Aspen Art Fair Launches in July, Taking Some of Intersect Aspen’s Exhibitors With It

This summer, Aspen, the vacation home of numerous powerful art collectors, gets a second art fair.

In late July, the Aspen Art Fair will open its inaugural edition at the Hotel Jerome, a historic red brick Victorian building opened in the 1880s. Some exhibitors will take over hotel rooms; others will show in public spaces in the building.

The fair, which will include around 30 exhibitors, comes with a program of talks, performances, screenings, and dinners. It also will coincide with Aspen Art Week (July 29 to August 2) and with Aspen’s existing art fair, the Intersect Aspen Art and Design Fair.

Aspen Art Fair was cofounded by Becca Hoffman, founder of 74tharts and former director of Outsider Art Fair, and Bob Chase, owner of Aspen’s Hexton Gallery. Hoffman was the director of the Intersect fair from 2020 until this past fall, when she left to start 74tharts, which has so far produced events in Vienna and Milan. A full half of the 20 galleries that have committed to the Aspen Art Fair so far are following Hoffman over from Intersect, including blue-chip heavy hitters like Perrotin and Gmurzynska. (The full list is still in formation.)

The new venue was part of the draw. While Intersect is held at the Aspen Ice Garden, a recreation center a few blocks off Main Street, Hotel Jerome is on Main.

“I love Intersect, but it’s just too far out of the town,” Robert Casterline of Casterline/Goodman Gallery, which has locations in Aspen and Santa Fe, told ARTnews. “There’s a lot of events going on [that week] and a lot of people are like, ‘If it’s not easy, I’m not going to do it.’”

Casterline/Goodman is moving over to the new fair, where it will show work by Stanley Mouse, who did original posters for the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and other musical acts beginning in the 1960s.

Other exhibitors making the jump include locals like Chase’s Hexton Gallery and Galerie Maximilian; as well as New York galleries Miles McEnery and Nancy Hoffman. Newcomers exhibiting in Aspen for the first time include Chicago’s PATRON gallery.

For its fourth edition, Intersect has retained galleries like Hilton and Todd Merrill, and has maintained its number of 27 international exhibitors—adding 12 new exhibitors of its own, including Tel Aviv’s Corridor Contemporary. Intersect will have a space curated by local curator and artist D.J. Watkins highlighting local artists who are represented at Watkins’ new downtown Aspen gallery, Aspen Collective. Intersect evolved out of Art Aspen, which ran from 2010 to 2019.

74tharts is trying out a new concept with the Aspen Art Fair, according to Hoffman. “We have conceived a new type of cross-disciplinary art fair that aims to re-think, re-examine, re-engage, and re-invigorate, connecting and convening a dynamic set of international and creative communities in Aspen in a luxurious social setting,” she said in a statement.

In an interview, Hoffman told ARTnews, “What I’m interested in doing is bringing as many people who support the arts to the town of Aspen as possible. So I think it’s great that we have multiple art fairs. It’s all about a rising tide floating all boats.”

The Aspen Art Fair is partnering with Anderson Ranch Arts Center to award a Guest Artist Prize to an artist showcased at the fair, which will include a one-week visit to the ranch to work in its studios.

Tickets for the fair run $30 per day, or $90 for a 4-day pass, and $100 for VIP.

Exhibitors announced so far are: