Nuanu Creative City, located on the west coast of Bali, will be home to the island’s first international art fair. Art & Bali 2025 is set to welcome visitors from 12-14 September, with the overarching theme ‘Bridging Dichotomies’.
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For an island that welcomed 6.3 million international visitors in 2024, it’s a promising start for a new fair, let alone the first of its kind. Miami saw approximately the same number of international guests in 2023 and the city has already established its place on the global fair calendar, with Art Basel Miami Beach, Art Miami, Untitled Art, Design Miami and a whole suite of events packaged as Miami Art Week. Similarly, Taiwan’s Taipei Dangdai has successfully attracted collectors, galleries and curators of international renown while servicing the local scene in its past five years.
And yet, Art & Bali Fair Director Kelsang Dolma tells ArtsHub that the ambition goes beyond attracting the same old players. If anything, the international art market is oversaturated with art fairs, as it currently stands.
”Nuanu is exciting for me in terms of how I can reinterpret the concept of an art fair,” says Dolma. “Our objective would be focused towards supporting the growth of Indonesian art in general.”
The potential of an art fair in Bali
Born in India and a recent new resident of Nuanu, Dolma’s own background includes a decade of experience working with India’s Serendipity Arts Festival, Saffron Art and the Indian Ceramics Triennale. She’s seen how India’s contemporary art scene has experienced a boom, and she now also sees the potential in Bali with the growing interest there.
“Knowing the fact that Indonesia’s creative economy is getting tapped into from left, right and centre – where everybody, including the government, is investing – I think that’s a very interesting point for us to tap into as well… It’s going to be about elevating Indonesian art and bringing the international art community to Bali to engage in constructive dialogues and improve the contemporary art practices here,” says Dolma.
Bali briefly hosted Art Bali in 2018/19, a mainly artist-led art fair/festival event that was meant to run annually, but was unfortunately short-lived.
Resources and platforms seem to be the keywords for Art & Bali, where the fair would be more than just a buy-and-sell event. Patrons, institutions, grants, residencies and education are some aspects Dolma mentions as potential areas where Art & Bali, and the Nuanu project overall, can play a key role.
Read: Artists announced for Aichi Triennale 2025
What Art & Bali will look like
Art & Bali will activate five venues within the Nuanu Creative City, with indoor curated exhibitions rather than the standardised booths, as well as outdoor public installations. Curators will be announced soon.
The main venue includes the 1049-square metre Labyrinth Art Museum space, which was under construction when ArtsHub visited late last year, but “already eyebrow-raising in … scope and potential,” wrote Managing Editor Madeleine Swain.
Dolma adds, “We’re thinking about how we can utilise the asset and the resources that we have and activate this space in the most approachable way. Because it’s not necessarily going to be positioned as a high-brow or luxurious event. We’re here to support the artist community and create an ecosystem where we could have our own set of patrons and collectors.”
One way the fair will be supporting local artists is to partner up with real estate developers, where artworks sales can ride the wave of Bali’s real estate economy. Dolma is confident that there is demand to support a healthy art market ecosystem.
“Bali is already a very easy selling point and it has international appeal,” says Dolma. Art & Bali seeks to build upon that to forge new connections and realise the potential for Indonesia’s art scene, starting with the locals.
Further curator, gallery and program announcements for Art & Bali 2025 will be made in the coming months.
