Rising Galleries Embrace Experimentation at NADA New York’s Ninth Edition

With 88 exhibitors from 17 countries, the New Art Dealers of America (NADA)’s ninth edition in New York is technically the largest of the various art fairs taking place during a packed fortnight in New York. After walking through the five floors of the historic 548 West building in West Chelsea during the fair’s VIP preview, however, visitors may have found that NADA feels like the most intimate of the bunch.

“NADA to us is made up of what we would call aspirational peers,” said Aaron Harbour, a co-founder of Et.al Gallery, which is presenting a two-person booth of painters Rema Ghuloum and Jay Payton. “Here are the galleries we look up to. It’s a community.”

“Community” is a word that is mentioned frequently by the exhibitors here, when asked what makes NADA stand out among a crowded field of art fairs. Founded in 2002 as a not-for-profit collective, the international alliance supports professionals in the contemporary art world by emphasizing collaboration over competition and making art more accessible to the public.

“NADA is dedicated to advancing rising talents from around the world,” the organization’s director, Heather Hubbs, told Artsy. “We’re thrilled to give these newer galleries a platform to showcase their program during one of New York’s most well-attended art weeks.”

Indeed, this year’s edition features 53 NADA members and 31 first-time exhibitors. The fair reflects this sense of variety, newness, and experimentation with a number of standout booths and works on display.

“The galleries put out their strongest points of view,” said Jennifer Carvalho, partner and director of Brooklyn gallery Carvalho Park. “For NADA, galleries try to bring works that truly represent their program. It feels more like we’re seeing the identities of every gallery strongly here.”

Carvalho’s gallery is among the highlights of the fair, presenting works by Guillaume Linard Osorio, a triptych by Krista Louise Smith, and a ceramic sculpture by Taylor Kibby, as well as two sculptures by Rachel Mica Weiss on the venue’s roof terrace.

Echoing Carvalho’s sentiment, Miles Thurlow, co-founder of WORKPLACE, told Artsy that the fair gave his gallery “a sense of license to work that might be more conceptually driven.” The London gallery presents a memorable selection of works by nine artists. Across various mediums, all employ strategies of bricolage, or repurposing existing materials into new configurations. One standout example is a hanging figure resembling a character from the film Scum by Simeon Barclay, who has just concluded a solo exhibition at South London Gallery.

Thurlow said that the ethos of the fair was important to the gallery’s presentation. “[NADA] very much embraces the spirit of experimentation,” he told Artsy. “They are open and supportive of the galleries when you’re hanging the work. There’s a sense that the galleries are in charge, and you can move things around. That’s really important.”

Another gallery making the most of this freedom is The Hole, which went to the trouble of constructing a walk-in hunting cabin inside its booth to house its solo presentation of paintings and sculptures by Matt Belk. The American artist is making his first appearance in a fair booth with the New York– and Los Angeles–based gallery. A keen hunter, his airbrush-on-canvas works depict hunting dogs in an uncanny fashion.

Kathy Grayson, The Hole’s owner, said that the fair is an ideal place to debut the artist. “NADA is a great place to discover people you’ve never heard of, and we had this great guy up our sleeve,” she told Artsy. “The paintings are very labor intensive and detailed, but also sort of charming and poetic.”

Given the number of exhibitors and the range of geographies represented at the fair, an assortment of themes have emerged, including figurative depictions of wildlife and the everyday, as well as textiles, ceramics, and crafts. NADA visitors benefit from the fair’s variety.

“There’s a massive diversity of practices, which I’m really liking,” said artist Anya Paintsil, whose work is on view at New York gallery Hannah Traore’s booth. Paintsil, who is of Welsh and Ghanaian heritage, is presenting a series of textiles that playfully weave together Afro hair stylings with Welsh mythology.

Reported sales on opening day were robust for several standout booths. A series of vivid works from Alejandro Garcia Contreras, Christine Rebhuhn, and Aris Azarmsa are presented by Swivel Gallery in an eye-catching display. The Brooklyn-based gallery reported selling three vessels by Contreras for $10,000, two large paintings by Azarmsa for $11,000, and two sculptures by Rebhuhn for $5,000 and $3,500.

Charles Moffett also sold more than a dozen works by all 10 of the artists it presented, including a pair of paintings by Julia Jo, Pillow Talk and After the Storm (both 2023), each priced at $25,000. At the end of opening day, Lily Stockman’s Infinite Sound (2023), priced at $50,000, was on hold for a museum.