13 June 2006 The 2006 HALI Fair opened on the evening of Thursday 8th June with a crowd of almost a thousand visitors in the Olympia National Hall, not counting those who, drawn by the lively and colourful spectacle of carpet, textile and tribal art from all around the globe, came through the free link from the Olympia Fine Arts & Antiques Fair in the adjacent Grand Hall.
Faced with the distraction of the World Cup – a real factor for football crazy Europeans – and some of the hottest mid-June days ever recorded in London, attendance on subsequent days has suffered somewhat, but with the shortfall a consequence of flagging numbers of Grand Hall entrants, with those coming into Olympia on HALI tickets and invitations actually slightly up year-on-year.
Business, by contrast, has been solid, with some dealers, in particular Oxford's Christopher Legge and Galerie Sofreh from Paris and Tehran (both purveyors of top quality and highly visual collectable tribal rugs and textiles) already reporting their best ever fair. African tribal art dealers Owen Hargreaves and Jasmine Dahl have again found the HALI fair to be fertile ground for their style of material, as have New York rug specialist Hagop Manoyan and the ever-inventive Clive Loveless, whose delicately planned 'brown art' tribal art stand also walked away with the event's 'Best-Dressed Stand Award', beating S. Franses with their early tapestries and other high-end European carpets into second place. Amir Etemad's Galerie Sofreh came in third, and there were commendations for, among others, Legge, Joss Graham (another steady performer), Hargreaves & Dahl, Bryan Reeves' Tribal Gathering and The Textile Gallery, whose mini-display of Caucasian embroideries is a particular gem.
Watch this space for further updates before the end of the Fair on Sunday June 18th. |
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