Founded by artists William Powhida and Jennifer Dalton, the innovative no-cost, strings-attached art fair opens at the FLAG Art Foundation on Tuesday, July 8.
The Zero Art Fair, developed by artists Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida (faculty, MFA Fine Arts), connects people who want art in their lives but might normally be priced out of the market with artists who have more work that they want or can afford to keep in storage. After a successful debut last year as part of Upstate Art Weekend, an annual festival of exhibitions and other events in New York’s Catskills and Hudson Valley regions, Zero is mounting its second edition next week, this time as a standalone affair at the nonprofit FLAG Art Foundation in Manhattan.
The idea for Zero Art Fair began in 2019, when Dalton and Powhida joined a meeting of FIPCA, an artist–activist group they have worked with in the past, to discuss how to make art fairs more egalitarian and accessible. Everything on view at the fair may either be purchased outright or borrowed through a “store-to-own” agreement adapted from a contract that Powhida developed with New York University professor Amy Whitaker and artist–attorney Alfred Steiner, and which he has used in his own practice. Under the contract’s terms, borrowers agree to hold the work for a five-year vesting period, during which time the artist can still sell or loan it for exhibitions. After five years, ownership transfers to the borrower, who agrees to share the proceeds of any potential future sale with the artist.
Attendees at the 2024 Zero Art Fair, co-founded by artists Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida (faculty, MFA Fine Arts), which uses an innovative store-to-own contract to make art more accessible while also protecting the creator’s potential future profits.
Attendees at the 2024 Zero Art Fair, co-founded by artists Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida (faculty, MFA Fine Arts), which uses an innovative store-to-own contract to make art more accessible while also protecting the creator’s potential future profits.
Last year, the fair ran out of art to show on the second day of its planned three-day run. Some 178 works by roughly 83 artists were claimed, including pieces by Alana Bograd (BFA 2004 Fine Arts), Karlos Carcamo (BFA 1997 Fine Arts), Lee Jensen (BFA 2010 Graphic Design), Lulu Luyao Chang (MFA 2024 Fine Arts), Jusun Jessie Seo (MFA 2024 Fine Arts), David Thonis (MFA 2015 Products of Design), Yin Ming Wong (MFA 2023 Fine Arts), and MFA Fine Arts Chair Mark Tribe, who is also a member of the Zero Art Fair board. For a list of the 2025 fair’s participating artists, click here.
This year, Dalton and Powhida are expanding the fair’s accessibility with a few changes. The event will open with three preview days and an evening reception, all of which are open to the public, followed by two days during which pre-registered ticket holders may visit and either purchase or borrow the works on view.
In the long run, the two hope to transform Zero into a more open-ended means of exchange, one “where artists and borrowers can find each other outside of the limitations that the physical fair poses.”
The 2025 Zero Art Fair takes place Tuesday, July 8 through Saturday, July 12, at the FLAG Art Foundation, 545 West 25th Street, 9th floor. The preview days are Tuesday, July 8, through Thursday, July 10, 11am to 5pm; the reception is Thursday, July 10, 5 to 7pm; and the ticket holders-only fair days are Friday, July 11, and Saturday, July 12, 11am to 5pm. For more information, visit zeroartfair.com or @zeroartfairs.
A version of this article appears in the spring/summer 2025 Visual Arts Journal.