By Henry Arvidsson.
Art lovers in the City of Peace and Justice united for the opening of Art The Hague on 1 October The venerable Fokker Terminal with its huge hangar hosts for five days the largest gathering of contemporary art in town.
The thirty-seven galleries present as this edition display both 2D and 3D art. Oil or acrylic on canvas, cut leaves, lithographs, metal sculptures, huge colourful light bulbs, cardboard creatures and some fantastic photography and photography based art. For the politically minded there is a masterpiece from Steven Wilkes “Day to Night” series from the Obama inauguration. The large image is assembled from 1400 individual pictures taken during a whole day and painstakingly assembled for the final image that can be yours for the price of a midsized car. 
The extremely detailed photograph can be admired at the Artitled Contemporary Gallery. If that is out of reach there is also a large collection of miniature plastic Volkswagens at different stages of “development” priced from 100 Euros. The miniature cars are linked together, immersed in liquid and contained in glass jars as if they were foetuses on display in a museum. The provocative installation is on display at Buro Rotterdam. Feel free to go behind the large white pop-up walls to discover exhibits or art academies and climb the stairs to the mezzanine for solo exhibits of featured artists such as Simon Schrikkers assembly of 80 paintings with the common name and motif “Pulpo”(Octopus). Simon sought inspiration for his artwork at the Blijdorp Aquarium in Rotterdam.
If some of the pictures from the series “World of Tales” by the Estonian artist Kylli Sparre look familiar it is probably because you are a user of Photoshop as her artwork are featured on the opening screen of the software product and thereby spread around the world. The Global Factories Award is named after the medical tech company based in The Hague that sponsors the award. To stimulate artists and gallery owners alike the company have committed to buy an artwork with a max price tag of 10 000 Euros for their corporate art collection. An independent panel of judges assembled several artworks and agreed on a winner. It was Galerie 2.0 that provided the winning piece, a magnificent photographic portrait by the Hasselblad Price Winner Denis Rouvre.
You can see the winner and so much more stimulating contemporary art at the Fokker Terminal from 1-5 October 2014. For more info www.artthehague.nl
