The art fair
International Fair for Classic Modern and Contemporary Art
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Our mission: to bring art to life – for beginners and connoisseurs alike. With artworks spanning 120 years of art history, we combine established art with exciting new discoveries.
For over 20 years, art karlsruhe has been a fixture on the German art market. Located in the heart of Baden, close to France, Switzerland, and Austria, it presents:
We look forward to welcoming you to the next edition of art karlsruhe at one of Europe's most beautiful exhibition centers. Together with Karlsruhe's art scene, the UNESCO City of Media Arts, the fair and the city invite you to the season opener of the national art fair year.
The focus is on quality, service, and personal encounters - for visitors, artists, and galleries.
In Karlsruhe, passion prompts people to buy art. Our consistently high numbers of visitors and the strong satisfaction expressed by visitors and exhibitors alike confirm our concept. We see ourselves as perhaps the most democratic of all art fairs: art karlsruhe adeptly builds a bridge between works by established artists on the one hand and less costly yet nonetheless artistically valuable positions that pave the way for new aficionados to begin collecting art.
Tradition and change
After 20 years under the successful leadership of the fair's founder, Ewald Karl Schrade, art karlsruhe has been run by the management duo Kristian Jarmuschek and Olga Blaß since 2024. art karlsruhe is undergoing change. With new formats and themes, a new brand identity, and a strong focus on quality, the fair is preparing itself for the future and the challenges of our time.
What can you expect?
Around 180 national and international galleries will be presenting their market highlights in four ground-level exhibition halls flooded with natural light.
You can plan your personal tour chronologically, starting with classical modernism (Hall 1), followed by post-war modernism (Hall 2) and ending with newcomers and the most contemporary positions (Hall 4), or you can arrange it according to your personal preferences.
Up to 20 sculpture sites in the halls with large-format, installation-based works and up to 30 sculpture spots along the exhibition grounds, as well as the outdoor sculpture garden, will positively interrupt your tour again and again.
Hall 3 also offers plenty of variety:
paper:square, academy:square, start:block: Are you looking for the perfect introduction to art collecting? Here you can find what you are looking for and make low-threshold contacts with the exhibiting galleries through various formats.
Talks on current topics in the art market with prominent speakers at the ARTIMA art meeting, award ceremonies for exceptional presentations at the fair. Special exhibitions, highlights from regional and national museums and cultural institutions, UNESCO City of Media Arts, the ZKM, and, last but not least, wonderful gastronomy make Hall 3 a diverse meeting point within art karlsruhe.
Formats of art karlsruhe
one:artist show
one:artist shows are part of the successful concept of art karlsruhe. On an area of at least 25m², a gallery dedicates its programme to a selected artist.
re:discover
Support programme for the rediscovery of artists in their second or third phase of artistic creation.
paper:square
Discover the diversity of works on paper in the new section paper:square.
Museum Mile
art karlsruhe’s Museum Mile offers cultural institutions (such as museums, art associations and foundations, as well as culture tourism) a platform for sharing and utilizing the synergies of an international art fair.
one:artist show
The numerous one:artist shows are part of the successful concept of art karlsruhe. On a surface of at least 25 square meters, a gallerist dedicates his program to a selected artist, thus providing in-depth insight into artistic creation. Each year around 75 one:artist shows are shown at art karlsruhe, spread over all four halls. Each one:artist show of the fair is automatically nominated for the art karlsruhe prize.
re:discover
Funding program for artists in an advanced creative phase and their galleries
We are very pleased that the re:discover funding programme, which was realised for the first time at art karlsruhe 2024, will be funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) for another two years and is thus entering its third round.
Together with the Bundesverband Deutscher Galerien und Kunsthändler e.V. (BVDG) and supported by the BKM, art karlsruhe aims to make artistic work that has received insufficient recognition visible and effective again for a wider audience.
In 2025 15 juried galleries each presented an artistic position within the framework of re:discover that, despite their quality and despite the continuous creation of original works of art, have not been able to achieve lasting national or international visibility, recognition, and to build up a collector base.
Supported by:
re:frame
Under the ‘label’ re:frame, artists' estates will be presented at various gallery stands at the fair that have a model character.
The programme will also be accompanied by a talk programme at the fair.
In dialogue with the market, we have established how great the need is to talk about estates and about artists who have left behind a work and to see what questions arise and what best-practice examples could look like.
paper:square
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art karlsruhe is known for offering its visitors an easy introduction to collecting art. At this point we want to establish a new section.
If you ask renowned collectors what the first work of art they acquired was, you will usually hear: a work on paper!
Based on the previous possibility of presenting prints at art karlsruhe, which many visitors have repeatedly described as a much appreciated, protected space for the personal discovery of art, we are developing a new area: paper:square.
new:comer
With the new section new:comer art karlsruhe promotes young galleries with a founding date from 2020 or younger and with less than three participations in art karlsruhe.
The future needs young talent!
We especially want to encourage the participation of young galleries with their exciting artistic positions and support their first appearances in karlsruhe to enable a sustainable return.
Museum Mile
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art karlsruhe’s Museum Mile offers cultural institutions (such as museums, art associations and foundations, as well as culture tourism) a platform for sharing and utilizing the synergies of an international art fair.
Embedded in Hall 3 alongside the art academies, special exhibitions and the Paper Squares, the Museum Mile presents itself at art karlsruhe with attractive information stands. More than 430 selected institutions in Karlsruhe’s cultural landscape find their interested target audience here, as do cultural institutions from the entire federal state and neighbouring regions. International exhibitors come, for example, from France and Switzerland.
The presentation and the sale of originals, editions and graphic prints is not permitted in the area of the Museum Mile, which serves solely as an advertising platform for the institutions and their exhibits, but not for individual artists. This is reserved for the gallery stands at the fair. The event’s organizer, in consensus with the curator, decides on permission to participate.
