NEW YORK, NY.- The Outsider Art Fair announced its list of exhibitors for the 2020 New York edition, along with new features including a redesigned floor plan and revamped café, three curated projects, special programs, and first-time exhibitors from Japan, India, and various U.S. cities. Participating galleries in the 28th edition of the Fair include 61 exhibitors, representing 34 cities, from 9 countries, with 7 first-time galleries. The Fair takes place January 16-19, 2020 at the Metropolitan Pavilion (125 West 18th Street.)

Among the first-timers are: ACM Gallery (Tokyo, Japan); Arushi Arts (New Delhi, India); bG Gallery (Santa Monica, CA); Howard Greenberg Gallery (New York, NY); Koelsch Gallery (Houston, TX); Kushino Terrace (Hiroshima, Japan); and Stephen Score Antiques (Beacon, MA).

The 2020 Fair’s Curated Spaces include projects by:

• Brett Littman (Director of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum in Long Island City, New York), who is the cocurator, with The Shipibo Conibo Center in West Harlem, NY, of an exhibition of the Shipibo artists Sara Flores and Celia Vasquez Yui. Both artists live and work in a region of the Peruvian Amazon where indigenous peoples are struggling for their cultural and social survival against deforestation and oil and palm interests, which brutally encroach on collective land and lifeways.

• Paul Laster (writer, editor, independent curator, artist and lecturer), who curates Relishing the Raw: Contemporary Artists Collecting Outsider Art, an exhibition of Outsider Art collected by contemporary artists, who are embracing the work of self-taught artists beyond the levels that they have in the past. Exhibiting the works that attract them and telling the stories of why they find it appealing, Relishing the Raw offers a fresh point of view on collecting Outsider Art, from the perspective of other artists.

A special project wall organized by Laura Steward (Curator of Public Art at the University of Chicago) presents 500 “bogus cinderella” postage stamps—stamps created for fictitious states to declare their existence, but which hold no postage value. They offer a unique glimpse into an alternative United Nations of 25 “bogus” states. They are largely drawn from the former collection of Jim Czyl (1947 - 2014), who wrote the “Cinderella Scene” column in Linn’s Stamp News from 1982 until his death.

OAF Talks continue in 2020 with a program organized and moderated by Bill Arning (curator and contemporary art advisor) which deals with the professionalization of art and its ramifications for our culture. It will address the topic of Professionalism and its Discontents, specifically the market realities, language, and criticism that can make artists less adventurous. It will also consider the way that Outsider Artists tend to be less concerned with critics, curators, and collectors and other art-world conventions. Participants include Marilyn Minter (artist), Lonnie Holley (artist), and Laura Hoptman (Executive Director, The Drawing Center).

The Outsider Art Fair will continue special programming with the Ace Hotel in relation to the 2020 Fair.