VIENNA.- “One month before the opening of the fifth edition of the >VIENNAFAIR< on May 6, 2009, we are pleased that we can still announce new registrations of galleries. This is a major signal demonstrating the attractiveness of the art venue Vienna and the >VIENNAFAIR<”, comments Matthias Limbeck, managing director in charge of New Business, Marketing & CEE/SEE at fair organiser Reed Exhibitions Messe Wien the current list of participants of the >VIENNAFAIR 2009<. The fair will take place from 7 to 10 May, 2009, in Hall A of Vienna’s Conference Center Messe Wien. In total, approximately 125 exhibiting galleries are expected.

For instance carlier | gebauer from Berlin decided to participate again, and Olaf Stüber and the Galerie OPEN gallery are two further Berlin galleries exhibiting at the >VIENNAFAIR 2009<. Including the new registration of White8 a total of 33 of Vienna’s galleries participate and Edition artelier from Graz is also a new participant. Galerie Altnöder gallery from Salzburg and acb Galéria as a major Budapest gallery are both new starters at the >VIENNAFAIR 2009<.

New Strategies for Art Mediation and on the Art Market With a comprehensive panel discussion programme in the context of the >VIENNAFAIR 2009< departure wirtschaft kunst und kultur gmbh will deal with current issues galleries and museums or art associations alike are facing in the current economic situation. In the top-flight panel discussions current trends in art and Vienna as the venue of innovative cultural productions are debated. In the context of the exhibition project “curated by_vienna09”, organised by departure, in which 18 Vienna galleries will participate, the curators Dan Cameron (founding director and chief curator, Prospect. 1 New Orleans), Jérôme Sans (director, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing), Matthew Higgs (director, White Columns, New York) and Gianni Jezter (director, Swiss Institute Contemporary Art, New York) amongst others, together with other internationally renowned experts from the art world, will discuss curatorial practices and current trends in contemporary arts.

A special programme highlight here will be the panel discussion with the title “All Art Isn’t Global Yet”. The New York Times art critic, Michael Kimmelman, will take a look at the relevance of still existing regional trends in a seemingly globalized art together with the Russian curator Victor Misiano and Iwona Blazwick, director of Whitechapel Art Gallery in London. Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, manager of departure wirtschaft, kunst and kultur gmbh in Vienna and Simon Rees, chief curator of the Contemporary Art Center in Vilnius, will act as moderators of this interesting panel discussions.

To enable as many interested persons as possible to follow the discussions, departure wirtschaft, kunst und kultur gmbh makes a limited number of free admission tickets available. After a personal registration under the e-mail-address viennafair_panelprogram@departure.at visitors can pick up their departure panel pass at the VIP counter of the >VIENNAFAIR 2009<.