BARELY FAIR 2023 was the 3rd edition of the fair, and marked 2nd year of expansion. Presenting 36 exhibitors, the galleries, project spaces, and curatorial projects represented New York, Los Angeles, London, Hong Kong, Beijing, Berlin, Belgium, Toronto and more. Our full list of participants are below.
The expanded roster of exhibitors meant BARELY FAIR would again change locations, this time spreading out into Color Club's ballroom. The MINOR MATTERS symposium would take have it's first year there, launching with series of panels featuring artists, gallerists, curators and other key contributors to the Chicago art world.
For more information on the symposium, please visit MINOR MATTERS, and to see work exhibited by galleries youc an view our documentation of the fair or visit the SPOTLIGHT page, which shares profiles of the artists presented by the galleries.
Anthony Gallery
Chicago
Anthony Gallery focuses on emerging and established contemporary artists. Located in the West Loop of Chicago, the gallery presents solo and group exhibitions while fostering artistic collaborations and partnerships. Anthony Gallery’s mission is to create bridges for more inclusion and opportunity within the arts, and to host artists from around the world.
Cob Gallery
London
Founded in 2011, Cob has established its reputation due to its dedication to artists at the emergent stage of their careers. With a strong curatorial backbone, Cob’s core programming centres around a roster of UK-based artists; whilst simultaneously inviting international practitioners to exhibit in London.
Foxy Produciton
New York City
Foxy Production is a contemporary art gallery with a reputation for discovering and nurturing ground-breaking artists. Established in Brooklyn, New York, in 2003, the gallery is now located in Manhattan’s Chinatown. The gallery’s rigorous and risk-taking exhibition program comprises critically acclaimed solo exhibitions and specially curated group projects in a range of media.
GROVE
London, Berlin
GROVE works to exhibit a diverse range of international artists working across a variety of media to deliver an incisive and daring program. Additionally, GROVE researches and enacts viable alternatives to systemic impediments which impact the global art world. Areas of research focus include the long-term financial stability of artists, mutual aid within artist-driven communities, and the art industry's intersection with climate change.
Good Naked Gallery
New York City
Titled after a Seinfeld episode where Jerry’s girlfriend attempts to open a pickle jar and fix a bike in the buff, it is with levity and sincerity that Good Naked’s programming hovers around the intimate and awkward. The focus is on work that engages tactility, humor, movement, and play. Curated by Jaqueline Cedar, Good Naked's exhibition program is responsive and generative, prioritizing space for new voices and dialogue amongst contemporary artists.
Harlesden High Street
London
Harlesden High Street was founded with the mission of facilitating access between experimental/outsider artists and the traditional gallery system. We host several spaces across London exhibiting contemporary art by local and international artists, centering work by people of colour. In addition to our exhibition venues, we host a cultural outreach programme to reach audiences who might be less likely to engage with typical gallery programming.
Kai Matsumiya
New York City
Kai Matsumiya operates with the belief that the contemporary art gallery has not caught up to the realities of art, with how art lives and breathes on its own time and terms. We extol experimentation for its own sake and encourage failure; for it is failure which promotes possibilities, opportunities, and a defense of dignity. The program celebrates artists who question even the most fundamental expectations that art or society has for you.
Left Field
Los Osos
Left Field is located in Los Osos, a small town on the central coast of California, which is halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco just off highway 1. The gallery presents exhibitions with the primary goal of bringing to our region, contemporary art not otherwise seen here.
MASSIMODECARLO
Milan, London, Hong Kong, Paris, Beijing, VSpace
Founded in Milan in 1987, MASSIMODECARLO played a fundamental role in introducing Italian artists to international audiences, as well as bringing the most interesting voices of the art world to the Italian scene, promoting the establishment of a vital dialogue between artists and national and international institutions. Over the years, the gallery’s artists have gained international recognition and a place in important public and private collections.
Nolan Jimbo
Chicago
Nolan Jimbo is Barely Fair’s 2023 Guest Curator. He is currently the Marjorie Susman Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, where he has curated the exhibitions Chicago Works: Gregory Bae, Interiors, and Endless and staged performances by Kioto Aoki, Kikù Hibino, and Devin T. Mays. Previously, he was a curatorial fellow at MASS MoCA.
P.A.D.
New York City
P.A.D. [Project Art Distribution] is an art exhibition space in historic SoHo (South of Houston) Arts District in New York City. It reflects the bustling economy of artists making, selling and promoting their artworks on the street year-round, weather permitting. The aim of the space is to platform small and editioned works by artists that are interested in embracing new contexts for exhibiting.
Patel Brown
Toronto & Montréal
Patel Brown highlights alternative perspectives and encourages experimentation alongside innovation in both its programming and operations. Identifying gaps in representation and opportunities guided by collaboration and community, the gallery’s program looks to traditions in culture and identity, and how they are increasingly challenged by the globalized world.
Prairie
Chicago
Prairie is an independent exhibition space for contemporary art in Chicago, IL. Working in the long-tradition of artist-run spaces in the city, Prairie was established in 2017 by artists Jack Schneider and Tim Mann with the aim of creating a venue for emerging art and a platform for critical discourse.
SPACES
Cleveland
SPACES commissions artists from around the world—at all stages of their careers—to make new work that is responsive to timely issues. We use these projects as a jumping off point to create educational initiatives that help develop a more informed citizenry. We also distribute grants to artists outside of our residency and exhibition programs.
Selenas Mountain
New York City
Selenas Mountain is a contemporary art gallery in Ridgewood, NY. The program presents a diversity of voices and mediums, with a focus on thematic group exhibitions and original solo exhibitions by emerging contemporary artists. The gallery is an artist-run space co-founded by Chicago natives/The School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni Olivia Swider and Michael Fleming.
Soccer Club Club
Chicago
Soccer Club Club isyay onsideredcay ybay anymay otay ebay anyay artyay allerygay, ocatedlay insideyay ayay ormerlyfay ivatepray arbay , establishedyay ybay ayay ormerfay olishpay occersay ayerplay andyay olympicyay oachcay, ocatedlay inyay ayay ostlymay used-car-dealershipyay istrictday inyay ethay itycay ofyay Chicago, ichwhay estersfay insideyay ethay iddenhay utbay eryvay ealray "this isyay ustjay atwhay oneyay does” affrontyay.
TATJANA PIETERS
Ghent
TATJANA PIETERS is an international gallery for contemporary art, located in a unique 400 m2 space in the emerging harbour area of Ghent. The gallery brings museum-like exhibitions with artists from different parts of the world and combines the promotion of young undiscovered Belgian and foreign talent with that of renowned older artists. Experimentation, the broadening of the mind, and social awareness are what drive this operation.
The Latent Space
Los Angeles
Established in 2021 by Kalan Strauss and Emily Yong Beck, The Latent Space is an artist-owned gallery which started in Chicago, IL, but is not being operated out of Los Angeles, CA. The Latent Space primarily focuses on finding emerging and early career artists and providing them opportunities to show their work, oftentimes alongside established artists.
Tif Sigfrids
Athens
Tif Sigfrids is a gallery based in Athens, Georgia. Founded in Los Angeles in 2013, the gallery represents artists based in New York, Los Angeles, and Europe. Alongside regular programming and participation in art fairs, the gallery has continually presented performances, be they musical, comedic, or otherwise.
murmurs
Los Angeles
Murmurs is a multifaceted art space located in LA, championing experimental and emerging art practices. Murmurs exists to challenge what is expected of an arts space by providing a new model of a multifaceted platform for strengthening community solidarity and building consciousness in order to transform reality.