Zero Art Fair

Zero Art Fair, in partnership with The FLAG Art Foundation, presents its second iteration July 8-12, 2025. Building on the success of the inaugural edition in Elizaville, NY, in 2024, this year’s fair will continue to promote an alternative to the contemporary art market and an egalitarian model of art collecting. The ‘Fair Preview,’ presented as an exhibition, is open to the public July 8-10; from July 11-12, visitors will need to register as ‘collectors’ to receive a free timed ticket to enter the fair. Zero Art Fair asks potential collectors to self-identify economically, with priority access given to those who usually cannot afford to purchase art. There is a limit of one artwork per household.

Developed by artists Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida, Zero Art Fair challenges the pretense of scarcity that underpins the notion of ‘art-as-commodity,’ which structures the contemporary art market. This practice of manufactured scarcity is at odds with the vast inventory of unsold work sitting in studios and storage units across the world, a dynamic that creates a financial burden for artists and deprives worthy art of being seen and appreciated.

Exhibiting artists include Natale Adgnot, Griffin Allman, Adina Andrus, Michele Araujo, Bo Bartlett, Taylor Bielecki, James Bills, William Eric Brown, Sari Carel, Dana Carlson, Janice Caswell, Henry Hung Chang, Amy Cheng, Mike Childs, Matthew Conradt, Julia Cullen, Jennifer Dalton, Tielin Ding, Ryan Erickson, Madge Evers, Annie Ewaskio, Priscilla Fusco, Benjamin Gibson, Allison Gildersleeve, Anne Gilman, Glenn Goldberg, Luke Gray, Jessica Hargreaves, Roberto Jackson Harrington, Amy Hill, Ryan Van Der Hout, David Howe, James Huang, Kristen Jensen, Elsie Kagan, Jeana Eve Klein, KK Kozik, David Kramer, Rebecca Leveille-Guay, Jess Levey, Lisa Levy,  Tara Lewis, Fanyu Lin, Gina Magid, Michael Mandiberg, Bridget May, David McBride, LuLu Meng, Dori Miller, Tracy Miller, Amy Morel, Chris Moss, Linda Nagaoka, Mary Negro, Perri Neri, Luke O'Halloran, Mesoma Onyeagba, Debra Pearlman, Linda Pellagrini, William Powhida, Mary Raap, Ria Rajan, Donna Ruff, Kate Rusek, Patricia Satterlee, Dick Schlefer, Michael Scott, Lauren Seiden, Jordan Seiler, Michael Shaw, David Shepard, Kayo Shido, Diana Shpungin, Adam Simon, Thomas Spoerndle, Alfred Steiner, Suzanne Kathaleen Stroebe, Lynn Sullivan, Bob Szantyr, Julian Valgora, Jason Varone, Chris Verene, Siebren Versteeg, Jenny Vogel, Lexa Walsh, Michael Waugh, Emily Weiskopf, Barbara Westermann, and Ripley Whiteside. 

In opposition to this model, Zero Art Fair aims to match stored artworks with people who want to live with art but who are typically restricted from accessing it. With their model, people can take possession of art without buying it through a contractual arrangement that includes a five year vesting period before ownership is automatically transferred to the new owner. During that time, the artist retains the right to sell the work or borrow it for exhibition. After ownership is transferred, the contract grants the artist 50% of the sale price if the work is later sold and a 10% royalty in perpetuity on subsequent resales. Provenance will be posted online.

Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida stated, “This year’s edition of Zero Art Fair will address questions of equity by prioritizing access to those who need help to live with art, aiming to enlarge the community of people who can experience art in this way. It’s one thing to visit a gallery to look at artwork—it’s another thing entirely to live with it in your home.”

Zero Art Fair is guided by an advisory committee consisting of Franklin Boyd (attorney); Ani Cordero (digital strategy); Kianga Ellis (Kianga Ellis Projects); Jessica Hargreaves (Co-Founder/Director of Mother-in-Law’s); Micaela Martegani (Executive Director and Chief Curator, More Art); Janet Phelps (independent curator, advisor and collector); Felix Salmon (journalist, podcaster and author); Magda Sawon (Founder/Director, Postmasters Gallery, New York); Adam Simon (artist and Founder, Fine Art Adoption Network); Manon Slome (Co-Founder, No Longer Empty); Alfred Steiner (attorney and artist); Mark Tribe (artist); Amy Whitaker (Professor, New York University); Edward Winkleman (author and private dealer) and Lauren Wittels (Partner, Luhring Augustine Gallery). Artworks shown in the fair have been chosen by a curatorial committee of artists and arts professionals including Folasade Ologundudu (curator); Sara Reisman (curator, educator, and writer); Jonathan Rider (Director, The FLAG Art Foundation); Seph Rodney, Ph.D (curator and writer); and the artist-co-founders of Zero Art Fair, Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida.

About:
Zero Art Fair is an experimental way to match artworks currently being stored with people who want to live with art but can’t necessarily afford it. Developed by artists Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida, the fair uses a ‘store-to-own’ contract to offer artworks free of charge, but with strings attached. Originally developed for Powhida by NYU Professor Amy Whitaker and artist and attorney Alfred Steiner, the contract includes a 5-year vesting period before ownership is automatically transferred to the new owner. During that time, the contract grants the artist the right to sell the work, or borrow the work for exhibition. After ownership is transferred, the contract grants the artist 50% of the sale price if the work is later sold and a 10% royalty in perpetuity on subsequent resales. Provenance will be posted online.

This 2025 edition of Zero Art Fair is co-sponsored by its host The FLAG Art Foundation, and Gagosian.

Additional support is generously provided by the Arts Union, B. Avery Syrig Fine Art Services, and Supreme Digital.

Press:

“[...] Recent efforts have surfaced to leverage the excess supply of contemporary art toward more democratic models of collecting. For example, in 2024 the artists William Powhida and Jennifer Dalton launched the Zero Art Fair, which uses an unorthodox “store-to-own” contract to offer the public a cost-free avenue to acquire works that would otherwise remain siloed in storage. [...] This year’s edition of the fair (8-12 July) will be hosted and sponsored by The FLAG Art Foundation in Manhattan. Describing the project by email as “more of a not-for-profit conceptual intervention” than a typical trade fair, Powhida and Dalton also call Zero “a living, functioning response to some of the issues of artificial scarcity, exclusivity and access built into the contemporary art market.”

- J. Cabelle Ahn, The Art Newspaper

“[…] The fair is the brainchild of New York artists Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida, who have long investigated issues of class, value, and access in the art market. Plenty of artists have storage spaces bursting with unsold work, they point out. Underlying the Zero Art Fair is the idea that it’s better for that art to be seen and loved than continue to languish in storage. What’s more, everyone talks about democratizing the art market, Powhida told me at a preview event on Tuesday, but that typically means just easing technical access—not lowering prices all the way to zero.”

- Brian Boucher, artnet news

“Moving this year’s edition from Upstate New York to within the city was also a move done in the interest of expanded access—one that they credit the FLAG Art Foundation and Gagosian for making possible. ‘The rural barn setting last year was bucolic and enhanced the utopian vibes of the fair,’ they said. ‘But we were aware that access was very limited; in order to visit one had to have a car and be able to drive to an out-of-the way location. Because the fair location is more widely accessible this year, we decided to create a timed ticket system so that visitors can still have a wonderful experience at the fair without it becoming frustrating or competitive.’”

- Jenna Adrian-Diaz, surface