Lauren Smart visited the Fair and wrote for D-Magazine -
At 11:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd were perusing the selection of Tom Anholt paintings on display at the booth of British gallery Josh Lilley. From there, Dirk’s path took him to Erin Cluley Gallery, giving Cluley herself an exciting start to the weekend-long bender known as Dallas Art Fair. I lost the trail of the Big German after that. It seemed a bit too conspicuous to stalk Dirk and his wife Jessica as they wandered through more than 90 booths at this year’s fair. Besides, there is a lot of art worth seeing at not just one, but two fairs this weekend.
There are a few methods to seeing all of the art. You can go local: 12 of the booths at the fair are Dallas/Fort Worth exhibitors. Don’t miss the always impressive booths of Valley House Gallery and William Campbell Gallery. Across the street at the Dallas Invitational, the ratio is about the same, although there are only 14 galleries occupying rooms on the Fairmount Hotel’s 17th floor.
A strategy I’ve used in the past is to seek out the pieces bought by the Dallas Art Fair Foundation to be placed in the Dallas Museum of Art collection. But this year, there are just three and they are impossible to miss. The museum chose three massive, maximalist works by Thania Petersen, JooYoung Choi, and Ailbhe Ní Bhriain. If the Choi piece, which sits at the top of the stairs, looks familiar, you might’ve seen the immersive exhibition of her work at the Crow Collection two years ago.
But the best strategy is to put on comfortable shoes and let your eyes guide you. Day passes for the Dallas Art Fair start at $34 and the Dallas Invitational is free.
Here are a few of my highlights from the opening day of the fair
Keijsers Koning
Upstairs, Bart Keijsers-Koning walks visitors through his booth, which is filled with bright, colorful work. There is a large painting from a new series by Dallas native Kate Barbee, an up-and-coming painter making mixed media figurative work. In one of her paintings on display here, she has stitched an assemblage of patterns into the canvas, referencing patches you might find on a worn denim jacket. Bart is particularly excited about Michelle Cortez Gonzales, an artist he found just a few weeks ago. He’d been on a mission to find a strong female, Latinx artistic voice with roots in Texas. His search appears to have paid off. Her work is striking and intimate.
