Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday.
By late July, Aspen’s social calendar runs on high-altitude overdrive. The Food & Wine Classic has come and gone; the Aspen Ideas Festival has tossed around geopolitics, economics, and the creeping influence of AI. Then, almost without warning, the art world arrives—collectors, dealers, artists, and advisers—armed with printed dresses, cowboy hats, and more Alo gear than a California wellness retreat. And, of course, there is lots of art.
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The second edition of the Aspen Art Fair opened Tuesday with more than 40 exhibitors from over 15 countries. Staged in the ground-floor rooms of the historic Hotel Jerome, the fair has more than two times as many exhibitors as it did last year—a leap that feels both ambitious and, somehow, appropriate. What might sound like a logistical headache in another town—more galleries, more people, more programming—is, in Aspen, simply how summer works.
The Aspen Art Fair is just one of three major draws this Art Week. There’s also Intersect Aspen Art and Design, now in its 15th edition, and the AIR Festival—the Aspen Art Museum’s $20 million, decade-long initiative to infuse the art world with Ideas Fest–style rigor and dialogue. And yet, this is still the art world. The most consistent refrain from dealers and advisers on both sides of the Atlantic is that there are too many fairs. So why did so many galleries choose to add another to the calendar—and in a small Colorado town that’s not exactly easy to reach?
“There’s no question that there are too many fairs, and the result is that you have to pick wisely,” Paul Henkel, founder of Palo Gallery in Manhattan, told ARTnews. “Aspen’s good because it’s hyper-focused. It’s not a massive, sprawling fair. You’ve got a smaller pool of people, yes, but a vast majority of them are serious collectors.”
Henkel, a first-time participant this year, echoed a sentiment that’s gained traction in recent years: that newer regional fairs may be better—and more “targeted”—places to meet serious collectors than the Friezes and Art Basels of the world, which, as Henkel put it, are often full of “people just looking around.”
With rumors swirling that some of the art world’s largest fairs are slowing down and shedding exhibitors, the “too big to fail” model may soon be replaced by one that’s “small enough to succeed.”
There’s a direct correlation between size, intention, and the capacity to build relationships. Aspen seems to sit comfortably in the middle of that Venn diagram, according to Christian Gundin of Havana- and Madrid-based gallery El Apartamento.
“Last year I met a lot of collectors here I’d never seen at other fairs,” Gundin told ARTnews. “With a fair this size, you have more time to look at the art, to connect with locals and visiting collectors, and because of that, the connections are stronger and more lasting.”
Palo and El Apartamento are both young galleries with programs strong enough to stand alongside more established names participating this year. At El Apartamento, dreamy figurative works by Spanish painter Miki Leal—in both acrylic and watercolor—hang beside Cuban artist Roberto Diago’s patchwork portraits that blur the line between abstraction and figuration. At Palo, Monrovia-born artist Lewinale Havette’s paintings draw attention for their narrative intensity, while retaining a delicate texture.
Sean Kelly and Marianne Boesky are among the blue-chip galleries taking a chance in Aspen this year, both citing the mountain town’s mix of institutional weight and engaged collectors.
Boesky, of course, has a long history in Aspen. From 2017 to 2021, she maintained a permanent space in town and has staged a summer pop-up gallery each year since. This year, unable to find the right space, she opted for the fair as a way to remain embedded in the community. Her presentation included works by Sanford Biggers, Ghada Amer, and Sarah Meyohas, with prices ranging from $25,000 to $325,000.
“It’s not a money grab,” she told ARTnews during the fair’s opening hours on Tuesday. “I grew up here, and it’s a nice way to participate and remain part of the fabric of the town.”
For Kelly, joining the Aspen Art Fair was about showing respect for collectors. “We have many clients who live here, and most of the year these collectors come to us in Basel or New York. This is a way of coming to them,” he said. “Plus, this fair is at a time of year that is historically slow. So if we can get a financial bump in July, what’s not to love?”
Kelly brought works by Ana González, Sam Moyer, and Hugo McCloud, priced between $22,000 and $85,000—which, he said, is a sweet spot for Aspen. “People are most active under $150,000, but of course, it’s all about having good work that’s priced well,” he added.
There seemed to be a mixed strategy across booths, with most galleries preselling a few works while making sure plenty remained on view. Southern Guild, which operates in Cape Town and Los Angeles, sold seven works, including paintings by Mmangaliso Nzuza and photographs by Zanele Muholi, all for $30,000 and under.
There were some growing pains.The Jerome is a Michelin Key hotel that, during peak season, is booked solid with events, weddings, and conferences. Several dealers said installation was rough—borderline frantic—with art handlers and gallerists working into the early hours the day before opening.
“Everyone’s job, when you boil it down, is problem-solving. It’s what we all do,” Aspen Art Fair cofounder Bob Chase told ARTnews. “But I knew when I woke up at 5 a.m. after three hours of sleep that, come 11 a.m., the top collectors in this town would be here—and they’d be amazed.”
The Jerome, he added, is part of the fair’s DNA. Its Aspen-chic, domestic setting is one of the reasons the fair works. But it’s not a convention center—you can’t just zip around with heavy machinery and prefab walls.
Whatever installation hiccups there were, they weren’t visible during the VIP preview. Fair coordinators said around 1,000 guests attended Tuesday’s opening, enough to push closing time from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Among the buzziest rooms was art adviser Wendy Cromwell’s “A (Hotel) Room of One’s Own,” presented in partnership with 74th Arts—the nomadic cultural venture founded by fair cofounder Becca Hoffman. The project was inspired by Miranda July’s 2024 novel All Fours, which has drawn praise for its salacious—and subversive—portrayal of female desire.
Cromwell, Megan Melrooney, Praise Shadows, K Contemporary, and Ronchini all reported multiple sales, ranging from $17,000 to $95,000. Fair organizers said the day’s total sales hovered around $2 million.
If last year was proof of concept, this year—with its expanded programming, intellectual panels, collector hikes, and screenings—was a validation that curiosity and engagement can coexist with the art market, so long as the setting is right.