The Affordable Art Fair celebrated 20 years in NYC at its recent Fall edition. The fair ran from September 22 - 25th at the Metropolitan Pavilion and highlighted contemporary artwork by over 400 established artists and rising stars. If you didn't make the show, here are a few of our team's favorite booths:
1. Cecile Van Hanja at Fremin Gallery
Fremin Gallery is an art gallery founded in 2007, dedicated to a contemporary program that now represents more than a dozen emerging and mid-career artists. Committed to presenting primarily photographic work, the Gallery also embraces oeuvres from across all media including painting, sculpture, and installation. Since its inception, the Gallery has launched and fostered the careers of an eclectic group of artists, providing many of them with their first solo exhibitions in New York and, for some, their respective debuts in the United States.
The distinctive signs of Fremin Gallery are proposals that invite to think about the society and the individual, maintaining a close look to the soulful engagement of each artist’s approach to their medium. There is strong cross-pollination between subjects ranging from identity and spirituality, space, architecture, design, and last but not least technology. We believe both form and content are vital factors in successfully aestheticizing the ‘real,’ which makes for the discovery of talented and committed artists. Our space in the heart of New York’s most popular gallery district acts as unconventional intercultural agent, fully encouraging the realizing of the artists’ provocative visions. The works we showcase share a deep commitment to the exploration and revelation of the essential values that underlie contemporary society. Each of them draws from a rich cultural heritage to develop a style and a visual language that is both powerful and universal.
It is the Gallery’s vision to sustain the artists’ freedom of expression by exhibiting them in a setting that is fertile for both the artist and the collector alike. The robust nurturing of an active creative environment, in a neighborhood historically known for its artistic engagements, solidifies the Gallery’s mission to continue building an identity centered on the idea of an exigent ‘now’, paradoxically freed from a rigid canon of spatial and temporal demands, but always sensitive to an ever-evolving dynamic between art and an increasingly educated and inquisitive public.
Since its inception, the Gallery has successfully maintained a rigorous exhibition schedule that features more than eight rotating exhibitions by our artists each year. As each artist continues to refine their voice, the expanding collection of ideas evolves, exponentially multiplying its reach.Alongside its internal programming, the Gallery places great importance on supporting their artists through fostering dialogue and relationships with public institutions, private foundations, museums, and commissioning bodies.
2. Ana Vanessa Urvina at Arte Original
Have you ever been on a trip to Latin America, stumbled into a nearby gallery and picked up a painting or two? You thought “This is fantastic! What else is out there?” but didn’t have time to explore more of the art scene? Then you’re traveling back home with this large tube of paintings on your flight, thinking “there must be a better way”.
Have you ever followed an awesome artist through social media, only to be discouraged from buying their artwork because of all the cumbersome logistics (How do I pay? What if I don’t get the painting? What if I don’t like it in person?).
Have you been thinking of adding variety to your home collection but not knowing which pieces to invest in? (Who are these artists? Are they well regarded in their region? What tendency do they fit into?)
Arte Original works with established artists from Latin America, giving them a space to present their work internationally. The gallery makes sure these pieces are a good fit for your art collection portfolio through their AI pricing model without any BS.
3. Juan Abuela at JCamejo Art
JCamejo Art is focused in promoting the creative representations of established and emerging artist from Cuba and Latin America. Conveying a curated collection of contemporary art consisting of pieces that represent medias such as: Painting, Sculpture, Installation and Photography from figurative to abstract.
The gallery's mission is to provide our clientele with the art representative of their decorative and venture capital needs as well as advice and offer directorship with new and existing collections.
4. Tim Fowler & Tom Van Herrewege at StudionAme
StudionAme is a community interest company in the heart of Leicester. They run a community project space and art gallery as well as educational workshops and A.I.R scheme.
5. Nikoleta Sekulovic at Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery
This year marks the 34th anniversary of the opening of the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery. Over the course of three decades the gallery has built an international reputation for innovation, individuality, energy and excellence. Rebecca Hossack has been a great champion of Non-Western artistic traditions. Hers was the first art gallery in Europe to exhibit Australian aboriginal painting, and it continues to promote such work through its regular Songlines seasons. Rebecca Hossack has also curated important exhibitions of work from the Bushmen of the Kalahari, from Papua New Guinea, and from tribal India. Much of this art would simply not have been seen in the UK but for the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery. Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery also exhibits across the broad spectrum of Western Contemporary Art, while determinedly moving against some of the dominant currents of the modern art scene. Through the work of painters such as Carla Kranendonk, David Whitaker, Emma Haworth, Barbara Macfarlane, the sculptor Ross Bonfanti, the ceramicist Avital Sheffer, printmakers Phil Shaw and Rose Blake, the gallery celebrates and promotes inclusiveness, individuality, spirit, innovation, technical accomplishment and beauty.
6. Kean at Galerie Duret
Founded in 2010 in Paris by two passionate about art and creation, Galerie Duret is part of this new generation of Parisian galleries defending the emerging art scene.
With a dynamic gallery program and regular participations in European and international fairs, the gallery is defined by the attention devoted to each of the artists it represents: a number voluntarily limited in order to emphasize on the relational quality and long-term engagement.
As a human-scale gallery, the founders, Mickael and Laetitia Adjadj, are in fact constantly seeking to forge and renew close ties with their artists as much as with their collectors and the different audiences they meet.
A constant work of creating synergies serving the artistic scene, based on confidence, and an aesthetic approach that is both intellectual and sensory.
Presenting a plurality of media, the gallery exhibits, disseminates and promotes creations that reflect concerns and transformations, both singular and collective.
7. Kestin Cornwall at Azart Gallery
Azart Gallery opened its doors in 2014. Representing emerging to established contemporary artists from across the globe. The gallery's focus is on innovative and original work of artists influenced by abstract, figurative, illustration, pop culture and street art.
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Alicia Puig has been a contributing writer for Create! Magazine since 2017. Find more of her work: www.aliciapuig.com
