In 2006, Chicago-based Merchandise Mart Properties Inc. (MMPI) stepped into the art fair business in a fairly dramatic way with an 11th-hour rescue of the venerable but troubled Art Chicago. Since then, MMPI has continued to purchase major art shows, including the Armory Show in New York, Volta NY, Volta Basel, and the Toronto International Arts Fair, making the organization a major player in the art world.

The force behind all this is MMPI president Christopher Kennedy, who brings a business strategy commensurate with his MBA, a sense of civic duty inherited from his famous family, and a particular vision of how art and commerce can intersect. Here, on the heels of the Armory Show and the eve of Art Chicago, which is now part of the citywide umbrella event Artropolis (and includes four other art shows at the Merchandise Mart: The Intuit Show of Folk and Outsider Art; the Merchandise Mart International Antiques Fair; The Artist Project, which features unrepresented artists; and NEXT, an invitational fair of 160 galleries focusing on emerging trends in contemporary art that debuts this year), he spoke with ARTINFO Chicago correspondent Mary Ellen Sullivan.

What’s going on with Art Chicago this year — what can we expect?

I’d say the number of cities represented is up dramatically, the number of countries represented is up dramatically, and the sheer number of pieces that will be here is up dramatically. If you go by the numbers, the amount of exhibitors has gone from 130 to 180, with a 36 percent increase in international exhibitors; the square footage per exhibitor is about 600 square feet and the total area they are taking up is about 100,000 square feet — up from about 60,000 last year.

Could you speak for a moment on the benefits of Artropolis? Five shows in one weekend: What does that mean for dealers and collectors?

There’s a halo effect for everyone where they can bask in the glow of one another. There’s critical mass.

I noticed that there are quite a few galleries from Germany participating at Art Chicago this year.

After we entered the art market in 2006, we wanted to create the best team for running art fairs. In the U.S. the best two teams were Paul Morris’s team at the Armory show and the team that runs the Volta show in Switzerland, but which is based in Chicago: Kavi Gupta and his team. The reason we bought those fairs was not so much to own the fairs themselves but to have the opportunity to work with Paul and Kavi. A collateral benefit is that our profile in places like Germany is much greater. Now Art Chicago is not simply a Chicago event, it’s an event produced by a network of people who are spread throughout the U.S. and Europe. The result is that we have a much more international show than ever before.

Which is how I remember it from its the early days at Navy Pier.

When Art Chicago was at Navy Pier [from 1980 through the mid-’90s], it was really one of the only art fairs in the world. The world has changed since then, but the fair is better than it ever was at Navy Pier. Bigger. Better. Broader. Better attended. Then you add NEXT and you get a whole different perspective. My suspicion is that NEXT will be hailed as the most exciting art-world event in 2008.  

Why?

I don’t think there’s ever been anything produced in such scale and scope with such young, cutting-edge dealers. Nobody’s ever gathered them together. They are so iconoclastic, so antithetical to so many of the traditions of the art world, that only a few really great ones survive in any city, so gathering people from around the world is very intense. It’s very challenging. You need a large organization and you need the faith and confidence of those galleries — that when they arrive it is all going to work.  We’ve eliminated a lot of obstacles, and I think as a result, you have these very unique galleries from all over the world participating in one place at one time — many for the first time.

So you’re saying the size of your operation is what makes the difference for the participating galleries?

It allows them to take calculated risks. They can take risks on choosing artists. They can take risks on developing their program. They can take risks on how they display and exhibit. But they don’t need to take risks on the show manager, the venue, the wall system, the lighting, the city, the promotion.  We’ve eliminated those risks and allowed them to focus on the stuff that they know.

If galleries face too many risks, they tend to bring easily marketable art. We think that’s a disaster. We think it’s bad for our culture and bad for our markets. We’d rather provide a well-run market so they can provide unique art, than have them provide marketable art in a risky market.  

What have you done to win the confidence of exhibitors?

Look at the Armory Show. It has never looked better in its history. They’ve never had smoother operations. Better lighting, walls, exhibitor setup. When you walk into a fair, one that hasn’t worked, people are edgy, they are drained, they are tired, cranky, they are everything but a wet diaper. It’s just a very bad ambiance. Collectors get that vibe. They are very intuitive people; they pick up on that agitation. By removing all that, there’s a trickle-down effect, and everyone has a good time.

So we’re very proud of what we do on all of the art fairs, and very confident that each of those shows will develop independently, as they naturally should. The show in New York is always going to be radically different from the show in Chicago, which will be different from the one in Toronto. I think our job as stewards is to make sure they become the fairs they ought to become. We don’t try to force anything on them. Our belief is that fairs are the new retail. We think people like to shop at fairs. They like the energy, they like the concentration of choices, they like the collection, they like that it is only available for that limited time period, that you’re not going to walk into a room and see another piece like that. This represents a unique shopping venue. It’s the new retailing in America, and we want to be part of it in different cities and different categories.

I’ve also noticed that Art Chicago/Artropolis has taken on a festival atmosphere — more events and seminars, more places to socialize.

Our philosophy is to let a thousand flowers bloom. To get as much stuff going on to get people together. For example, during the fair, the Hyde Park Art Center, the Renaissance Society, and others are all running events.  We’re not threatened by that. We think it’s great.

We see contemporary art in particular as a civic duty and believe that art has a tremendous capacity to help shape the way people in the city, the community, respond to issues. Contemporary art is not easy or intuitive or accessible to most people. It’s hard. It takes work. You need to be open to very different ideas. A big city and culture faces these exact same issues. If Chicagoans are open to contemporary art, then they’ll be open to new ideas.  If they are open to new ideas, the city will continue to thrive. If the city continues to thrive, the art business does well. So in a sense, contemporary art is good for society, good for the country.