The New York Fairs Are Done. What Remains? | Artnet News

TEFAF New York ended its run at the Park Avenue Armory, nearly closing the city’s fair season. Focus, devoted to emerging Asian art, continues through Sunday in northern Chelsea near where other fairs recently ended. New York offers abundant modern and contemporary art year-round, but fairs concentrate it into a short, abundant experience with hundreds of dealers and thousands of works. Much of what is shown will never be seen again and some pieces may be discarded, yet a few days allow collectors to make history through purchases. The Independent Art Fair, relocated to Pier 36, featured 76 exhibitors and unexpected presentations, including Comme des Garçons dresses by Rei Kawakubo. The fair remains humane, approachable, and art-focused despite format changes.

"Anytime I feel the urge to complain during the fairs-about the uneven quality of what is on offer, about the mediocre food at most-I try to catch myself. New York on any random day has more modern and contemporary art to see than any place on earth, but when the fairs are in town, it's a feast. It's miraculous. Hundreds of dealers angle for attention, hawking thousands and thousands of artworks. Much of it will never be seen again. Some of it will literally end up in the trash. But for a few brief days, it is ours, and brave collectors can make history by writing checks."

"The thrill of discovery is in the air when the fairs are in town, and that felt especially true this year at the Independent Art Fair, newly relocated to Pier 36, hard on Manhattan's Lower East Side. There were 76 exhibitors, old hands, and young guns-and some genuine surprises, like Comme des Garçons. The art industry's favorite fashion brand showed more than 20 dresses by its founder, the redoubtable Rei Kawakubo. If I had the cash, it's all that I would wear."

"There's a famous line, attributed to the John Baldessari that attending an art fair as an artist is like walking in on your parents having sex. Hard to argue with that, but it doesn't quite hold at Independent, which has been humane, approachable, and admirably art-focused ever since its start in 2010. It has managed to remain so, even as it replaced an open-plan format with traditional trade-show booths. (I actually prefer the Independent of 2026, with its catholic tastes, to its vaunted early days, when a certain ast"

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