No galleries, 70 artists: Fair Play opens in a former church during Frieze Week
More than 3,000 people crowded into a former church for the opening of Fair Play, a new London fair with no galleries at all.
The inaugural edition takes over two floors of One Marylebone, a repurposed church a short walk from Frieze London in The Regent's Park. It runs during Frieze Week, the October stretch when the big Frieze fairs anchor a city-wide rush of openings and satellite events, according to Frieze.
The model is simple. Only individual artists get stands. There are 70 of them this year.
There is no stand fee to exhibit. Instead, Fair Play takes a 50% cut including VAT of anything sold, founder Ryan Stanier told The Art Newspaper. Stanier previously founded and directed The Other Art Fair, another event aimed at artists selling directly.
Most exhibitors were picked by a selection committee of curators and creative directors after an open call. Applicants paid £84, which included two tickets to the fair. Those chosen then did almost everything themselves, from transport and hanging to pricing and deciding how to lay out their space.
That do-it-yourself setup matters because most of the artists do not have gallery representation. For many, this is their first art fair.
Crowds came. Sales were slower. Stanier said the private view, an invite-only opening night, drew more than 3,000 attendees. Most works are priced in the hundreds to low thousands of pounds. But the vast majority of artists interviewed at the fair had made no sales at the time of reporting.
There were early exceptions. Artist Lea Rose Kara sold two wall-based sculptures on opening night for £300 and £3,200. Sculptor Eleanor Turnbull had not sold, but reported several enquiries about potential commissions, paid one-off jobs to make new work for a buyer.
Fair Play is one of two new fairs testing a quieter pitch this Frieze Week, alongside the London Invitational. Artnet described both as betting on calm, curated, artist-led experiences away from the main marquees.
For visitors, this means something different from the usual fair maze. You meet the person who made the work. You ask the price. You hear straight away if it is still available.
