Independent participated in New York City in the fair's 17th edition. Taking place from May 14th to 17th in its new home at Pier 36 on the Lower East Side, New York, the fair will feature exhibitions by more than 100 artists presented by 76 participants.

Reinforcing Independent's renown as a place of discovery, nearly half of all exhibitors in the 2026 edition are participating in the fair for the first time, while more than a third of the presentations will showcase artists marking their first New York solo display through the curatorial initiative Independent Debuts. Across the fair, more than 70% of the presentations will showcase individual exhibitions, allowing for in-depth engagement with each artist's practice.

This year's fair brings together a diverse roster, with 42% of participating galleries based internationally, from Colombia and Reykjavik, to Cape Town and Athens.

Independent's new location positions it strategically along the East Side of Manhattan, close to a thriving gallery community and important contemporary art institutions. Many of Independent's new East Side gallery neighbors will be exhibiting at the fair for the first time, including Spencer Brownstone Gallery, Kiang Malingue, David Peter Francis, Superhouse, OSMOS, and Post Times, while Uffner & Liu, MARCH, and Long Story Short will return to the fair this year, creating a strong local presence.

Independent art building with Manhattan bridge in the background. — Independent, New York, 2026, Pier 36. Photography by Iwan Baan.
Courtesy of Independent

The fair's curatorial approach to design, site-specific commissions, and installation reflects Independent's commitment to reimagining the art fair experience. The research-based design studio D_P_S (Diogo Passarinho Studio) is leading the exhibition design, drawing on a community of thinkers, artists, and theoretical discourse to create an innovative interior environment. In conjunction, the internationally recognized architecture and design firm Solid Objectives Idenburg Liu (SO-IL) will take on the exterior design of the venue, ensuring the fair's integration with its Lower East Side surroundings.

The works on show reflect a growing sense of global anxiety that are a product of our uncertain times. An overarching theme of dystopia can be found among the presentations, many of which tackle some of the pressing issues the world faces today. These include the challenges of our "post-truth" society, in which images and meaning are manipulated and recontextualized through the use of artificial intelligence and other rapidly developing digital tools. Our complex relationships to place and belonging are also explored, including those brought about by political and social upheaval as well as environmental and ecological disasters. Across both figurative and abstract works, many of the artists make direct references to a sense of emotional and psychological tension. Some depict their everyday lives as a reflection of dissonance while others create imagined worlds for their subjects that elicit feelings of isolation, introspection, and escapism. Independent will create a dystopic installation at the fair's entrance that will immerse visitors in this theme from the outset.

Inside the gallery people looking at art on the wall. — Independent, New York, 2026, Pier 36. Photography by Andy Romer / CKA.
Courtesy of Independent

Independent will also introduce sculptural activations in strategic locations across the fair spotlighting a selection of large scale site-specific installations by Francis Upritchard (Anton Kern Gallery), Yoshikazu Tanaka and Kuniko Kinoto (ATLA), and Gretchen Bender (Sprüth Magers).

Upritchard's 7.5-foot-tall bronze sculpture Long Legs Long Arms go Eeling in New Zealand (2019-21) depicting a pair of elongated figures draws on the Japanese folklore of Ashinaga-tenaga — symbiotic beings who fish in deep water by combining their respective strengths. The work was originally commissioned for the New Zealand artist's 2020 exhibition Big Fish Eat Little Fish at Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Belgium.

The Japanese artists Tanaka and Kinoto will present their ceramic

pieces together to highlight a shared interest in creation as an act of transformation. Tanaka's work uses fragments from old, abandoned ceramic sculptures and ground up found materials such as glass and metal to create new forms. Kinoto draws on her deep understanding of kiln chemistry and the choreography of firing to create works that evoke geological formations.

Gretchen Bender's long-running TV Text & Image series, which she started in 1986 and continued into the 1990s, encapsulates her prescient concern about society's passive consumption of corporate-controlled media. By superimposing a phrase in vinyl lettering on a television set playing a live broadcast feed, Bender snaps us back into an active relationship with the content we're being fed.

A rare appearance following the exhibition Rei

Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute 2017, COMME des GARCONS will present more than twenty recent semi-unique selections created by the house's founder, Rei Kawakubo. This will be the first New York presentation of its kind in nine years, marking the first time this series has been exhibited in New York. Located at the heart of the fair, the presentation will be housed within a site-specific architectural design conceived by Kawakubo herself.

The fair is curated by Independent's founder Elizabeth Dee, founding curatorial advisor Matthew Higgs, Berlin-based advisors David Ulrichs and Alexandra Alexopoulou, chief operating officer Sofie Scheerlinck, and manager of curatorial affairs Kyle Penner.

