According to Art F City’s Corinna Kirsch, Baltimore’s first Alt Art Fair was “alright.” She described the work shown like “NADA’s spray-painted, squiggly abstract paintings, but fewer of them; mostly you’d see fluffy, DIY objects on the walls, more zines, and photography.”
Housed in the Charles Street Parking Garage during Artscape and founded by Margo Malter, Nick Peelor, and Marian Glebes, the Alternative Art Fair featured more than 15 non-profit exhibition spaces, pop-up venues, artist-run galleries and artist collectives. Lots of the work was cheaper than dirt, but hey – this is a bonus! It’s a Baltimore parking garage full of contemporary art! Work ranged from traditional paintings and sculpture to temporary installations and performance.
Although she didn’t say it outright, I think Kirsch was impressed by the Alt Art Fair, at least enough to say: “I don’t know if we’ll see a second edition of Baltimore’s Alternative Art Fair, but I hope so. There was so much unrefined energy — Little Berlin put on a performance of “trash yoga” where performers writhed around on cardboard boxes in a makeshift subway-station booth. And coming from New York, where almost every painting seems pre-branded, pre-packaged for sale on the market, a little bit of the unrefined goes a long way. For a moment, I thought I’d been transported back to art school in Chicago, when art actually seemed exciting.” – Cara Ober
Exhibitors: Adds Donna (Chicago, IL), Bicycle Gallery (Baltimore, MD), Booklyn Art Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Current Space (Baltimore, MD), Furthermore (Washington, D.C.), Lease Agreement (Baltimore, MD) & Trunk Show (Chicago, IL), Lil’ Gallery (Baltimore, MD), Little Berlin (Philadelphia, PA), Make Studio (Baltimore, MD), Open Space (Baltimore, MD), Present Company (Brooklyn, NY), Process Collective & Penthouse Gallery (Baltimore, MD), Rastel (Baltimore, MD), Sediment (Richmond, VA), Springsteen (Baltimore, MD), Transformer (Washington, D.C.)
More info here.
Curators: Margo Benson Malter, Nick Peelor, and Marian April Glebes
*Photos by Alex Ebstein and Lu Zhang
Jessie and Katey running the ring toss at Scott Pennington and Adam Francino’s Super Games
Margo and Nick, two of the organizers of the Alternative Art Fair
Current Gallery’s booth
Works by Elena Johnson and Justin Lucas in Current Gallery’s booth
Open Space’s booth at Alternative Art Fair
Open Space’s booth
Open Space’s Booth
Open Space’s Booth at Alternative Art Fair
Embroidery at Lil Gallery’s project “All the Homies”
Evan Price at All the Homies
Lil Gallery
Lisa Iglesias at Present Company
Furthermore
Brooklyn Art Gallery
John Bocksel at Brooklyn Art Gallery
Trunk Show
Ryan Nord Kitchen at Ratsel
Benjamin Edmiston at Ratsel
Sediment gallery’s booth
Jon Duff at Sediment
Jon Duff at Sediment
Bicycle Gallery
Process Collective
Process Collective
Springsteen Gallery
Mark Wehberg, Peggy Chiang and James Bouche at Springsteen
Mark Wehberg and Peggy Chiang