The idea for Arrival Art Fair was hatched, like many good ideas, in frustration. After a recent deflating visit to a “sterile and lame” fair, Sarah Galender Meyer, Yng-Ru Chen, and Crystalle Lacouture decided that they could do better. Friends with deep backgrounds as an adviser, founder of Massachusetts gallery Praise Shadows, and artist respectively, the trio set their sights on the Berkshires, the lush museum-rich corner of Massachusetts where Mass MoCA and the Clark Art Institute anchor a thriving institutional art ecosystem.
The result is a biannual, invitation-only fair hosted at Tourists, a beloved hotel in North Adams. Set to open with a VIP preview on Thursday and running through the weekend, the fair features just 36 exhibitors selected through a nomination process driven by curators with deep regional ties. Participating galleries include New York stalwarts Jane Lombard and Sears Peyton Gallery, but also Jessica Silverman from San Francisco, Cleveland’s Abattoir Gallery, and Wolfgang Gallery from Atlanta.
Arrival offers an alternative model to the transactional frenzy that has come to define much of the fair circuit. In line with recent efforts to mingle art with leisure, as at, say, Hauser & Wirth’s ever-expanding hospitality venture Artfarm, Galender Meyer, Chen, and Lacouture imagine Arrival as a weekend getaway experience. The fair has bought out the entire hotel for the event and curated several days of programming that includes outdoor sculpture, museum talks, and even an acquisition prize from the Williams College Museum of Art. The funding model is unconventional too, with booth fees supplemented by philanthropic support, keeping the fair free for visitors.
Galender Meyer, Chen, and Lacouture spoke with ARTnews over video-chat to discuss their vision for Arrival, the art world’s hospitality pivot, and what makes North Adams the right place to rethink the fair model.
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