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(North Adams, MA – July 8, 2024) Arrival is a new art fair launching in 2025 in the cultural corridor of the northern Berkshires. Founded as an antidote to the frenetic pace of the art fair circuit, Arrival is an invitational program established to foster deeper engagement of contemporary art between the public, artists, galleries, curators, collectors, while set amid the natural beauty of the mountain range. Situated at the award-winning hotel TOURISTS in North Adams, MA, a property with more than 55 acres of land on the banks of the Hoosic River and enveloped by Mount Greylock, the highest point in Massachusetts, Arrival will be an equidistant gathering point approximately three hours by car for New Yorkers and Bostonians.

Arrival’s inaugural edition, from June 13-15, 2025, is supported by an esteemed group of Curatorial Ambassadors from institutions throughout the United States. This group is composed of museum leaders and art historians with strong ties to the region, each of whom will nominate three to five galleries to propose booths for the art fair. Many Curatorial Ambassadors are alumni of Williams College, the liberal arts institution located a few minutes from North Adams known for its outstanding art history program and long lineage of museum directors. Other Curatorial Ambassadors represent institutions from Boston and Cambridge, New York City, the Hudson Valley, and the southern Berkshires. Curators and museum directors from world-class museums located within three miles of Arrival’s venue – the Clark Art Institute, MASS MoCA, and the Williams College Museum of Art – round out this group. For the full list of Curatorial Ambassadors, please refer to the end of the press release.

Collectors and visitors to Arrival will experience an art fair that is, in large part, developed through the lens of today’s contemporary museum curators. What gallery programs do they admire? Which artists are on their radars? Do they have their eyes set on burgeoning artistic practices or technologies? While the Curatorial Ambassadors do not select artworks on display at Arrival – this is entirely the purview of the gallerists – these considerations emphasize an art fair model that convenes the minds and markets of the contemporary art ecosystem.

With a mindset of quality over quantity, nature over urban frenzy, and regional over global, Arrival was founded with important considerations from the perspective of galleries navigating art fairs today: reduce costs and make logistics simple. The layout of TOURISTS allows for exhibitors to pack a vehicle full of art, unload, and install with ease. Exhibitors will be able to use their hotel rooms as their own accommodations, cutting down on lodging expenses. Eschewing application fees, nominated galleries will not pay to propose their booths. With this same framework, Arrival will be held once every two years, allowing organizers and participants ample time to recalibrate, and to develop the best type of fair for the next iteration.

With an estimated 25 to 30 booths, Arrival will also include notable Massachusetts-based not-for-profit arts organizations within the programming of the fair, and will showcase a variety of publications and art presses. Public programs such as performances, talks, and trail hikes to explore the public sculpture on site at TOURISTS and beyond, will also be on offer at Arrival. Admission to the art fair will be free to the public.

The Berkshires is world-renowned for the arts, particularly during the summer season when it is the home of Tanglewood (the summer residency for the Boston Symphony Orchestra), Jacobs Pillow (“the dance center of the nation” according to The New York Times), the Williamstown Theater Festival, and many more. MASS MoCA in North Adams, one of the country’s largest contemporary art museums, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, was born from ideas generated by the staff at the Williams College Museum of Art and its former director Thomas Krens, who later became Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation. The Williams College Museum of Art is undergoing a major capital project for a new art campus slated to open in 2027, just down the road from the acclaimed Clark Institute of Art. Solid Sound, organized by the Grammy Award-winning band Wilco, is a three-day festival of art, music, and comedy that takes over the entire MASS MoCA campus every other summer (alternating years with Arrival).

Arrival’s founders are three friends and collaborators with a combined 60 years of art world experience. Yng-Ru Chen is owner of the Boston-based Praise Shadows Art Gallery, was formerly the PR Director at MoMA PS1, and has worked at an international auction house, the Asia Society, and the creative design start-up Tattly. Sarah Galender Meyer runs Galender Art Advisory, a Bay Area-based firm specializing in private collection management. Originally from Upstate New York, she was formerly the Gallery Director at Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, CA. Crystalle Lacouture is an artist based in Boston and North Adams. In addition to her full-time art practice, she is the curator at TOURISTS. Arrival’s branding and design are led by Jon Santos and his New York City-based studio Common Space.

Arrival is funded in part by tax-deductible donations to Fractured Atlas, a fiscal sponsor. Founding donors include the Girlfriend Fund, and Pamela and David Hornik.

The co-founders of Arrival are thankful to the following Advisors: Eunhak Bae, Jennifer Epstein, Mike Glier, Robert Kwak, Anne-Laure Lemaitre, Robin Powell Mandjes, Abigail Ross Goodman, Jon Santos and Common Space Studio, Eric Shiner, and Benjamin Ward. Arrival is grateful for the early support and participation of Danny Baez of REGULARNORMAL, Scott Ogden of SHRINE, the team at Praise Shadows, and the exemplary team at TOURISTS, namely Tracy Hyde, Eric Kerns, Irit Oren, Colleen Rafferty, and Ben Svenson.

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CONTACT: hello@arrival.art

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Image credits from top: Aerial view of TOURISTS by Peter Crosby; two digital renderings of in-room booths featuring Praise Shadows artists Oliver Jeffers, Duke Riley, Yu-Wen Wu, Jean Shin, Yuri Shimojo, Helina Metaferia, Joiri Minaya, Crystalle Lacouture, Nicole Wilson and Andrew Casto, Juan Jose Barboza-Gubo.

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