ADAA Fair Returns to Park Avenue Armory With New Name and Slimmer Roster

The Art Dealers Association of America has brought its annual New York fair back to the Park Avenue Armory under a new name, the ADAA Fair, running until 16 November with 63 galleries — around 12 fewer than the last edition. It is the first edition solely under the leadership of Kinsey Robb, who joined the organisation in 2024.

Since 1989 the ADAA had hosted its Art Show, which gathered member galleries from across the country each year. Last year the association cancelled the 2025 fair less than four months before opening, calling the move a "strategic pause" to reevaluate how best to serve its members.

What changed after the pause?

Despite the new name and layout tweaks, Robb insists the fair's character is intact. "It's a continuation. It's an evolution," Robb says. "It is still a small-scale collegial fair of the members, so that hasn't changed either. It's just adapting into the environment and the time that we're in."

The smaller exhibitor list is a deliberate answer to what dealers and collectors call "fairtigue" — exhaustion driven by the frequency and size of fairs. Art Basel Miami Beach, the largest art fair in the Western Hemisphere, will also scale down its participating galleries this year. The hiatus "gave us an opportunity to look at the oversaturation of fairs that were happening at that time, and the fatigue that people were feeling," Robb says. "This scale feels nice to me."

The reduction frees space around the circular bar at the fair's centre, letting attendees move more easily through the three-aisle expo. Visitors gathered there during Thursday's opening gala (12 November) for the Whitney Museum of American Art, which was well attended despite stormy weather and even a tornado warning in New York City. During the fair's hiatus, its longtime preview-night partner and beneficiary, the Henry Street Settlement, teamed up with the Independent fair instead.

Participating dealers say the Whitney partnership has drawn a new, often younger crowd. Works on display skew heavily toward Modern and post-war secondary-market material rather than contemporary art. "I think deeply about the ecosystem of the art world, and how we all are connected," Robb says. "Even if we all are in our own lanes or bubbles, we are all essential to each other in service of the art and in service of the artist."

Who is showing, and what has sold?

The roster runs from founding ADAA members Hirschl & Adler and Kraushaar Galleries, both in the inaugural 1989 Art Show, to first-time exhibitors including Alexander Berggruen, Sargent's Daughters, Piero Atchugarry, Nicodim and Hollis Taggart.

Hollis Taggart, who has run his namesake gallery for nearly 50 years, only recently became an ADAA member. He says the opening gala drew a crowd from the surrounding Upper East Side, unlike his Chelsea openings. His gallery presents a dual stand of two women Abstract Expressionist painters, Michael (Corinne) West and Teruko Yokoi.

"I think it's very mixed, it's a bifurcated market," Taggart says. "There's so many daily events that happen politically and financially, like the meltdown with Nvidia. I think the market's OK, but when you consider world events, it's a miracle that it's still as good as it is."

Reported sales include:

• Agnes Pelton's The Well of Peace (1932), asking price $2.4m, and Beauford Delaney's Untitled (Paris) (1986) at $1.6m — both at Jonathan Boos
• Two six-figure paintings and several works under $2,000 at Kraushaar Galleries
• Works by Beverly Pepper, Kenneth Noland and Kikuo Saito, each $40,000–$85,000, at James Barron Art
• Several works at $6,000–$80,000 at Yoshii Gallery
• A Helen Frankenthaler work on paper for $75,000 at AH Arts
• Two Susumu Kamijo paintings at $30,000–$45,000 at Perrotin
• Eight Julie Buffalohead works at $22,000–$50,000 at Jessica Silverman
• Two Lily Stockman paintings at $20,000 apiece and three Julia Joe paintings at $30,000 each at Charles Moffett

Moffett, a Tribeca dealer who took part in the 2024 edition, welcomed the year off and the ADAA's non-coercive approach. "With so many of the fairs, once you're on the hamster wheel, it's like, go go go. You apply every year, and if you don't apply or if you decide to sit out a year, you go to the back of the line," Moffett says. "I'm just grateful that this feels more like an organisation that wants to see the best for each gallery."

With robust early sales and a Whitney-affiliated crowd, the relaunched fair offers the ADAA's members a test case for whether smaller, calmer fairs can hold their value in a fatigued market.

ADAA Fair, until 16 November, Park Avenue Armory, New York