MERCANTEINFIERA EXCEEDS EXPECTATIONS DURING FIRST WEEKEND OVER 5000 BUYERS AND PRE-COVID FIGURES
The first weekend of the 40th edition of the antiques, historic design and vintage collectibles exhibition ended with very encouraging attendance of buyers and visitors with figures in line with the 2019 edition. Meanwhile Fiere di Parma and MIA Milan Image Art Fair join forces to further boost the photography, art and design market by creating one of the leading European hubs.
(Parma, 5 October 2021) – Optimism was high on the eve of Mercanteinfiera, but the figures of the first weekend – the exhibition continues until 10 October – exceed expectations, with pre-Covid attendance of buyers and visitors. In particular, there is a strong presence of Russian and French buyers, while the Turkish ones are back with a total of about 5000 operators. This success is due both to the work of Fiere di Parma and to the quality of the objects selected by the over 1,000 exhibitors at the event.
The rare pieces on display at the Parma exhibition of antiques, historic design and vintage collectibles just had to include a Mercanteinfiera-style reference to Dante, on the 700th anniversary of his death. Visitors can admire a late-18th century engraved bovine shoulder blade depicting an episode from Canto XXVIII in the Divine Comedy’s Inferno, which tells the story, on the one hand, of the battle of Tagliacozzo between the Ghibellines, who supported Conradin of Swabia, and the troops of Charles I of Anjou on the Guelph side; and on the other, of Conradin’s decapitation.
An original, 17th-century Venetian sedan chair that seems to have come out of a Canaletto painting, and the lost and later rediscovered work by the Palermo painter Giacomo del Po, “Il bagno di Diana” (Diana’s bath), from the late Baroque period and listed in the inventory of the Prince of Avellino, also draw a lot of interest. As does, among modern antiques, a 1936 briar radio, updated and working with a Bluetooth system. Meanwhile, vintage lovers take a journey through the history of fashion among clothes, shoes and unusual jewellery (such as an old Victorian waistcoat chain, used to wind up clocks, strictly in diamonds).
Great success of our collateral shows: “A man’s backbone. The history of the tie”, which explores through drawings, sketches, cutting dies and 40 ties (as many as the years of Mercanteinfiera) this male accessory in its numerous and extravagant versions, and “Back to the games”, which tells the story of video games from the 1970s to the 2000s. Games which are to be tried as well as admired.
But it is the world of photography that has led Fiere di Parma – organizer of Gotha as well as Mercanteinfiera – to sign an agreement with MIA Milan Image Art Fair, the most important Italian fair dedicated to the sector, thus creating a new strategic alliance between the two events with a view to internationalization. This objective is guaranteed by the well-established international relations of the exhibition centre and the more than 10 years’ knowledge of the market of MIA creators and organizers.
Their first joint activity will be the organization of a collective show by MIA exhibitors in some of the main foreign art fairs, such as Art Cologne 2023, Art SG Singapore and World Art Dubai.
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INFO
Date: until 10 October 2021
Location: Fiere di Parma, Viale delle Esposizioni 393a
Times: 10 am to 7 pm
www.mercanteinfiera.it
