The final frontier: inaugural Seattle Art Fair to open this month

Attempting to make a dent in the saturated global art fair world, the Seattle Art Fair bursts out of the gates with an expansive programme of exhibitions, site-specific and on-site installations, interventions and talks for its inaugural offering later this month.

It’s an impressive first effort; the co-production team of Art Market Productions and Vulcan Inc. have put together a sterling roster of exhibitors, spanning national and international galleries including the Gagosian, David Zwirner and Pace. (To name just a few – the organisers have bought together over 60 names from cities as far-afield as New York, London, Vancouver, Seoul, Paris and Tokyo.)

The action will primarily be located within the CenturyLink Field Event Center, but a number of city-wide happenings are also planned, from Jenny Heishman’s creation of experiential false landscapes in Myrtle Edwards Park, to a site-responsive life-sized diorama of inflatable and cut-out animals by the Native artist Wendy Red Star, and a multi-disciplinary offsite exhibition of emerging local artists at the alternative art space Soil.

’Working alongside our Seattle partners, we are breaking the boundaries of the traditional art fair to ignite the imagination of the city and the global arts community,’ says Max Fishko, director of the Seattle Art Fair and managing partner of Art Market Productions.

’The fair has been designed to showcase the vibrant culture and diversity of the Pacific Northwest,’ adds Mary Ann Prior, director of art collections at Vulcan Inc. ’We are excited to be creating an immersive, city-wide experience for not only Seattle residents, but established collectors and international art patrons.’