09/27/2026
The first edition of Independent at Sotheby’s landmark Breuer Building affirmed that the art market is entering a new era: one that values intimacy, context, and discovery over spectacle, hype, and the creation of financial assets. It’s about time.
As I wandered the tightly curated galleries, organized vertically across four floors, I mused on the pleasures of LOOKING and LEARNING, those simple acts that drew me to art in the first place. While the mega-fairs built on the mold of the 2010s practically prohibit pleasure, Independent 20th Century is a joy machine, connecting the minds and hearts of artists working in the 20th century to any 21st-century viewer with a sense of curiosity and eyes to see.
As you plan your own visit to the fair, here is my field guide:
We are in the midst of a great reevaluation of 20th-century artistic production, from the origins of modernism through the emergence of relational aesthetics on the cusp of Y2K. While we are used to tethering 20th-century and contemporary art, Independent 20th Century marks the beginning of the 20th century as a historic epoch distinct from our present. This quality of historicity does not make the period’s meaning a settled matter; quite the opposite. With the benefit of temporal distance, a quarter-century of research, and a more diverse cast of interpreters, we are better positioned than we were c. 2000 to comprehend 20th-century art in the round: searchingly, critically, and with a gimlet eye cast on what—and who—was missed during the Blue Chip era.
