From the July/August 2026 issue of Apollo.
Aspen Art Fair started in 2024 but it has already become a major draw: almost 100 galleries applied to participate this year, with only 35 making the cut. Because it takes place at Hotel Jerome, one of the city’s most recognisable landmarks, rather than in a massive tent or exhibition hall, ‘conversations happen in a way that feels much more organic than at larger fairs,’ says recently appointed director Kelly Cornell, resulting in a ‘less transactional’ experience. On top of a blend of local and international galleries, and emerging local artists and well-known names, the fair also offers something money can’t buy: scintillating views of the Rocky Mountains, right on its doorstep.
Aspen Art Fair takes place at Hotel Jerome from 29 July–1 August.
Apollo’s highlights
Untitled (Large Mosaic) (2025), Rashid Johnson
Galerie Maximillian, Aspen
One of the fair’s most appealing aspects is its large contingent of local galleries such as Maximillian, which this year is bringing works by Jonas Wood, Derrick Adams and other contemporary American artists. This screenprint is one of a series of editions of Johnson’s The Broken Five (2020), a 4.3m-wide mosaic work that includes ceramic and mirror tiles, enamel, wax and other mixed media.
Myomu, ‘Mystic Dream’ (2014), Kan Yasuda
Ippodo Gallery, New York
Kan Yasuda, one of Japan’s foremost contemporary sculptors, has worked between Hokkaido and Pietrasanta, Tuscany, for almost 60 years. His work bears the imprint of both places: the elegant forms of designers such as Isamu Noguchi, with whom Yasuda collaborated, combined with the prominent use of Carrara marble. This piece is a smaller version of a series of works with large apertures that, he says, represent a portal from the human world to the spirit realm.
Lately, I do nothing much (2024), Wura-Natasha Ogunji
Southern Guild, Cape Town/New York
In the last few years the Nigerian-American artist, whose work straddles paintings, performance and video art, has begun incorporating thread into her works on paper, a practice that she says allows the ‘sculptural [and] two-dimensional’ to co-exist.
Woman Sitting with Flowers (1944), Wifredo Lam
Galerie Gmurzynska, New York
Born in Cuba in 1902, Wifredo Lam came to Europe in the 1930s, where, inspired by his friendship with Picasso and others, he forged a style that fused elements of European modernism with Afro-Caribbean traditions. This painting was made after his return to Cuba and a year after he produced his most famous work, The Jungle.
Gallery highlights
Drawing by Design: Drawings for Architecture, Ornament, Design and the Decorative Arts
Until 24 July
Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, London
This exhibition focuses on works on paper for specialised purposes such as architecture, rather than drawings qua drawings. Nonetheless, many are beautiful, from designs for embroidered liturgical wear made in 16th-century Spain to designs for 20th-century Viennese posters.
The Vandals
Until 8 August
Gladstone Gallery, New York
This group show, which takes its title from a line in Edith Wharton’s House of the Dead Hand (1904), revolves around the themes of concealment and revelation. Works include Robert Colescott’s collage ‘MASKED LADY’ (1964), a photo by Weegee of a nurse accused of murder covering her face, and pieces by Joseph Cornell, Alex Katz, Celia Paul and others.
Alina Szapocznikow: Autobiography in Fragments
Until 5 September
Hauser & Wirth, Zurich
The Polish sculptor was only 46 when she died but her output was impressive. This show marking the centenary of her birth covers her early figurative work, inspired by classical forms, and the more innovative abstract pieces she made in later life.
Out and About: Prunella Clough paintings from the 1980s and 1990s
Until 25 July
Thomas Dane Gallery, London
Throughout her life Clough made ‘field trips’ out of London, noting down people and objects she saw and taking photographs, which she would use for artistic inspiration. Depictions of found objects, often pushed to the verge of abstraction, abound in her oeuvre; this show of 17 works from the last two decades of her life demonstrates her skill in animating the everyday.
Fair in focus
CHART
27–30 August
Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen
The leading Nordic fair devoted to modern and contemporary art returns this month to the Kunsthal Charlottenborg, a 17th-century palace in Copenhagen that has been home to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts for almost three centuries. As usual, the vast majority of the galleries here are from Nordic countries, but CHART’s ambitions go much further than the palace’s walls, with outdoor sculptures and city-wide tours taking place throughout the event, including in the Tivoli Gardens nearby. Each year CHART runs a competition in which artists and architects submit proposals for site-specific installations; look out for this year’s winner, Pantomime, a massive circus-tent-like structure that is taking over one of the courtyards.
From the July/August 2026 issue of Apollo.
