SOFA CHICAGO to add Outsider Art dealers into the mix at its flagship event in November

Elijah Pierce, Couple Dancing, 1972. Painted bas-relief carving. H 8, W 8 in. courtesy: just folk, summerland, california.

When the 17th annual SOFA CHICAGO 2010 kicks off with its opening night party on the evening of November 4th, visitors to Navy Pier in Chicago might notice a new type of gallery mixed in with the high-end dealers of artwork made from craft materials. For 2010, SOFA’s parent company, The Art Fair Company, is joining two art fairs — the SOFA blockbuster and the much smaller Intuit Show of Folk and Outsider Art — into a single event. SOFA founder and Art Fair Company president Mark Lyman told the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet that he had been approached by the organizers of the Intuit Art Fair because their show was struggling as partners to the Art Chicago fair at Merchandise Mart. The Intuit organizers wanted to see if they could join forces with SOFA: “I agreed and my company, The Art Fair Company, decided that the best solution would be to have it as a new fair on the same floor with SOFA,” says Lyman.

For those not familiar with the term “outsider art,” the organizers of Intuit define it as “the work of artists who demonstrate little influence from the mainstream art world, and who instead are motivated by their unique personal vision. This definition includes art brut, non-traditional folk art, self-taught art, and visionary art.”

While many outsider and folk artists work in wood, paint, and assemblages of found objects, few have access to facilities for making work in glass, ceramics, or metal. How the work shown by participating dealers such as Carl Hammer Gallery, Chicago; Hill Gallery, Birmingham, Alabama; Ricco/Maresca, New York; American Primitive, New York and Just Folk, Summerland, California will fit into the well-known SOFA mix remains to be seen.

SOFA has grown over the past 17 years thanks to the adroit navigation of the intersection between the Craft and Fine Art worlds. Over the years, SOFA founder Lyman has fine-tuned the presentation of what is shown under the SOFA umbrella as the brand has expanded to New York and Santa Fe. For example, in 2007, Lyman generated substantial press coverage when he described the work at his fairs as part of a “post-craft art movement.” More recently, the SOFA shows have been seeking to expand their reach into the world of design as indicated by the new tagline: “The World’s Foremost Fairs of Contemporary Decorative Arts & Design.”

After a three-year period when the SOFA shows were acquired and run by dmg world media, Lyman repurchased the SOFA franchise in 2009. Back in the saddle as president of the newly formed Art Fair Company, Lyman told the Hot Sheet last year that “there is definitely more entrepreneurial excitement in my team to start new things.” Despite the economic challenges that continue in 2010, SOFA’s founder and guiding force remains as upbeat as ever about the SOFA fair and its newest type of dealers. “We expect it [the Outsider Art fair] to grow and be an interesting addition to the weekend,” he says.

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