Always a breath of fresh air during Armory Week, the now five years-old Independent Art Fair returned to its original location of 548 West 22nd Street, the former home of the Dia Foundation. This year the unique fair brought together a lively mix of over 50 alternative project spaces, nonprofit institutions and larger commercial galleries, with the goal of rejuvenating the contemporary art dialogue with daring new artists and historical works that feel particularly relevant now.
The goal is to be anything but a gridded, formulaic “art fair,” and young architects Andrew Feuerstein and Bret Quagliara created a dynamic layout inspired by the tangram, an ancient seven-pieces puzzle designed aid the development of spatial reasoning skills. Here are a few highlights from the show.