The Art F City Fair Guide: Welcome to Hell

The fair with a name so generic it’s impossible to find in any inbox search. Note to the organizers: Using all caps and a period at the end does not solve the fair’s searchability issues.

UNTITLED. is open for a full grueling seven days. It wins points with AFC because it uses a pink logo, JUST LIKE US!

The fair we’re most biased about is not a fair. It’s all digital art, all the time! That means salon-style exhibitions and daily artist talks exploring networked culture. It’s organized by XPO Gallery and Transfer’s Kelani Nichole. Nichole shares a space with the AFC offices. Consider that your disclaimer.

But whateves. With artists such as Carla Gannis, Rollin Leonard, and Claudia Mate on the scene, we’re considering camping out there for the week.

Back in 2012, when PULSE Miami was hemorrhaging exhibitors, The Miami Project managed to pick up a bunch of these galleries. Pulse is now in a position of having to woo these galleries back—not a fun task, given that the Miami Project is known to be a well-run fair.

Honestly, I’ve never cared for this fair—too much crap—but who am I to pooh-pooh other people’s taste? For those who dig conservative and/or contrived modernism and contemporary art, this fair is for you!

Art Miami, Aqua and Context (not listed in this guide) are all run by the same company.

A smaller fair with a focus on emerging and mid-career artists represented at international galleries. We have no idea what to expect.

Find out what art rich people buy. A museum full of the art one couple has collected over the last couple of years. (Not a fair.)

This fair may outlive us all— it’s been attracting collectors for more than 15 years. In this iteration of their Miami fair, Scope will play host to more than 150 galleries, almost none of which we know. A few of them have to be good, right?

The biggest fair. It’s the best because collectors spend the most here, the true measure of success for any fair.

One of the few remaining hotel fairs in Miami, and of them, clearly the best. Tends to be high on illustration.

The best fair for emerging artists because collectors of this market spend the most here. I guess there’s no reason to leave the wifi-vortex and chandelier-ballroom hell that is the Deauville then? Inconvenience and smushed exhibition spaces are distinguishing marks of character, not flaws!

After years at the Ice Palace, Pulse offers a shake up. It’s now in a tent on a beach. We notice Winkleman has returned after spending last year at Untitled.