By visiting a fair, a collector gets a concentrated overview of the most important galleries and current trends in one place, while also gaining the opportunity to attend many cultural and social events. During a fair, you can see works by various authors of similar style or generation side by side within just a few hours, which helps you refine your taste and better understand why one work is more valued than another. The fair is also accompanied by an educational part consisting of expert discussions, curator lectures, and meetings with artists. Fairs allow you to enter the world of the art market more deeply.

In May to Venice for the Biennale

From 9 May 2026 to 22 November 2026, the 61st edition of Biennale Arte takes place in Venice, Italy. It is not an art fair — that is, a presentation of galleries in one place with the intention of selling artworks — but rather an art exhibition that has a lot to offer. During the Biennale, individual exhibitions are organised in various locations around the city, including historic buildings. The most significant part is the Giardini, historic gardens with national pavilions of individual countries.

Czechoslovakia traditionally had its own pavilion here, which, even after the split, remained shared by both the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This year, the Czech and Slovak Pavilion offers a joint project, The Silence of the Mole. The artist duo Alex Selmeci & Tomáš Kocka Jusko, artist Jakub Jansa, and curator Peter Sita explore the theme of cultural identity, combining film, performance, and installation. In the area of the former shipyards, Arsenale, you will then find an extensive exhibition on a specific theme. As part of the Biennale, dozens of accompanying exhibitions by various artistic entities also take place.

In June to Basel for Art Basel

At Art Basel, collectors, gallerists, and indeed everyone who matters in the art industry come together. Apart from that, you can meet various celebrities here, as well as ordinary visitors and art lovers. The gallery presentation features various artists, movements, and formats from all over the world. The fair has been held since 1970. This year, Art Basel runs from 18 to 21 June, with VIP days on 16–17 June. The participation of individual galleries is a matter of prestige and the status of a specific gallery.

If you aspire to be a gallery of the highest level, you cannot miss Art Basel. The main building of Art Basel is a two-storey hall on Messeplatz in the centre of Basel, designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. It usually exhibits around 250 galleries presenting works by more than 4,000 artists from all over the world. A phenomenon of the entire fair is the Unlimited sector, a space dedicated to large-scale projects. The fair usually attracts more than 95,000 visitors during the six days it is open.

In October to London for Frieze and to Paris for Art Basel Paris

Frieze takes place in London’s Regent’s Park and consists of three main parts. Frieze Masters focuses on art from antiquity to modernism, with an emphasis on blue chip art, that is, the most important artists of contemporary and modern art. In addition, the second, more progressive part, Frieze London, offers a broad insight into contemporary art. The third part is the Frieze Sculpture Park, where you will find sculptures by significant artists right in Regent’s Park.

Frieze is accompanied by Frieze Week, during which the city becomes the centre of the art scene. Auctions organised by major auction houses Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips take place here, along with many openings at London galleries.

Just like Frieze, Art Basel Paris — formerly known as Paris+ par Art Basel — represents a more dynamic format of art fair, which moreover takes place in the beautifully renovated Grand Palais. The fair places a strong emphasis on the dialogue between art, fashion, and luxury, thereby reinforcing Paris’s position as a key centre of the global art world.

In November to Paris for Paris Photo

Paris Photo is the most important global fair dedicated exclusively to photography, and is again held at the iconic Grand Palais. In 2026, the fair takes place from 12 to 15 November 2026 (with VIP preview on 11 November). The fair is comprehensive when it comes to photography: it is not limited to contemporary photography — you will also find historical photographs, 20th-century modernism, and new and unconventional conceptual approaches here.

Paris Photo is worth experiencing not only for acquiring photographic works for your collection, but also for its focus on photobooks and discovering new talents in sections such as Voices or Emergence. For collectors of contemporary art, Paris Photo is a great place to understand how the boundaries of photography are constantly blurring towards other visual forms.