At Its 15th Edition, Independent Celebrates Its Past and Looks to the Future

As New York’s fortnight of art fairs draws to a close, the 15th edition of Independent breathes fresh air into the city’s art scene. Taking place at Tribeca’s Spring Studios through May 12th, the stylish fair welcomed throngs of guests at 11 a.m. on its VIP day Thursday. This year marks Independent’s most expansive and ambitious fair yet, featuring 89 galleries, some 37 of which are making their debut.

Independent maintains a solid reputation, and much of its enduring appeal can be attributed to an inclusive approach advocated by its founder, Elizabeth Dee. A fixture in New York’s art scene and a former gallery owner, Dee has increasingly embraced a hands-on role as the fair continues to expand.

“I’m the gallerist of the galleries,” Dee told Artsy on the rooftop minutes into the fair’s opening. “They’re my artists. They are the talent. I believe that they have a vision. And I believe that some of the artists that they are getting behind are going to ascend.”

For Dee, Independent has evolved into a platform to propel young artists and galleries into a broader conversation that brings in an enthusiastic and informed crowd of exhibitors, curators, and collectors. Rather than creating separate sections for emerging galleries, Independent opts for a flattened approach, where galleries of all levels exhibit alongside each other.

“[The artists and galleries] need exposure, really critical thinking, museum milestones, collecting milestones, and just a presence—they need the platform that helps them do that, and the fair platforms are not helping them,” said Dee. “We can use the fair platform to help facilitate the economic need because if they’re not funded, they can’t compete, and if we can create a more democratic environment.”

Despite concerns of “fair fatigue,” both galleries and guests felt rejuvenated during the VIP day, likely boosted by an encouraging environment of experimentation. Independent is also showcasing its commitment to its roots with the “15x15: Independent 2010–2024” exhibition. This retrospective brought together 18 artist-dealer pairs, like David Kordansky with Ruby Neri and Lehmann Maupin with McArthur Binion, to celebrate the fair’s history of discovery and impact on artists’ careers. “So many artists have made their debut here, and we’ve been going back and looking at all the exhibition history and filling in all the missing information,” said Dee.

Visitors approaching the “15x15” exhibition are greeted by vanessa german’s Blue Mother (2023), a striking anthropomorphic sculpture made from 100 pounds of cobalt blue bottles, and several miscellaneous objects such as a brass candelabra, a mirror, a duck decoy, and much more—presented by Kasmin. The gallery first presented german’s work during Independents 13th edition in May 2022.

The work, noted the gallery’s executive director Mariska Nietzman, “develops the artist’s exploration of the healing power of honoring matrilineal ancestry” and is presented ahead of two major projects by the artist in Chicago and Topeka, Kansas, this year.

Another highlight of the exhibition is Donna Huanca’s painting MAGMA SLIT#3 (SUMMER) (2021), presented by Peres Projects. This piece recalls the gallery’s first presentation of Huanca’s work at Independent in 2016, a moment that helped to catapult her career onto the global stage.

“The response to her work when we showed it here was instant—it was immediate,” said founder Javier Peres. “It was a bit like almost a frenzy, and people then were willing to start getting to know her work.…Donna had already been working as an artist for 15 years by the time we showed her. That was the start of us being able to have those conversations with people and really plant the seed that has been carrying on until now.”

On the top floor, Peres Projects’s booth is presenting work by 27-year-old Anton Munar, a Spanish Danish painter who recently completed his MFA at the Royal College in Copenhagen. His works, like Atado a tu sombra / Bound to your shadow (2023), demonstrate meticulous attention to the interplay of light and shadow. These intimate pieces, which attracted significant interest from VIP guests, are priced from $6,000 to approximately $30,000. Munar’s work, characterized by fragmented forms and a somber palette, invites viewers into a narrative of obscurity and revelation, where his figures are blurred or disrupted.

On the other side of the wall, Cob is presenting one of the most memorable booths at the fair. The London gallery’s dual exhibition features British artists James Shaw and Alfie Caine, with the booth, bathed in sunlight from the top-floor windows, creating a domestic ambiance. Instead of the typical white walls, the space is transformed with cork tiling on both walls and floor. “A lot of the architecture in [Caine’s] paintings references modernism and that early modern period in British architecture,” said curator Cassie Beadle. “I was thinking about wood paneling and the Isokon building, which is a really iconic building in North London, so I was referencing that 1930s interior aesthetic.”

The walls feature two Caine paintings, Daffodils and Cliff Edge (both 2024): fantastical renderings of domestic interiors looking out on dreamlike horizons. Complementing these are several of Shaw’s sculptures, such as the fuzzy Lounge Chair and the grotesque Floor Lamp with Pivoting Arms and Blob Base (both 2024), both vividly descriptive in their titling.

