The World Descends On Dallas: London, Dubai and Vienna Power Players Headed to Fair Week

The best boutique art fair in America — Dallas Art Fair 2016 — is a mere month away. It all begins with the Preview Gala on Thursday, April 14, and continues through Sunday, April 17.

Fair Week is expected to lure thousands of collectors, gallerists, artists and the press (including the art world’s heaviest hitters) to the curated spaces of Fashion Industry Gallery (FIG) in downtown’s Dallas Arts District. We like to call this one The Great Eight — and it speaks with an international accent. More than a third of the nearly 100 exhibiting dealers are international; 15 of those 35 are newcomers to the Fair, arriving from Dubai, London, Madrid, Sao Paulo, Antwerp, Zurich, Vienna, Dublin, Montreal and Guadalajara.

Pay attention to the returning casts of European gallerists, especially Workplace Gallery, from a place you may not consider an art capital (Gateshead, Tyne & Wear, England), with a stable that includes the widely collected Lancaster twins, painters Laura Lancaster and Rachel Lancaster. Also investigate Misako & Rosen, a long-time exhibitor from Tokyo; DMA curators often shop this booth for its nuanced take on contemporary painting. Other stalwart Fair exhibitors from across the pond include Monitor (Rome); Hales Gallery (London), whose booth last year for OBE painter Frank Bowling received our vote for Best of Show; Brand New Gallery (Milan); Edel Assanti (London); and Galerie Perrotin (Paris/New York), serving up a surprise via its Paola Pivi installations of some very droll anthropomorphic animals. (Pivi also solos concurrently at the Dallas Contemporary.)

For more on the lineup, and details on securing your Patron pass ($500 per person including a Preview Gala ticket plus other tony insider perks), Preview Gala tickets ($250 per person, benefitting the Dallas Museum of Art, Nasher Sculpture Center and Dallas Contemporary) or regular Fair admission (from $25), visit dallasartfair.com. And turn to next month’s Special Section for our exclusive coverage of the Dallas Art Fair and Dallas Arts Month.