Industry elders will remember when summer truly was the slow season in the art world: a time for mounting group shows featuring interesting works by contemporary artists on the rise. But this year’s calendar of July art fairs and August art fairs was surprisingly packed—the second edition of Tokyo Gendai was a highlight of the summer and Aspen ArtWeek (along with the Intersect Aspen Art and Design Fair and the new Aspen Art Fair) kicked off August’s art events. Proof positive there’s no longer a slow season in the art world when you come at it globally, perhaps?

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That said, plenty of galleries spent the summer preparing for the fall art fairs. September’s art fair calendar is absolutely packed with events, particularly for New Yorkers who have Armory Week to look forward to in a month bookended by Volta and Affordable Art Fair’s New York editions. Frieze Seoul is sure to be another standout September art fair, along with Art Athina in Greece and Haute Photographie in Amsterdam.

Whether you’re hunkering down in New York for the Armory Show-adjacent fairs or hitting the road on an international odyssey of art, Observer’s guide to this month’s art fairs can help you put together the perfect itinerary.

September 2-8

New York City mini fair Salon Zürcher bills itself as an Armory Week oasis—a restful, non-intimidating space to appreciate art on a human scale. The thirty-first edition of the satellite art fair, titled “100 Women of Spirit , Part 1” (a continuation of the “11 Women of Spirit” series, which originally launched during the 2020 Armory Show) will present work brought by a distinguished group of just eleven women artists: Olivia Beens, Susan Cantrick, Sue Carlson, Camille De Galbert, Brigid Kennedy, Tracy Morgan, Marykate O’Neil, Roxane Revon, Aimée Farnet Siegel, Patricia Spergel and Mary Tooley Parker. Salon Zürcher is held each year in the Zürcher Gallery’s New York space on Bleecker Street, and admission is free, though the best reason to make time for Salon Zürcher is the chance to chat with the artists whose work is on show.

September 4-7

More than 110 of the world’s most recognizable art galleries from across thirty countries will participate in the third edition of this September fair, which takes place at COEX and runs alongside Kiaf SEOUL. This year’s Frieze Seoul will have a strong core of exhibitors from Asia and more specifically Korea, and programming will include sections for emerging talent (Focus Asia) and historical art (Frieze Masters), Frieze Live (a new section for performance-based art), Frieze Film, talks and a Frieze Week festival of culture. The winner of the 2024 Artist Award is South Korean artist Choi Goen, who will debut new work at the fair.

September 4-8

While it doesn’t get the attention of Frieze, Kiaf SEOUL was South Korea’s first international art fair. This year, the September art fair running concurrently with Frieze at COEX will host 206 galleries from twenty-one nations; 130 are from Korea. Among the thirty-six art galleries making their fair debuts are 193 Gallery (Paris), Albarran Bourdais (Madrid), Bavan Gallery (Tehran), Crossing Art (New York), dR (Seoul), EGG Gallery (Beijing), Ethan Cohen Gallery (New York), gallerykabinett (Seoul), Lechbinska Gallery (Zurich), Olympia (New York), PIERMARQ* (Sydney), SNOW Contemporary (Tokyo) and WOAW Gallery (Hong Kong). In addition to the usual two halls, Kiaf SEOUL is expanding into a new space on the second floor with Kiaf PLUS, a sector dedicated to emerging artists and new media.

September 4-8

This past May, VOLTA director Lee Cavaliere told Observer that the New York edition of the fair would introduce a central ‘town square’ space with an open and collaborative layout in which over 45 exhibitors will show their wares. “I don’t think it’s really appropriate to just have a grid-like format where everything’s uniform; New York required something a bit more interesting,” he said. We’re certainly curious to see how that will manifest at the New York edition of VOLTA Art Fair, which this year will present a Ukrainian Pavilion in association with non-profit partner Razom that will feature displays mounted by Dymchuk Gallery (Kyiv, Ukraine), The Naked Room (Kyiv, Ukraine), Black & White Project Space (New York, US) and Ya Gallery (Lviv, Ukraine). Galleries new to the fair for 2024........

© Observer