💥Art Fairs Are Just Airports with Champagne
Flash Greanades series of anonymous opinion blasts from inside the art world. Real voices. No names. No filters. These views are their own.
If you want to understand what an art fair really is, don’t look at the art—watch the people. Watch the collectors in sneakers and tailored blazers, speed-walking from booth to booth like they’ve got a gate to catch. Watch the dealers reciting prices like flight attendants doing the safety demo for the hundredth time.
There’s no time to pause. No time to feel. Just crates, checklists, and strategically chilled champagne. The booths are interchangeable. The lighting is identical. The artists, if they’re even there, are mostly decoration—proof of authenticity, not participants.
I once watched someone spend $250,000 in less than two minutes. They tapped a shoulder, nodded at a canvas, and moved on. Five steps later, they couldn’t remember the artist’s name.
We call this a marketplace, but it’s more like a pressure chamber—transactions over trust, exposure over experience. And yet we all show up. Because visibility is currency. Because if you’re not seen here, you don’t exist.
But maybe we need to ask—what kind of art are we building, when it’s made to survive this kind of space?
Art deserves more than fast deals and fluorescent ceilings.
So do the people who make it.
🔥 This is a Flash Grenade.
Anonymous. Unfiltered. Personal. The views expressed are those of the writer and do not reflect the official stance of ART Walkway.
Want to send your own? Read the guidelines.
