All’s Fair in Hamptons Art Fairs

This year’s Market Art + Design fair proves that at least some exhibitors think they have a shot of making their booth fees back from sales to fickle visitors and jaded summer Hamptonites.

The fair returns with 80 exhibitors to its original landing site (then known as Art Market Hamptons), the grounds behind the Bridgehampton Museum along Corwith Avenue from next Thursday through July 8.

As in most fairs, the emphasis is on modern and contemporary art, in addition to design. This is the eighth year for the fair, which has outlasted Art Hamptons, where the fair co-owner Max Fishko was employed before setting off on his own almost a decade ago. He and his business partner, Jeffrey Wainhause, now run a series of fairs and events around the country under the aegis of Art Market Productions.

Art Hamptons has postponed its fair two years in a row and Art Southampton, the Hamptons arm of the popular December fair Art Miami, has again demurred this year after citing problems with locations and distracted summer collectors (presumably meaning low sales) in 2017.

In theory, the contraction from three fairs to one should tip the quality level upwards from what has been an often mediocre showing among all three fairs over the past few years, which have tended to feature resort galleries and third-tier secondary market emporiums. So who’s on the exhibitor list?

For one thing, it’s fairly packed with locals, which does raise the quality level. These include Lawrence Fine Art, Janet Lehr Fine Arts, and Roman Fine Art of East Hampton; Chase Edwards and RJD Gallery of Bridgehampton, and Peter Marcelle Project and Tripoli Gallery of Southampton. 

Two other Southampton Galleries are Noted, a recent addition to Job’s Lane, and ARDT Gallery. The latter seems only to have a presence on the online art and antiques site 1st Dibs, but lists its town as Southampton. It has been selling art since 2015, often at the local fairs. It seems to have a penchant for Pop Art memes, such as an artist who makes assemblages of photographic images of donuts to resemble historical and popular figures like Vincent Van Gogh and Alfred E. Newman.

Galleries from tourist or resort destinations such as Asbury Park, Boca Raton, Venice Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Joshua Tree, West Palm Beach, and Nashville in addition to a few contributions from more serious art cities like New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Paris, and the like are on this year’s roster.

A few, like David Benrimon Fine Art from New York City, are familiar from previous iterations of fairs such as Art Southampton. And as usual, a couple of Asian galleries are in evidence as well.

If it sounds like a mixed bag, it sure seems like one, with no blue chip marquee names in sight. Many of the familiar names of yesteryear are also nowhere to be found. It will be interesting to see how this fair is received and attended, aside from the expected big crowds making the scene on opening night, and whether James Thurber’s quote about martinis (“one is alright, two are too many . . .”) applies to art fairs here as well.

Next Thursday night’s V.I.P. preview is from 6 to 10. Regular fair hours are 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, July 6, and July 7, and noon to 6 p.m. on July 8. General admission is $25.