wouldn’t know because I didn’t try), but I was taken aback at first by the idea of a floating mass of galleries…it sounded like a gauche approach to art, like clustering art into a floating mall. The Times makes it clear, however, that the SeaFair’s approach is to display pricey art and antiquities in the kind of lavish, homelike setting where they will likely end up.
Whether or not you agree with one exhibitor’s claim that “Paintings were painted to go in homes”–which seems like a gross generalization–it’s true that there’s something undeniably appealing about seeing art arrayed in a domestic setting. That, for me, is the allure of museums like the Peggy Guggenheim Collection or the Frick; they display art in a tasteful, non-intimidating way that seems to imply that art is something to be lived with. I’m still skeptical of the long-term viability of the SeaFair, and slightly annoyed that I couldn’t just mosey in. But the presentation of the SeaFair sounds intriguing, and I’m beginning to think that, however difficult it is to get inside, it might be worth it.
*Technically, “SeaFair” is the name of the fair, and the yacht is called the “Grand Luxe.”
Image from CHIC and STYLE.
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