Fountain Art Fair

After two years of successful runs in New York, Miami and Chicago, Fountain has chosen to stand aside this art fair season in New York and return to our underground roots. With the sudden influx of alternative fairs on the circuit, it’s clear that the scene is over-run. Witnessing Art Chicago’s decline leading to its sale into the fold of the Merchandise Mart, and with the Armory Show encountering a similar fate, it is imperative that Fountain look inward and reinvent itself in an effort to draw attention back to the independent gallery.

The needs of Fountain have not changed. The needs of the independent gallery have not changed. The needs of our artists have not changed, but the format that we structure to fulfill these needs must. No longer can the gallery fall to the annual exhibition of commercial contemporary art located in a mall near you.

Fountain will be back in 2008 in Miami and will relaunch in New York City in 2009. We are actively accepting applications for these new and improved Fountain events from galleries weary of the same old-same-old.

Keep your eyes peeled as we will resurface when and where you least expect it; raw, blunt and as guerrilla as ever.

Fountain is a guerrilla-style art event – under the radar, independent and highly influential – where young, Brooklyn-based galleries showcase fresh work without official booth spaces or selection committee juries.

Fountain was launched in March 2006 in New York in an effort to leverage support for independent galleries overlooked by the larger, corporate-sponsored art fairs.

The name “Fountain” is a nod to Marcel Duchamp’s controversial sculpture which shook up the art world when it was rejected by the Society of Artists’ exhibition in 1917.

Similarly, in defiant contrast with The Armory Show, Art Basel Miami Beach, Pulse, Scope and the numerous other international art fairs, Fountain has received wide public support and critical acclaim for its experimental slant.

In form and spirit, the artwork exhibited at Fountain reflects the avant-garde attitude of the Dada art movement, while attracting the attention of the international clientele and top collectors who attend the more traditional fairs.

The Fountain New York 2008 VIP/Press Pass allows unlimited access to the fair and parties/performances throughout the weekend. To request a VIP/Press Pass, please contact us.