“Something that many people don’t know is that the last ‘f’ in Tefaf stands for ‘foundation’, not ‘fair’,” says Dominique Savelkoul, Tefaf’s new managing director, ahead of this year’s 38th edition in Maastricht (15-20 March). This distinction helped persuade her to take on the role. “It makes a real difference to me. Running a foundation comes with a responsibility to your community,” she says.
It is an incoming mindset that should be music to the ears of many of the fair’s exhibitors, following recent years of upheaval. Savelkoul is Tefaf’s fifth managing director in four years, while other disruptions have included what was seen as an ill-judged decision to plough ahead in 2020, just as the Covid-19 pandemic came to Europe, and a dramatic armed robbery at the 2022 edition.
Previously head of Belgium’s Mu.ZEE museum, and with a history of arts management roles across a wide range of cultural organisations, including London’s National Gallery and Philharmonic Orchestra, Savelkoul sees her institutional background as an advantage. She accepts the need for stability at Tefaf and believes that “coming in as a blank sheet is a good way to begin. You arrive fresh, without preconceived ideas, because you don’t have the history.” She is also the first non-Dutch leader of the fair: “I am indeed from another country, even if it’s [neighbouring] Belgium.”
If we want to attract younger people, we have to be serious about the future
Still, Savelkoul knows Tefaf well from childhood visits and says she has long thought of it as “the best fair in the world”. Since she joined in September, she has been busy visiting other art fairs as well as meeting, talking to and listening to Tefaf’s many stakeholders. “It’s a truly fantastic way to learn,” she says. Her empathetic approach has already won plaudits from exhibitors, with one saying, “I spoke to Dominique for about ten minutes at her welcome party and was really impressed by her open manner. She seems genuinely receptive and not at all defensive.”
Encouraging the next generation
Savelkoul is biding her time at the helm—“everything was already organised for this year”—and sees the managing director role broadly as “being there to make headspace for the future”. Refreshingly for a new leader, she says, “I think it would be wrong to come in and change things for the sake of it.”
There are some tweaks to this year’s Maastricht fair, which Savelkoul describes as “well-targeted, small adjustments that can make a difference”. For example, she says, they have been working on some of the fair’s sponsorship deals, extending them from one-year commitments to three—part of her “headspace” strategy.
Dominique Savelkoul is focused on encouraging new collectors, though admits, “It’s a challenge for everyone in the art market to stay attractive to younger generations”
Photo: Jitske Nap
At the same time, Savelkoul is focused on encouraging the next generation of buyers to come to Tefaf. It's not an easy task. She admits “it’s a challenge for everyone in the art market to stay attractive to younger generations.” In this context, Savelkoul puts Tefaf’s stakeholders into three groups: exhibitors, museum curators and buying visitors.
For exhibitors, she highlights the fair’s Showcase zone, a section that debuted in 2008 and offers a lower cost for galleries that have been running for up to ten years. The 2025 exhibitors include Galerie Raphael Durazzo from Paris (20th-century avant-garde art), Shanghai’s Feng J (a high-end jewellery artist) and the Brussels classical sculpture specialists Desmet Fine Art. For curators, the fair is running the second year of its course with Maastricht University, a five-day programme for museum professionals around the world to learn more about the art market.
And for potential buyers, Savelkoul has introduced a digital “Insider’s Guide”, which includes an interactive map of the fair that highlights all works priced under €20,000. Among them are a 2024 porcelain bowl by Hitomi Hosono (Adrian Sassoon, London), a 1948 Picasso ceramic (Beck & Eggeling International Fine Art, Düsseldorf) and an early 1800s snuffbox with a butterfly image by the mosaicist Giacomo Raffaelli (Piva&C, Milan).
Savelkoul is also preoccupied with improving the fair’s sustainability, a pressing question that calls for a nuanced response. “We need to be cautious and serious, since one doesn’t want to be seen as greenwashing,” she says. Ultimately, she believes, “if we want to attract younger people, we have to be serious about the future, theirs and ours.”
Tefaf was among the 40-plus fairs (including Frieze and Art Basel) that last year formed an alliance which committed to halving its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, brokered by the international environmental charity Gallery Climate Coalition. Savelkoul sees some improvement already in the business of events—“I remember [going to] music festivals when I was younger and on the last day there were discarded tents, sleeping bags and more, which was awful. Now, at these fairs, so much is recycled, repurposed or reused, it’s fantastic.” But she is frank about the industry’s inherently short-term characteristics. “Of course, we’re not fully sustainable yet, but Tefaf had already made great headway before I arrived. We do it together with other fairs and measure our impact to see where we can improve things.”
Supporting exhibitors
New ideas do not necessarily come from the young, she adds. Savelkoul is attuned to the many years of experience gained within the Tefaf community. She cites one of her former colleagues, Joost Declercq, who was the artistic co-ordinator at Mu.ZEE. “His way of coming up with exhibition ideas was so refreshing every time. It had nothing to do with his age, it was because of his curiosity and dynamism.”
The foundation has a role to play beyond its art fair business to support exhibitors more holistically as a community, she stresses. “It’s about how we can be more present throughout the year,” she says, clarifying that this does not mean opening in locations beyond the existing fairs in Maastricht and New York. “Being present means doing things that matter, more behind the scenes, for our community. There are a lot of things, such as VAT, customs and these new European regulations around import licences [due to come in on 28 June]. People like Unesco should be thinking, ‘We have this challenge, and it’s a complicated industry, let’s ask Tefaf to come to the table.’”
The 2024 edition of Tefaf
Photo: courtesy Tefaf
This year, in fact, the Tefaf Summit, which will address issues of underfunding in the cultural sector, is a partnership with the Netherlands National Commission for Unesco, although this was in place before Savelkoul joined. She is enthusiastic for the summit and its topic of ‘Reimagining Philanthropy’, which she says aligns with her longer-term vision for Tefaf as a foundation—beyond the success of its glittering fairs. “We have a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience, so let’s use that,” Savelkoul says.
