U.S. Boutique Fair Arrival an ‘Antidote to the Big Box Art Fair’

A riverside lodge in the Berkshires highlands of western Massachusetts played host to a gathering of gallerists and art organisations this weekend for a fair designed to incite visitors to take in art in a more intimate setting.

Thirty-six exhibitors attended the inaugural Arrival Art Fair at the Tourists boutique hotel in North Adams from 12 to 15 June, where artworks were displayed within light-filled, blonde wood-clad guest rooms, alongside a programme of outdoor sculpture, museum talks, and studio visits. 

Presented as an idyllic gateway, the invite-only fair hosted reputed American galleries including New York’s Jane Lombard, San Francisco’s Jessica Silverman, Cleveland’s Abattoir Gallery, and Atlanta’s Wolfgang Gallery.

Speaking of the mood on the ground, Jane Lombard senior director Lisa Carlson said the fair offered a ‘rare, focused, and collegial environment that we don’t often find at larger fairs’. ‘It feels like a community-driven exhibition, where the art and atmosphere truly connect.’

Jessica Silverman sold two paintings by Hayal Pozanti—Chimes of Neptune for $55,000 (all prices USD) and Coaxed Drops from the Clouds (both 2025) for $45,000; Chelsea Ryoko Wong’s If I Could Stop Time (2025) for $27,000; and Pae White’s cold summer (2024) sold for $25,000, in addition to five of White’s porcelain sculptures for $3,000 each. 

Drawing from their different backgrounds, fair co-founders Yng-Ru Chen (Praise Shadows Art Gallery, Boston), advisor Sarah Galender Meyer, and artist Crystalle Lacouture explained they conceived the biannual event ‘as an antidote to the big box art fair experience’.

Aligning with its mission, the alternative fair reached out to non-commercial gallery art organisations like artist estate managers Davila-Villa & Stothart, who brought a presentation by American conceptual artist Mel Chin that spanned four decades of output.

Among Chin’s featured work was DIS-pense & DIS-tribute (1992), a defunct vending machine filled with seasoned American flag packets, critiquing what he called ‘junk food patriotism’, or the attempt to unite diverse societies through ‘instant, artificial forms of gratification’.

Partnering with local institutions, the fair featured artist-led events at Mass MoCA and The Clark and invite-only studio visits with Jenny Holzer and Mike Glier.

Finally, an acquisition prize with the local Williams College Museum of Art saw work by three artists enter the museum’s collection, including Julie Buffalohead (Jessica Silverman), Kite (Bockley Gallery, Minneapolis), and Juvana Soliven (Ontopo, New York/Honolulu). —[O]

Main image: Davila-Villa & Stothart, Arrival Art Fair, Massachusetts (12–15 June 2025). Courtesy Arrival. Photo: Mikhail Mishin.