All presentations

12.26 (Dallas) presenting Julia Maiuri*

A Lighthouse called Kanata (Tokyo) presenting Masanori Maeda* Abattoir Gallery (Cleveland) presenting Eleanor Conover*

Almeida & Dale (São Paulo) x David Nolan Gallery (New York) presenting Chakaia Booker and Miguel Rio Branco

ATLA (Los Angeles) presenting Yoshikazu Tanaka and Kuniko Kinoto april april (Pittsburgh) x Romance (Pittsburgh) presenting Aaronel deRoy Gruber

Spencer Brownstone Gallery (New York) presenting Mira Dayal, Jane South, and Jaime Pitarch

Buchmann Galerie (Berlin) presenting Bettina Pousttchi* Callirrhoë (Athens) presenting Nikolas Ventourakis*

Comme des Garçons (Paris)

James Cope (Dallas) x Vardaxoglou (London) presenting Kentaro Okumura and Coco

Young

Corbett vs. Dempsey (Chicago) presenting David Hartt and Gregg Bordowitz David Peter Francis (New York) presenting Carrie Schneider Double V (Paris, Marseille) presenting Maximilien Pellet* EUROPA (New York) presenting Thomas McDonell

Fredericks & Freiser (New York) presenting Danielle Roberts and Louisa Owen James Fuentes (New York, Los Angeles) presenting Oscar vi Hou, Stipan Tadic, Keegan Monaghan, Izzy Barber, and Hannah Lee

Hostler Burrows (New York, Los Angeles) presenting Marianne Nielsen House of Seiko (San Francisco, Los Angeles) presenting Salvatore Pione and Steve Kahn Hunt Kastner (Prague) presenting Jaromir Novotny and Jiri Thýn i8 Gallery (Reykjavik) presenting Arna Ottarsdóttir* Interval (London) presenting Petra Cortright Josey (Cologne) presenting Terry Atkinson* Galerie Judin (Berlin) presenting lan Davis Jupiter (Miami Beach) presenting Ry Rocklen

Kerlin Gallery (Dublin) presenting Dorothy Cross, Callum Innes, and Hazel O'Sullivan Anton Kern Gallery (New York) presenting Francis Upritchard Kiang Malingue (Hong Kong, New York) presenting Tseng Chien-Ying* David Kordansky Gallery (Los Angeles, New York) presenting Jason Fox Tomio Koyama Gallery (Tokyo) presenting Rika Minamitani* Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler (Berlin) presenting Taína Cruz Silke Lindner (New York) presenting Nina Hartmann Sofia Sominski (New York) presenting Hannes Heinrich*

Jane Lombard Gallery (New York) presenting Via Lewandowsky, Massinissa Selmani, and

Jane Bustin

Long Story Short (New York, Paris) presenting Luisi Mera and Tomona Matsukawa MARCH (New York) presenting Dianna Settles

Mariposa (New York, Los Angeles) presenting Alessandro Miotti* Joel Mesler (East Hampton) presenting The Estate of Joel Mesler Charles Moffett (New York) presenting Silvia Heyden Moskowitz Bayse (Los Angeles) presenting Anthony Miserendino* OSMOS (New York) presenting Anton Stankowski Patel Brown (Toronto, Montreal) presenting Laila Mestari* Kendra Jayne Patrick (Bern) presenting Antonio Darden* PENTIMENTI (Philadelphia) presenting Dan Gunn* PIBI Gallery (Seoul) presenting Kyojun Lee* Post Times (New York) presenting Frank Gaard*

Praise Shadows Art Gallery (Boston) presenting Helina Metaferia and Joiri Minaya Ricco/Maresca Gallery (New York) presenting Trude Viken Diane Rosenstein Gallery (Los Angeles) presenting John Brooks

Ruttkowski;68 (New York, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Paris, Bochum) presenting Stefan Strumbel and Brittany Miller

RYAN LEE (New York) presenting Ina Gerken and Nabilah Nordin galerie Sator (Paris) presenting Pu Yingwei*

SAUER (Rio de Janeiro) presenting Impossible Flora: A Cabinet of Imagined Botanies

SCHENKWEITZDORFER (Cologne) presenting Keiyona C. Stumpf*

Sea View (Los Angeles) presenting William Wright"

SECCI (Milan) presenting Omar Mismar*

SGR Galeria (Bogotá) presenting Johan Samboni*

Jack Shainman Gallery (New York) presenting Lyne Lapointe, Donyel Ivy-Royal, and Charisse Pearlina Weston

SOCO Gallery (Charlotte) presenting Matt Kleberg

Mindy Solomon Gallery (Miami presenting Terri Friedman and Brittany Mojo Sprüth Magers (Berlin, London, New York, Los Angeles) presenting Gretchen Bender Stems (Brussels) presenting Michael Bühler-Rose Superhouse (New York) presenting Dan Friedman Suprainfinit (Bucharest) presenting Larisa Sitar" The Breeder (Athens) presenting Alexandra Christou*

The Meeting (New York) x David Petersen Gallery (Minneapolis) presenting Janine Iversen The Sunday Painter (London) presenting Ernesto Burgos, Piotr Bury Lakomy, Cynthia Daignault, Patrick H Jones, Jennifer J. Lee, Gillian Lownes, and Nicholas Pope Uffner & Liu (New York) presenting Bernadette Despujols and Sacha Ingber Vielmetter Los Angeles (Los Angeles) presenting Samuel Levi Jones, Nate Lewis, and Robert Pruitt

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INDEPENDENT
May 14–17, 2026
Pier 36
299 South Street
New York, NY 10002

Tearsheets by Daniel López, Art Director, PhotoBook Magazine

Independent New York 2026, Participating in their 17th Edition, Comme des Garçons & MORE!

All presentations