Steals, Deals, and Strollers

NEW YORK—Affordable art seems like an oxymoron these days, especially if you're looking for quality. And even if you do find a decent lower-priced piece, it's usually the result of painstaking legwork or serendipity. But The Affordable Art Fair, at the Metropolitan Pavilion and the adjoining Altman Building in New York from June 14 to June 17, attempts to make it easy, featuring works from 60 galleries from around the world, all at $10,000 or less.

The fair requires 75 percent of art in each booth to be priced at less than $5,000. When I visited on Sunday, during the final few hours of the fair, I spotted pieces starting as low as $50.

Naturally, where there is affordable art, a crowd of beginning collectors will follow. A newlywed couple was purchasing their very first artwork—a charred wood piece by Richard Painter, Dog, Again, listed at $3,800—at the busy booth of the Santa Fe-based Seven-o-Seven Contemporary Art Gallery.

Michael Foley of New York's Foley Gallery said he had also seen his share of new collectors. "I've seen a lot of people who are unfamiliar with the process of buying art," he said. "It's a longer decision-making process, and it's definitely less impulsive than other fairs, but this context gives [novice collectors] a comfortable environment."

The casual environment attracted a number of pint-size visitors. I had to navigate around a few children; I eavesdropped on a father consulting with his young son about how a David Burdeny work, on sale at the Lumas SoHo booth, would look in their living room (the son shook his head and pointed to one of Howard Schatz's limited-edition lambda color photographs from his series "H20"); and I saw gallerist Chris Wimmer, of Brooklyn's Pink Elephant Projects, juggling his baby daughter in his arms while he talked shop.

Art dealer Rob Stein, whose wife Carol Stein directs the Nashville-based Cumberland Gallery, confirmed that Sundays have traditionally been big days for families at the Affordable Art Fair.

Nearby, at the booth of Gallery 339 from Philadelphia, gallerist Martin McNamara added, "It's a very young, family fair, because it does cater to people just starting out in art collecting. It's the affordable nature of it."

But the event wasn't just about cooing over cute kids and helping newbies start their collections—of course, as at any fair, the galleries also were focused on sales.

Overall last year's event brought in more than $2 million. As of this writing, it was still unclear whether or not 2007 will tally to that number.

Foley thinks it will, though. "I've done better this year than I have for the two previous years," he said.

But one gallerist's mouth turned instantly from a smile to a straight line when I asked him about sales, as he muttered, "not stellar," while Lyon, at Seven-o-Seven, said this year was "not quite as busy as last year." McNamara, at Gallery 339, described sales as "somewhere down the middle."

As the clock ticked closer to 5 p.m., I overheard another gallerist offering last-minute shoppers $1,000 off any piece of art so he wouldn't have to ship the work home.

Upon hearing that offer, one collector glanced around the booth and pointed to a wood sculpture on the wall, listed at $800. "Does that mean you'll give me $200 if I take this home?"

A Few Favorites

Several good finds were still available in the hours before the fair closed.

Foley Gallery showed me three of Martin Klimas's stellar untitled pigment prints of porcelain figurines mid-shatter, in editions of five, which I instantly fell in love with (Foley reported that he had already sold several of those, listed at $5,500 each, as well as charcoal on paper works by Tiffany Dow and chromogenic prints by Thomas Allen).

Nigel Conway's bold, childlike mixed-media paintings also were attracting attention, at Seven-o-Seven, listed from $3,000 to $5,000. Lyon added that her gallery, participating in the fair for the second year in a row, had sold at least one work from each artist the booth represented.

At Cumberland Gallery, Carrie McGee's rust, oil acrylic, metal, and resin sculptures were drawing in visitors, as was Robert Durham's bizarre oil on linen of a man sleeping with cut watermelons, Just A Dream He Keeps Dreaming (listed at $5,600). Stein called it "a showstopper."