There’s a new kid on the block. With next month’s LA art fair week fast approaching, a newcomer to the circuit has just been announced: The debut edition of Santa Monica Post Office, named for its location in a 1938 Art Deco building, will run from February 20 to 22, concurrently with Frieze LA, Felix, and the Spring Break Art Show. Organized by Chris Sharp, who opened his eponymous LA gallery in 2021, the fair will feature 28 galleries from the United States and abroad, each showcasing single-artist presentations.
Dismayed by the rising costs of participating in art fairs, which can be financially onerous for emerging as well as middle-market galleries, Sharp wanted to focus on camaraderie and affordability.
“Every few years, a couple of galleries will get together to invent a new fair, because the current fair system has become too corporate,” he told Hyperallergic. “I wanted to create something by galleries for galleries, that’s more about community, more collegial.”
The exhibitor fee will be $6,000 for galleries and $2,000 for project spaces, with $10 tickets for the public. By comparison, booth fees at Felix ranged from $10,000 to $20,000 in 2024. At Art Basel Miami Beach, a much bigger fair, booths started at $26,000 last December.
Santa Monica Post Office is modeled after Place des Vosges in Paris, a similarly intimate fair that Sharp launched with a handful of galleries during Art Basel Paris in 2024.
“It reminds me of when we went to Miami and did a fair called Seven with six other galleries during Art Basel,” PPOW gallery co-founder Wendy Olsoff told Hyperallergic. “This is a good time to do something out of the box.”
The roster of participants includes established galleries such as Sprüth Magers and PPOW, LA-based veterans Michael Benevento and Overduin & Co., Cooper Cole in Toronto, Et al. from San Francisco, and emerging spaces Ehrlich Steinberg and House of Seiko, a San Francisco-based gallery that will be opening up an LA outpost in a Highland Park storefront window this spring.
“The cost doesn’t feel like a risk,” House of Seiko Founder Cole Solinger told Hyperallergic. “My year won’t be destroyed if this display doesn’t perform well. The metrics of success are more open-ended.”
LA’s art scene has exploded over the past decade, with dozens of hometown galleries popping up, international galleries moving in, and the establishment of new museums. The first edition of Frieze LA debuted in 2019, followed by Felix the following year, creating an international sensation each February. However, rising costs have created high barriers to entry for many smaller spaces.
“With the much talked about growth of the LA art scene and a number of new, emerging galleries opening (of which we are one), there is a need for a smaller scale and more intimate fair in the city,” said Tabitha Steinberg, co-founder of Ehrlich Steinberg. This sentiment is not unique to LA, as evidenced by two new upstart fairs in New York last year, That ’70s Show and Esther.
Charles Smith, who founded Cruise Control Contemporary gallery in Cambria, a village on California’s central coast, in 2021, noted a certain serendipity in the fair’s location, especially poignant given his previous job as a mail carrier.
“The kind of ‘too big to fail’ attitude of the postal system maybe in some ways mirrors contemporary fair culture,” he told Hyperallergic.
Sharp made clear that Santa Monica Post Office is indeed a commercial endeavor, though one where he hopes the low cost of entry, open floor plan, and no-frills approach will allow for a greater sense of experimentation and exchange to develop.
“I’m looking forward to just connecting and relating with others that care about what I care about,” Smith said. “It’s that simple for me.”
