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from Salon - The Intersection of Art + Design

from Salon - The Intersection of Art + Design, page 107

OBSESSION IS A VIRTUE

by Jill Bokor

In this most challenging year, as event after event was cancelled, Salon wondered if it would meet the same fate. By the beginning of August, it was clear that we, too, would be unable to hold a live fair.

Something we’ve all learned in 2020 is that nothing can be taken for granted. While we’d previously all lived making constant reference to digital platforms, for everything from luxury goods to insurance, political solicitations to personal services, the art world was slightly different. We had the luxury of seeing announcements for art exhibitions and fairs online and then going to them. All that changed by the middle of March. Clever organizers found a way to create virtual fairs and viewing rooms and, like the virus itself, they were novel for a while. But like so much about this year, fatigue set in for the virtual fairs.

When we knew that there could be no live Salon this year, we looked for other ways to further our platform and meet our exhibitors’ needs. I had spent 20 years as a magazine publisher and been very sorry about the fate of the print media that had played such an outsize role in American culture for over a century. It occurred to me that there might be a kind of retro-chic in producing a magazine, and we moved forward with the idea. It seemed that in this moment of evanescence, people liked the idea of a beautiful object entering their homes, being displayed and referred to over time. Hence, Salon – The Intersection of Art + Design.

The idea was for a legitimate magazine that would create a discourse about this moment and the future of art and design. And while we’ve referenced Salon’s past in our timeline, the magazine does indeed take on changes in

the marketplace. However, the true centerpiece of the magazine is At Home with Salon: the editorial portfolio of objects that would have been exhibited in this year’s fair. Despite the challenges, our exhibitors have amassed a remarkable collection of the beautiful, the functional, and the uncommon, providing here a quick survey of the worlds of art and design in 2020.

Because there is no ignoring the virtual, and because you can’t get a true picture of a gallery’s offerings with one photo, the magazine will be also published online on 19 November, the day Salon would have opened. Additionally, in their dedicated pages, participants have been given QR codes that will take readers directly into the galleries themselves. We hope it’s the best of all possible worlds. More importantly, we hope that the world is a brighter place next year and look forward to welcoming you to the Park Avenue Armory for Salon’s 10th anniversary in November 2021.

I would like to thank the Salon team for such a quick pivot to this new medium. We’re all grateful to the writers who’ve lent us their thoughts and the subjects of our By Design interviews, who’ve taken time to talk about collecting design. Finally, our deepest gratitude to the team at Cultureshock. Without their talent and expertise, we could not have pulled this off.

Jill Bokor is Executive Director, Salon Art + Design