Few dealers can afford to skip art fairs, but the omnipresent events can be deadly expensive. In 2008 and beyond, look for more young gallerists to cut costs by collaborating—and thinking outside the booth.

Sharing a fair space is swiftly becoming de rigueur. Later this month at Art LA, the up-and-coming Los Angeles fair, Rental Gallery, a New York– and L.A.-based operation that allows international dealers to lease its space, is subletting its booth to three galleries: New York– and Aachen, Germany–based Adamski gallery and New York’s Eleven Rivington and Participant, Inc. Stretching the model further, Rental’s director, Joel Mesler, will also rent out a desk in the booth space by the day to local galleries that want to stop by and show fairgoers examples from a book of images. The trend continues in April, when next, a new invitational in Chicago, offers a “smorgasbord of options” to emerging dealers, says its co-director, Chicago gallerist Kavi Gupta, including open exhibition space and booth sharing.

The sharing phenomenon picked up steam last October at London’s Frieze, where booths now cost around $40,000. The Fair Gallery debuted there, composed of Raster, from Warsaw; GB agency, from Paris; and Jan Mot, from Brussels; independent curator Aurélie Voltz selected and arranged works from each. Elsewhere at Frieze, New York galleries Taxter & Spengemann and Guild & Greyskhul divided a stand, which not only reduced their costs but also allowed them to try out some playful curatorial concepts. They settled on the symmetrical model of a Rorschach test: Both installed paintings and sculptures in the same positions on either side of the screen that bisected the booth.

The three-year-old Volta, in Basel, takes collaboration as one of its premises. All of Volta’s booths are the same size, except for two very large ones that it encourages galleries to share. “It makes it simply more economically viable for the galleries,” says executive director Amanda Coulson. Galleries that have artists in common work on joint projects and split the expense. Last summer Voges + Partner, of Frankfurt, and the Happy Lion, of Los Angeles, together presented a large, colorful, abstract mural by Monique van Genderen, whom they both represent. Look for more collaborations this June.

Some fairs are doing away with walls altogether, at least in certain areas. Last month Art Basel Miami Beach premiered its Art Supernova section, a booth-free group show for 20 international galleries. And the younger generation of dealers don’t limit their collaborations to fairs: In London, Paradise Row and T1 + 2 share gallery space.

Although Art Supernova’s common storage and office space might foster dealer bickering, in these boom times, galleries can afford to be inclusive. And if the bust comes, the cost savings may only prolong this more-the-merrier moment.

"Share and Share Alike" originally appeared in the January 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's January 2008 Table of Contents.