Scene Seen: Artscape's Alternative Art Fair

According to Art F City’s Corinna Kirsch, Baltimore’s first Alt Art Fair was “alright.” She described the work shown like “NADA’s spray-painted, squiggly abstract paintings, but fewer of them; mostly you’d see fluffy, DIY objects on the walls, more zines, and photography.”

Housed in the Charles Street Parking Garage during Artscape and founded by Margo Malter, Nick Peelor, and Marian Glebes, the Alternative Art Fair featured more than 15 non-profit exhibition spaces, pop-up venues, artist-run galleries and artist collectives. Lots of the work was cheaper than dirt, but hey – this is a bonus! It’s a Baltimore parking garage full of contemporary art! Work ranged from traditional paintings and sculpture to temporary installations and performance.

Although she didn’t say it outright, I think Kirsch was impressed by the Alt Art Fair, at least enough to say: “I don’t know if we’ll see a second edition of Baltimore’s Alternative Art Fair, but I hope so. There was so much unrefined energy — Little Berlin put on a performance of “trash yoga” where performers writhed around on cardboard boxes in a makeshift subway-station booth. And coming from New York, where almost every painting seems pre-branded, pre-packaged for sale on the market, a little bit of the unrefined goes a long way. For a moment, I thought I’d been transported back to art school in Chicago, when art actually seemed exciting.” – Cara Ober

Exhibitors: Adds Donna (Chicago, IL), Bicycle Gallery (Baltimore, MD), Booklyn Art Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Current Space (Baltimore, MD), Furthermore (Washington, D.C.), Lease Agreement (Baltimore, MD) & Trunk Show (Chicago, IL), Lil’ Gallery (Baltimore, MD), Little Berlin (Philadelphia, PA), Make Studio (Baltimore, MD), Open Space (Baltimore, MD), Present Company (Brooklyn, NY), Process Collective & Penthouse Gallery (Baltimore, MD), Rastel (Baltimore, MD), Sediment (Richmond, VA), Springsteen (Baltimore, MD), Transformer (Washington, D.C.)

More info here.

Curators: Margo Benson Malter, Nick Peelor, and Marian April Glebes

*Photos by Alex Ebstein and Lu Zhang