Shrine Gallery – Art Spiel

March 25, 2026March 25, 2026, by Melissa Stern

Reflections on The Outsider Art Fair 2026

I have been going to the Outsider Art Fair almost every year since it first opened at The Puck Building in 1993. As with most aspects of the art world, much has changed in the field of outsider art and at the fair, its leading annual exhibition. Long gone are the giddy days of discovering artists such as Howard Finster, Adolf Wolfli, Mary T. Smith, and Judith Scott (to name a few). These are now blue-chip outsider or self-taught artists whose work is collected by major institutions and collectors, and rightly so. “Outsider” has become insider and the genre a mainstay of the art world, A kind of artistic oxymoron, some of the most “established outsider artists” command major prices.

March 5, 2025March 19, 2025, by Melissa Stern

Insider Outsider

A painting of a person in a suit and tie

AI-generated content may be incorrect. — Adhemar Ahmad- portray 1969. Oilt, thin wooden board, unprimed canvas, staples. 32.5 x 24.25 2002

This past weekend New York saw the latest iteration of the Outsider Art Fair. Started in 1993, it has become a NYC institution and seems to be thriving after a few lean pandemic years. The Fair serves a field that has evolved a great deal over the past 30 years, and I really felt that this year more than in the past. As the number of now “blue chip” or “Old Master Self-Taught” artists dwindle, there’s been an influx of both younger artists and some who push against the definitions of self-taught in the first place. It’s a sticky subject and one that I have no answer to.

May 20, 2023May 21, 2023, by Melissa Stern

Just say YES to NADA!

Paul Wackers- First Time, Long Time. Jack Hanley Gallery

I’ve been to more art fairs than I can count, but the ones that I’ve had fun at I could count on two hands. Many are too big, dealers are either stressed out or bored, mundane work or work that is inaccessible or silly. The last show that I went to before the pandemic was The Armory Show at the westside piers. It was a few days before the world shut down and the fair was eerily empty. I wandered alone through a fair that typically had been jam packed with beautiful art lovers. And then everything went quiet for about a year and a half.