An archway made of elk antlers at the entrance to Jackson’s town square. Courtesy of ShowHamptons.
Source: Jackson Hole News & Guide | December 27, 2018
Show Hamptons wants to put an international spotlight on the art scene in Jackson Hole.
A new fair is joining the lineup this year at the Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival.
Show Hamptons, an event production company that puts on regional art fairs around the country, is launching the Jackson Hole Fine Arts Fair on Sept. 12 through 15.
The new event, which promises to gather 55 of the country and world’s best galleries into the Snow King Sports and Events Center, is set for the second weekend of the 35th annual Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival. Historically, the Fall Arts Festival has spanned 10 days, and includes many gallery walks and artist receptions, auctions and shows. The festival, spearheaded by the Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce, fills downtown hotels during a time of year when summer tourism traditionally starts to wane.
Though a separate entity from the festival, Show Hampton’s founder Rick Friedman said he hopes the addition of the fair to the busy arts calendar will be a “win-win for everybody.”
Friedman has created regional art fairs from the Hamptons to Palm Springs, and has attended the Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival several times.
“It’s a great event,” he said, but “it hit me that it’s not being told on a national or international level.”
By bringing his fair to the festival, Friedman hopes to put an international spotlight on Jackson’s art market. From his past endeavors, he said, Show Hampton has 100,000 contacts to invite to our small mountain town.
“A certain number of people will come, and I think breathe fresh blood and life into the scene,” he said. “We’re getting calls from Europe.”
Friedman believes Jackson is in a unique position to start conversations that have never been had before.
“What’s missing is a national fine arts fair that can create a dynamic conversation between Western, wildlife and contemporary,” he said.
And not just contemporary as in “New West,” but also East Coast contemporary and post-war art.
“There’s a lot of fairs going on all over the place, but really there’s nothing that has a dynamic conversation, an integration between, what I call the complete art history culture of the United States,” Friedman said.
According to Friedman, Jackson’s wealth of “elite collectors” and that it is well known on an international stage makes the new fair possible.
“The perception of Jackson Hole is a magical kingdom of rich cowboys and everyone thinks they’re going to come in and be John Wayne,” Friedman said of New York’s — and the world’s — perception of Jackson.
The fair’s website — JacksonHoleArtFair.com — touts Jackson as a “luxurious resort community … where ‘the Old West meets fashionable contemporary style.’ Where frontier meets cosmopolitan. Where the average home property value is a staggering $2.5 million.”
The excitement surrounding the new fair has caught the attention of ArtNet.com, a worldwide market website devoted to the arts. The website is partnering with Show Hamptons to put on the fair, providing another way to market Jackson on an international level.
Bringing in 55 pop-up galleries to Jackson during the Fall Arts Festival is sure to affect the town’s 30-plus existing galleries. But Friedman said, “We think if the tide comes in, all the boats will rise.
“They aren’t going to be in my show for more than two or three hours,” he said. “So what are they going to do the rest of the time? They’re going to stay in a hotel, walk around, buy things, go to art galleries.
“We want to see everybody do well here.”
Show Hamptons has been in touch with a few galleries in town, including Altamira Fine Art, Diehl Gallery, Tayloe Piggott Gallery and Heather James Fine Art. With the fair’s announcement just last week, no galleries, or the Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce, were available or willing to comment specifically on the new fair just yet.
“We think that what our role is here is to enhance and augment what’s already happening there,” Friedman said, “and make it a little bigger, a little richer, and more fun, and bring this national, international flavor into it. I think that’s a win-win for everybody.”