Independent Art Fair Trades Downtown for the World

If Frieze New York feels like an assembly-line salad this year, then the Independent art fair feels like the assembly line.

Entering the fair, which continues through this Sunday, May 17, entails batting your way through a grid of flailing sheets of thick yellow plastic dangling from the ceiling, like going through a car wash. Pier 36, where it is being held for the first time, is warehouse-like and vast, with neat little booths ticking all the way down to the end of the sightline.

On Independent’s by-invitation-only opening night yesterday, May 14, hundreds of people — a notable number wearing blazers draped over shoulders and long, silk skirts — milled around the 76 booths.

Visitors at Independent Art Fair

Whereas the last edition of Independent felt very New York — even hyperlocal to downtown, set at Spring Street Studios in Tribeca with a strong representation of galleries in that neighborhood — this one feels cosmopolitan, international, even a little no-man’s-land. It’s set in the Lower East Side, but, like, down to the water “low” and all the way east — I’ve spent the last quarter century of my life in New York, and I think it’s just about the second time I’ve ever set foot here.

On the bright side, the venue is airier — more space to breathe, an environment that allows for a better experience of the work on view compared to the slight claustrophobia of last year’s edition.

Visitors to a presentation by John Brooks at the booth for the Los Angeles-based Diane Rosenstein Gallery

“It feels less hierarchical,” writer Hindley Wang, who was gallery-sitting for Galerie Buchmann, told Hyperallergic. “There doesn’t feel like there’s one booth that’s better located, or a better shape than the others.”

Artist Jeanette Hayes put it even more cutely: “It’s like we’re all in a schoolhouse, and we’re going classroom to classroom. It feels like a reunion.”

But Independent, now in its 17th year, is also a little tamer than years past — that wild downtown energy tamped down into something more respectable. The fair might’ve only gotten a year older, but the clientele seemed like it aged about a decade. “It felt a bit hungrier last year,” public relations consultant Kristin Sancken said.

Visitors in front of a presentation of semi-recent designs by Comme des Garçons founder Rei Kawakubo

The partnerships Independent has made in the past few months suggest a sort of identity crisis. In September, its 20th-century edition, which is moving from the Battery Maritime Building downtown to the well-heeled Marcel Breuer building on Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side, recently announced a partnership with Sotheby’s. Hard to get less scrappy than that. But a month later, Independent also announced a partnership with Henry Street Settlement, the Lower Manhattan social services nonprofit — torn between head and heart, perhaps?

Matthew Higgs, curatorial advisor for the fair since its inception in 2010, in front of a work by Tony Cokes at the booth for White Columns, where he serves as director

Independent’s identity feels a little in flux, but it’s still home to some of the strongest work in the art fair game.

“For some cities, it makes sense to have an art fair because it’s the only time of year when you have access to global art,” Steven Guberek, director of Bogotá-based SGR Gallery, told me. “But in New York, there’s this endless offer of art all year round.”

With that in mind, let’s show the rest of the world some love. Below are the best booths from around the nation and world — each marking the first time the artist is showing their work in a solo presentation in New York.

SGR: Johan Samboní

Bogotá, Colombia

Installation view of works by Johan Samboní at the booth of SGR, based in Bogotá, Colombia Steven Guberek, director of SGR, in front of Johan Samboní, “Barr(i)o” (2026), carved brick

Johan Samboní probes the “colonial wound,” Guberek told me at the booth for SGR, the first Colombian gallery to show at Independent, and the only Latin American gallery represented this year. The artist, who grew up in the Colombian city of Cali, draws upon precolonial sculpture while also contending with the complicated ways we construct identity in the wake of colonization, globalization, and cultural homogenization. Look closely at one of his carved brick figures, for instance, and you’ll notice that one wears a Michael Jordan jersey.

i8 Gallery: Arna Óttarsdóttir

Reykjavík, Iceland

Left: gallerist Geneva Viralam in front of weavings by Arna Óttarsdóttir at the booth for i8 Gallery, based in Reykjavík, Iceland; right: a weaving by Arna Óttarsdóttir

This presentation marks the Icelandic artist Arna Óttarsdóttir’s first solo presentation in the United States — as well as the first time that Reykjavík-based gallery i8 is showing an Icelandic artist at Independent. The artist makes each of her weavings by hand on a giant loom, gallerist Geneva Viralam told me, replicating designs from her sketchbooks at a massive scale.

Abattoir: Eleanor Conover

Cleveland, Ohio, United States

Artist Eleanor Conover in front of her works at the booth for Cleveland-based Abattoir Gallery

These sort-of-paintings, sort-of-sculptures by Maine-based Eleanor Conover are impossible to capture by photograph; they bulge and bend, showing off their hand-made supports. “They go through a pretty labor-intensive process,” Conover told me, “of bleaching and dyeing and acrylic stain and sewing before I even get to the point of being able to pile paint on top of it.”

Sea View: William Wright

Los Angeles, California, United States

William Wright, “Studio Window with Brushes” (2025–26), oil on canvasWorks by William Wright on view at the booth for the Los Angeles-based gallery Sea View: “Shelf Study (Apples)” (2025–26), oil on canvas

I just love an artist who clearly finds the world endlessly fascinating. London-based painter William Wright is one such artist; he translates ordinary views — including those from inside his own studio — into intimate, pared-down canvases with a distinctively desaturated visual palette.

The Breeder: Alexandra Christou

Athens, Greece

Works by Alexandra Christou at The Breeder gallery’s booth; from left to right: “Fight against the dying of the light” (1992), “Kafeneia Men playing tavli” (1991), and “Untitled” (1996), all oil on canvasThe Breeder co-founder George Vamvakidis in front of Alexandra Christou’s “The Basement people” (1992), oil on canvas

The self-taught artist Alexandra Christou, who passed away in 2009, was Greek-born but spent formative years studying ceramics in the American South before moving to various cities in Europe. Her figures are psychologically dense, with such an almost Schiele-like treatment of linework and color.

Tomio Koyama Gallery: Rika Minamitani

Tokyo, Japan

Paintings by Rika Minamitani at the booth for Tomio Koyama Gallery

Rika Minamitani’s paintings are playful — see the multi-tasking octopus of “The Daily Life of an Octopus” (all works 2026) — but also compositionally fascinating. A figure peers behind his shoulder at the viewer from behind a red-tiled wall that takes up a full third of the painting in “Meeting,” while an undifferentiated black swallows up the vast majority of “The Thieves’ Garden.” These works offer a peek into a world that is fantastical, a little creepy, and suffused with love.

🔗 Source: Original Source

📅 Published on: 2026-05-16 00:38:00

🖋️ Author: Lisa Yin Zhang – An expert in architectural innovation and design trends.

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Note: This article was reviewed and edited by the archot editorial team to ensure accuracy and quality.