What, Where & Why Are There So Many Art Fairs in New York?

There are Art Fairs throughout the year in New York. Art fairs are ‘NOT’ street fairs, although they may be held outdoors on the sidewalk and on a street. ‘Art Fairs’ provide venues to display and sell art that is good, reasonable and often juried. The indoor ‘Art Fairs’ frequently feature works brought to New York, by out of town galleries, because New York is the ‘Capital Of Art’ in America and a magnet, for established ‘buyers’, throughout the world.

The most famous outdoor art fair is the “Washington Square Art Fair”, which is held twice annually, in both the spring and fall. Artists Jackson Pollack and Willem de Kooning exhibited there in the 1930s, as it was a great way for unknown artists to show their cutting edge creations. In the years before the “First World War” the Washington Square neighborhood emerged as the center of a young bohemian community. Artists, writers and radicals from all over the country made their way to “Greenwich Village” and the “Washington Square”.

Tall loft buildings on the east, form an imposing wall for the great outdoor room, that is “Washington Square Park”.

1930’s The Depression.

The Square’s semi-annual Outdoor Art Exhibit, began in 1932. Success was related to federally-sponsored programs, designed to lift morale and boost artists’ incomes. Rundown though “Washington Square Park” may have been then, Washington Square engendered fierce loyalty among its users.

The “Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit” is a show featuring artists showcasing their fine art, photography, crafts and sculpture in New York City.

www.wsoae.org
2017 Spring Show
Memorial Day Weekend May 27, 28, 29 and June 3 and 4 NOW ACCEPTING  SPRING ‘2017’ APPLICATIONS.

At the “Outsider Art
Fair”, where the Creative Impulse
Is In Its ‘Raw’ Glory.

Venue: the “Metropolitan Pavilion” on West 18th Street, annually hosts the “Outsider Art Fair”, a gathering of 64 art dealers. Many of the featured artists at the “Outsider Art Fair” are contemporary primitive folk art and naive art masters, working as Grandma Moses, Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin, Jean-Michael Basquiat and Morris Hirshfield did when they were alive. At current “Outsider Art Fairs” you’ll witness works by artists who ‘almost miraculously’ create ‘masterpieces’ without formal training.  

The concept of the“Outsider Art Fair” is simple, yet unique; an inspiring and friendly atmosphere where you can find thousands of original paintings, prints, sculptures and photographs under one roof, ranging in price from $100-$10,000, with more than HALF, priced under $5,000!

Interestingly, most of these artists worked top to bottom, right to left or vice versa. If they were alive today, most likely they would all have web sites!

How a Self-Taught Artist Can Sell for $250,000

Outsider Art goes mainstream.

 American Primitive, an Upper East Side gallery that specializes in Outsider Art, lists some of its prices online. An animal sculpture covered in bottle caps by Terry Turrell is on sale for $3,800. A semi-abstract picture of figures on a boat by Max Romain, a Haitian self-taught artist now living in New York, is offered for $1,800. For anyone who’s tried to pry a price list from the unwilling hands of a New York gallery attendant, this kind of transparency is nothing short of unprecedented.

Outsider Art—otherwise known as “self-taught” art or “folk art” is a loose term for work by people who don’t come hail from a traditional art school, or gallery background and who often create art for themselves, rather than to generate income. At this point, though, many outsider artists have acquired a dedicated following of dealers and collectors and artwork by these artists have begun to sell for ‘five’ and ‘six’ figures. This surge in the popularity of folk art prices that may be collected by middle income people, isn’t without its pitfalls and consequently the movement’s backers must treading an increasingly uneasy line between highlighting an artworks’ uniqueness and easing it into into the mainstream art market.

Have fun!

   ART IS FUN!  Enjoy yourself, get involved, join a workshop, meet    an artist, chat with a fellow collector, participate in a discussion      and above all, have a great time!

   More advise: buy ‘affordable’ art ONLY because you like it… not        because you think it’s what you ‘should’ buy, or will go up in            value. If an artist shows at juried art fairs, is represented by an        art gallery and his or her works have been collected by a                  museum, your artistic holding, ‘may’ appreciate financially.    

There’s no doubt Outsider Art’s visibility has increased dramatically in recent years. In 2014, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York accepted a gift of 57 works by outsider artists. The same year, the Studio Museum in Harlem had a show devoted to Outsider Art in relation to contemporary art and the South. Then last year, the new Whitney Museum of American Art’s inaugural exhibition included a work by Bill Traylor, another outsider artist.

Pier 92/94

All luxury trans Atlantic passenger Passenger Liners ‘used to’ arrive and depart from the West Side of Manhattan from piers Pier 92/94, or from adjacent piers.  Today, most luxury liners depart and land at the “Brooklyn Cruise Terminal”.  In addition to Transatlantic crossing these luxury passenger ships visit the Caribbean and there, about eight additional ships that regularly transverse the “North West Passage” sailing to and from the “Brooklyn Cruise Terminal” – usually destined for Alaska and or Seatte Washington.

Pier 92 and pier 94 can easily accommodate a large variety of business and art shows, within their 208,000 square feet of exhibit area and concerts also fill this space.   “The Intrepid”  decommissioned WWII air craft carrier is permanently docked at pier 88, where recently Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump held their “Commander in Chief” forum.