What dealers and art enthusiasts got out of the inaugural Chelsea Art Fair

On a Saturday afternoon in late November, a queue of gallerists, artists and art enthusiasts stretched along 23rd Street, eager to enter Manhattan’s famed Hotel Chelsea. The historic landmark was once home to the likes of Robert Mapplethorpe, Bettina Grossman and Leonard Cohen, but this was not the reason for the queue. The hotel was hosting the inaugural Chelsea Art Fair—a free, public art fair held for one day only (23 November). Unlike most art fairs, it only featured five galleries (all of them based in New York and Los Angeles): 56 Henry, Castle, Lomex, Matthew Brown and Ramiken.

The Chelsea Art Fair was somewhat of an experiment in alternative models for showing and selling art, and the right elements appeared to be at play: galleries arguably defining a “downtown cool” contemporary-art scene with ambitious programmes and artist rosters, a hotel with a storied past filled with art and artists, all with the backing of Platform—the online art sales site owned by David Zwirner.

At the first edition of the fair (and the first art fair organised by Platform since its launch in 2021), the crowd thrummed with anticipation—more than 3,000 attendees seemed genuinely curious to check out whether it would live up to the hype.

“We’re excited for Hotel Chelsea to re-establish its history of involvement with the arts,” Sean MacPherson, a co-owner of the hotel, tells The Art Newspaper.

“The quality of everyone’s booth is super high. Context is everything,” says Matthew Brown, founder of the eponymous gallery.

“If you’re a person walking in off the street,” says Harley Wertheimer, founder of Castle in Los Angeles, “I think you get a nice context of what younger galleries are excited about right now.”

But was it a success? That might depend on whom you ask.

The gallerists seemed excited about the new format.

“It’s nice to be able to be a part of something that feels authentic [and] show alongside gallerists I admire,” Brown says. “Even though it’s a small fair, there’s actually quite a lot of range.”

Mike Egan, the director of Ramiken in New York, said: “More people have come by today than an entire year at the gallery. Even though we’re only 15 minutes away from [Ramiken].”

The Chelsea Art Fair is far from the first to take place at a New York hotel. The Gramercy International Art Fair—founded in 1994 by the gallerists Pat Hearn, Colin de Land, Matthew Marks and Paul Morris at the Gramercy Park Hotel—was such a success that it recurred and transformed, eventually becoming The Armory Show. It was organised with a radicalised philosophy to upend the traditional fair model and on a shoestring budget, with artists like Karen Kilimnik staging “interventions” of red paint dripping down the bathroom walls and Mark Dion serving lemonade. Elizabeth Peyton’s legendary 1993 show organised by Gavin Brown at the Hotel Chelsea also comes to mind (Uri Aran’s 2006 video at Matthew Brown’s stand at the Chelsea Art Fair was from the artist’s first show, also at Gavin Brown).

In terms of “experimental” value, though, some thought the Chelsea Art Fair fell short—if that was even a goal of the organisers. One visitor said that despite the venue, it was “nothing out of the ordinary. It still had the feel of a classic fair.”

Another visitor offered constructive criticism: “It would be cool if they used actual hotel rooms for each gallery to show work, especially given the history of the hotel.” (Richard Thayer, Platform’s chief operating officer, said that in light of the fair’s small size, it did not make sense to spread out over different rooms.)

A few visitors commented on the lack of space. Packed crowds made it hard to see the actual art. “It was claustrophobic,” one attendee said. “I didn’t feel like people could really enjoy it like an art fair that has more space and several rooms. There was no flow.”

But from a business perspective, the fair provided its participating galleries a chance to do something new and different, with significantly less financial risk than a typical commercial fair.

Wertheimer says that the format was a relatively “approachable” way to participate in what was actually Castle’s first-ever art fair. For a relatively new gallery, art fairs are not always financially viable. “I want to be cautious about costs at my stage of the gallery,” Wertheimer says. “This was a really special format to have an invitation where the costs aren’t loaded onto the gallery.” Luckily, he added, his stand sold out.

Meanwhile, Platform—in a similar way to its online sales model—took a percentage of sales as a commission at the fair, rather than charging exhibitors up front to participate.

“It’s way too expensive,” Egan says of the cost of exhibitor fees at major art fairs. “It’s hell on the younger galleries.”

“The camaraderie of being packed in here with the other galleries is really special,” Wertheimer says.

Egan felt similarly about his fellow exhibitors: “They’re all interested in art as an avant-garde idea, and not just pumping the ‘flower painting’ market.”