On the sixth floor, Jane Lombard Gallery’s eye-catching presentation features the work of 80-year-old artist Howard Smith. His paintings, which vary from one square inch to about eight square inches, concentrate on building up color fields with delicate, fine brushstrokes. These abstract works are placed across the entire wall of the massive showroom. The gallery offers these works in groups of three or more, with prices ranging from $600 to $18,000.

Meanwhile, the New York–based gallery paired Howard’s works with sculptures and collages by artist duo Richard Ibghy & Marilou Lemmens. “The sculptures all have to do with alternative facts, so they’re lightly based on very tongue-in-cheek fake news articles,” said Ariel De Sal, sales associate and art fair coordinator at the gallery. For instance, Mastermind (2022), a ceramic sculpture of yellow pants decorated with Morse code, was inspired by a story of how ripped jeans were Morse code, and The US Government’s Secret Weather-Control System (2021), a deflated blue cloud, evokes the paranoid weather balloon scares. These sculptures are priced between $5,500 and $6,400.

Elsewhere, Iceland’s i8 Gallery is making its debut at the fair with a standout selection of paintings by New York–based artist Ryan Mrozowski. His works feature close-up views of plant life, including leaves and flora, interspersed with geometric shapes and disruptions. Notably, his “Split Painting” series depicts segments of plant life seemingly ripped apart by white or gray slashes across the canvas. These paintings are priced between $22,000 and $32,000. “We thought it really made a lot of sense for our debut at Independent to bring an American artist that we were very excited to be working with,” said gallery director Geneva Viralam, who noted that the reception to the works had been “really warm.”

At Tribeca tastemaker Margot Samel’s booth, the striking trompe-l’œil paintings by Philadelphia artist Olivia Jia pulled crowds into the gallery’s private room overlooking the fifth floor. Her works, like Night reading (garden path, a pear halved, portrait of my mother, two birds) (2023), are often inspired by her day-to-day life, depicting various ephemera-like scrapbooks. The series of nine paintings sold out by the end of the VIP day for prices ranging from $6,000 to $18,000.

“With this body of work, she’s definitely skipped a few levels and really came out with the strongest body of work she’s ever made, and I feel people that have seen the work in person can appreciate that,” said founder Margot Samel.

Last week, Samel co-hosted the inaugural edition of Esther, an alternative art fair at Midtown’s Estonia House, and said that she felt inspired by Independent’s gallery-first approach. “Independent—just like Esther—is a gallery-led art fair, and if a gallerist is running a fair, they also know what galleries who are exhibiting at fairs need,” she said. “That was really like an important thing for me setting up Esther—making sure that people come and people who make the experience for visitors as good as possible, but also making sure that the needs of each gallery and artists are met.”

At the busiest intersection on the fifth floor, Miami’s Nina Johnson held court at the heart of the fair, presenting a packed booth with historical and contemporary works by artists who are mothers. “The booth is really meant to show how artists who are mothers have existed in the past, how they exist now, and it’s just they happen to also have children, and in some instances that’s really helped their career—in some instances, it hurt it,” said founder Nina Johnson.

The presentation included works such as Rococo-styled chairs and table by Francesca DiMattio, finished in automotive resin; Katie Stout’s caged glass pieces, such as the pink baby-shaped Baby of the Town (2024), hung from the ceiling; and Elsa Hansen Oldham’s quilts, such as Hollywood Squares (2023), depicting small vignettes of celebrities. Works in the booth, priced from $2,000 to $60,000, aim to create a celebratory atmosphere. A portion of the booth’s profits will be donated to Artists and Mothers, a nonprofit providing childcare for working artists.

Nestled into the corner of the fifth floor, James Barron Art’s three-person booth, “Material / Immaterial,” features the works of Moira Dryer, Beverly Pepper, and Laura de Santillana, whose striking hand-blown glass sculptures are prominently displayed against the window. The pieces on offer range from $15,000 to $125,000.

Dylan Everett, the gallery’s director, was full of praise for the fair’s organization: “They put together such a beautiful, super-curated, and thoughtful fair, and they worked with us the whole time—they actually helped us design this idea of leaving the wall out so that we had all the natural light,” he said. This natural light also plays a crucial role in enhancing the presence of Pepper’s sculptures, such as Chiusura Lampo (1968), a stainless steel work that resonates with the transient, ethereal qualities of de Santillana’s glass creations.

Several solo presentations are also among the fair’s standouts. Two are from London galleries: Public Gallery—which is splitting a booth with Deli Gallery—is showcasing three surrealistic landscape paintings by New York–based Amanda Baldwin, selling out the booth with works priced from $32,000 to $45,000. Nearby, MAXIMILLIAN WILLIAM is debuting steel wall sculptures by Reginald Sylvester II, exploring the intersection of painting and sculpture, with works priced from $25,000 to $35,000.

“Everyone’s here, it’s remarkable,” said gallerist Maximillian William. “Every collector, curator, writer, all the people that I follow on Instagram, they’re all coming to this fair, so that’s provided our gallery an amazing opportunity—to allow us to be presented to them. This feels like the main art world to me.”