By Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Editor (Canada-Ukraine), Times Asian
Anna Avetova is a Ukrainian art manager, curator, and cultural strategist based in Basel, Switzerland. She is the founder of TUASHO, director of ART KYIV, and co-founder of Art Navigator Academy. Her practice connects exhibitions, art-market development, and professional education. She brings experience from international art fairs and cultural projects in Europe and the United States to her work with Ukrainian galleries, artists, and collectors.
In this interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Anna Avetova discuss professional standards in galleries, the practical demands of art fairs, and the challenges of organizing ART KYIV during wartime. Avetova reflects on burnout, problem-solving, international experience, gallery education, project discipline, and building a stronger Ukrainian art ecosystem for the future ahead.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What are the professional requirements for galleries?
Anna Avetova: For me, professionalism begins with responsibility: responding to correspondence, reading the participation requirements, and providing the information needed to prepare the fair. Gaps in those basic practices are a warning sign.
I have experienced art fairs from both sides: first as an exhibitor, and later as a member of an art-fair team in Switzerland.
That experience taught me that consistent professional standards cannot be taken for granted, even outside Ukraine. Timely communication and careful preparation are often more difficult to secure than one might expect.
Some participants expect to arrive, install their works, and make immediate sales. But a successful fair requires preparation well before the opening.
To reach the right audience, we need to know which artists a gallery will present, what works it will bring, and how it intends to exhibit them.
That preparation takes sustained work from both the organizer and the gallery.
In Ukraine, an additional difficulty is that some galleries have had limited opportunities to participate in international fairs. They may not have encountered the processes and expectations that come with that format.
This creates a mismatch: the organizer is expected to deliver results, but does not always receive the information and cooperation needed to do so.
Jacobsen: Are you talking about when you go to them or when they come to you? Because generally, people want sales without effort.
Avetova: Exactly. Galleries understandably want a strong audience, interested collectors, and a well-prepared space. The difficulty arises when those expectations are not matched by a willingness to contribute to the preparation and its costs.
Even when galleries pay the participation fee, affordability remains a source of tension.
Jacobsen: They want the space. They want to put their art on the wall.
Avetova: Yes, and we work to bring visitors and collectors to that space. But participating in a shared fair also means respecting its exhibition guidelines.
For example, a gallery may want to fill an entire wall with works rather than make a considered selection. That can undermine the presentation, and it is frustrating when the agreed guidelines are disregarded.
As a result, my role extends beyond organizing the fair. It also involves explaining the format and helping participants understand what makes a presentation effective.
There are, of course, excellent professional galleries in Ukraine, with strong exhibitions and outstanding artists. I do not want these difficulties to overshadow their work.
But I also encounter the attitude that paying for a booth entitles a gallery to display everything it has brought.
In those cases, the presentation may lack a clear idea or a coherent project.
For the next edition, I would like galleries to develop stronger projects: a deliberate selection of works shaped by a clear idea, rather than a broad assortment of what happens to be available.
That would strengthen both the individual booths and the fair as a whole.
These difficulties are not unique to Ukraine. My experience abroad challenged some of my own assumptions.
I had expected well-known galleries in Europe and the United States to have large teams and highly structured operations. In practice, some were run by only one or two people, with very limited capacity.
Under those conditions, obtaining information could be difficult, and requests from the fair were sometimes met with frustration.
I understand the pressure of a small team. Even so, participation requires a commitment to the work that makes the event possible.
Jacobsen: Also, this is the standard Canadian thing. Whether you feel positively about this person or not, if it is business or professional, fake it. Be politely fake.
I may be conflating comedians, but Ricky Gervais made a related observation. He wrote that he would rather have a waiter say, “Have a nice day,” without meaning it than ignore him and mean it.
So the joke being, of course, that you would rather have conventional politeness than sincere hostility. Right?
Jacobsen: And so it is sort of the argument for that.
Avetova: Yes. Professional courtesy matters, particularly when everyone is under pressure. I am conscious that, as a fair director, I also have a responsibility to be careful about how I discuss these difficulties.
Still, I think we need to speak about them honestly. Clear expectations help both organizers and galleries understand where the process needs to improve.
Jacobsen: What do you find meaningful in this work? What emotions come up when things are difficult? What are you fighting?
Avetova: First, I have always wanted to build an ambitious project. I enjoy the complexity of bringing many different people and elements together, and I still see considerable room for ART KYIV to develop.
Second, I feel a sense of responsibility toward the project. When I was brought in, it was struggling and needed significant organizational work.
I would not claim that I have resolved everything. I am doing the most I can with the resources available. I accepted the role because I felt that my experience abroad could make a useful contribution here.
Bringing that experience into my work in Ukraine has mattered to me in earlier projects as well.
It is difficult when, after a considerable effort, the response centers on what people are unhappy with. Criticism is inevitable, but I sometimes take it too personally. That is one of the more demanding aspects of the work for me.
When a practical problem arises, however, I usually move straight into solving it. So much of my job involves responding to unexpected situations that I have become accustomed to working that way.
That does not mean it has no emotional cost. I do experience burnout, including now, although the fair is not the only reason.
What gives me satisfaction is seeing the result exceed my expectations: visitors coming in, people engaging with the work, and galleries making sales that I have helped make possible.
I become frustrated when agreed rules are ignored. A missile attack during the fair is an entirely different kind of difficulty: people have to leave the exhibition and go to a shelter. It is a stark reminder of the conditions in which we are working.
Those experiences sit alongside one another: satisfaction in what we achieve, frustration with avoidable problems, and the reality of the war.
Living outside Ukraine now gives me some distance from that daily pressure. I feel that I can return with more energy to devote to the project.
I want to continue for as long as I can. Some of the value of this work may become visible only over several years. Regular editions give the platform a chance to develop, even when individual events are difficult.
My goal is for Ukraine to have an active professional platform to build on after the war: one that can attract further funding, strong galleries, and more international participation.
That is what I hope we are laying the groundwork for.
Jacobsen: Are these common struggles for gallery managers or project managers in the art space? These kinds of difficulties?
Avetova: Yes, I have encountered similar difficulties in both gallery and project management. Creative work can involve strong emotions, and it is not always supported by clear organizational processes.
My earlier experience in law has been useful here. I worked as a notary assistant about fifteen years ago, and that work taught me the value of structure and careful documentation.
When I entered the art sector, I was surprised by how often the projects I encountered lacked basic tools: clear procedures, checklists, or properly developed budgets.
As I began putting those elements in place, I realized that creating structure could be one of my strengths.
That became a foundation for my consultancy. I helped clients introduce practical processes, documentation, and contracts into their work.
I found that this approach was useful: it gave people a clearer framework for carrying their projects through.
Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Anna.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a Canadian journalist and publisher who serves as Times Asian’s Editor for Canada and Ukraine Affairs and writes on international affairs.
