By late July, Aspen’s social calendar runs on high-altitude overdrive. The Food & Wine Classic has come and gone; the Aspen Ideas Festival has tossed around geopolitics, economics, and the creeping influence of AI. Then, almost without warning, the art world arrives—collectors, dealers, artists, and advisers—armed with printed dresses, cowboy hats, and more Alo gear than a California wellness retreat. And, of course, there is lots of art.
The second edition of the Aspen Art Fair opened Tuesday with more than 40 exhibitors from over 15 countries. Staged in the ground-floor rooms of the historic Hotel Jerome, the fair has more than two times as many exhibitors as it did last year—a leap that feels both ambitious and, somehow, appropriate. What might sound like a logistical headache in another town—more galleries, more people, more programming—is, in Aspen, simply how summer works.
The Aspen Art Fair is just one of three major draws this Art Week. There’s also Intersect Aspen Art and Design, now in its 15th edition, and the AIR Festival—the Aspen Art Museum’s $20 million, decade-long initiative to infuse the art world with Ideas Fest–style rigor and dialogue. And yet, this is still the art world. The most consistent refrain from dealers and advisers on both sides of the Atlantic is that there are too many fairs. So why did so many galleries choose to add another to the calendar—and in a small Colorado town that’s not exactly easy to reach?
