A scene from the 2011 SOFA West at the Santa Fe Convention Center.
Rumors that SOFA West for 2012 had been canceled began swirling yesterday, after artists got the bad news from their dealers. A select number of art gallery owners were contacted by the Art Fair Company on Thursday, May 17th, by the producers of the three-year-old Southwest edition of the long-running SOFA CHICAGO art fair and informed of the news. Today, the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet received confirmation from Mark Lyman, president of the Art Fair company, which also issued an official announcement to that effect.
“We enjoyed three years of Santa Fe—a wonderful city and great venue,” Lyman said in an email exchange with the Hot Sheet. “Unfortunately, the strength of purchases was not at the level necessary to draw the galleries in the numbers needed to make it a viable production. Possibly in better economic times we will review.”
The exterior of the Santa Fe Convention Center, former home of SOFA West.
An official announcement was released today by The Art Fair Company, producers of SOFA WEST as well as the longer running SOFA CHICAGO and SOFA NEW YORK fairs, that cited “insufficient participating galleries” and “loss of key local dealers” as the reason for the show’s demise.
One word came up repeatedly when contacting dealers for their response. “We’re disappointed,” says Sandy Sardella of PISMO Fine Art and Glass, who received notification yesterday from event coordinators. “We had planned to do the show. As far as plans for the rest of the summer, at this point we just found out so we’re still figuring it all out.”
Doug Heller, principal of New York’s Heller Gallery, who exhibited at SOFA West: Santa Fe in its inaugural year in 2009 but did not continue, said he understood some of the issues leading to the cancellation announcement for 2012, primarily that the city’s “everything-adobe” aesthetic served to discourage more contemporary possibilities. “The environment was shaping the show,” he said, “more than the show having its own sensibility.”
Jay Szor of Jerry Szor Contemporary Jewelry, who had planned to participate in the event, remains optimistic. “Obviously we were hoping to move a bit more merchandise over the summer,” he says, “and it’s going to be more difficult to do that now, but we’re doing SOFA CHICAGO and hope to make up for it there.”
—Isabella Webbe