Spring has long been one of the art world’s busiest seasons, packed with a carousel of prestigious fairs, highbrow auctions and closely watched cultural events unfolding across the globe. The March art fair calendar, which culminates with Art Basel Hong Kong, signals the impending kickoff of a busy April art fair calendar that seems to get more and more packed every year. Tired yet? We are! But it’s to be expected—these days, when isn’t there an art fair happening?
As the calendar grows ever more congested, art collectors, art dealers, art advisors and art enthusiasts have to select what they will and won’t attend judiciously—or risk succumbing to exhaustion. Here’s what you need to know to put together your own art fair calendar so you can nail down your April travel plans.
April 2025 Art Fair Guide
SP-Arte 2025
April 2-6
São Paulo’s leading art fair, SP-Arte, will hold its twenty-first edition this year, reaffirming its role as a catalyst and meeting point for Brazil’s art ecosystem. It was founded in 2004 by then-lawyer and art collector Fernanda Feitosa, who saw the potential of the Brazilian art scene. “What was missing was a meeting point, a new and younger fair that connected all its different parts,” Feitosa told Observer earlier this month. “We acknowledged that there was a market already, and we had to invest in it to foster its further growth. So we wanted to create the same atmosphere and connecting platform that other cities, such as Miami with Art Basel or later Madrid with Arco, had been able to create, to connect their art systems.” Long story short, she succeeded, and the fair draws an impressive 30,000 attendees annually. In 2025, 200 exhibitors from around the globe will mount displays, yet as always, the fair remains primarily focused on Brazil and the South America region, underscoring its mission to support, showcase and nurture the local art scene while serving as a bridge to the international art world.
SUPERMARKET Stockholm 2025
April 3-6
Stockholm Independent Art Fair, aka SUPERMARKET, was established in 2007 as a beacon for the avant-garde. It’s a smaller fair—usually attracting just 5,000 attendees—but one that is attempting to redefine the contemporary art fair model by inviting artist-run initiatives and alternative art spaces instead of art dealers. SUPERMARKET champions the underrepresented and the unconventional, offering a vibrant showcase of more innovative works than you might see at other fairs. “It is not only in Sweden that culture is subject to constraints. Visitors will encounter many creative survival strategies,” creative director Andreas Ribbung said in a statement. This year, sixty artist-run initiatives and gallery spaces will mount displays, and the fair’s programming will also include performance art, artist talks, and activities for under-18s. Returning participants include 126 Artist-Run Gallery (Galway, Ireland), Galleria Huuto (Helsinki, Finland), Fosforita Madrid (Madrid, Spain) and Niigata-Eya (Niigata, Japan).
Art Paris 2025
April 3-6
This year’s Art Paris will bring 170 galleries from twenty-five different countries to the beautiful Grand Palais, with a 60/40 split between French and international exhibitors that keeps one foot firmly local. While Art Paris sticks to the standard art fair script—curated shows, guided tours, prestigious awards—the fair is also stepping into new territory with the debut of the French Design Art Edition, a fresh sector that nods to the rising market for contemporary decorative arts. Meanwhile, the Promises sector—dedicated to highlighting young galleries under ten years old—spills onto the venue’s balconies this year, making room for twenty-five newbies. Figurative painting in the French tradition gets its moment (again) with the return of Immortal, curated by Amélie Adamo and MO.CO.’s Numa Hambursin, while Out of Bounds, overseen by Simon Lamunière, explores artistic hybrids through the lenses of identity and geography. And then there’s the city itself: Art Paris continues its citywide programming with exclusive access to thirty-one exhibitions and cultural happenings across the capital.
Artexpo New York 2025
April 3-6
Artexpo New York, which has been bringing art lovers to the city since it was launched in 1978 by Eric Smith, bills itself not as a fair but as ‘the world’s largest fine art trade show.’ As such, this landmark cultural event can attract 35,000 attendees or more who come to see an expansive array of works from more than 400 artists, galleries and publishers from around the globe. This is where art industry insiders go to discover new trends and talents—many collectors and gallery owners visit this popular fair for fresh perspectives. The fair serves as a vibrant cultural hub, with a lot to see, from photography and prints to paintings and sculptures, but it’s the robust programming that really makes it great. Art Labs presents specially curated projects by notable galleries, art institutions and art collectives within the fair. The Discoveries Collection showcases affordable pieces ($3,000 or under). And then there are artist talks, panel discussions and live art-making demonstrations.
miart 2025
April 4-6
Set against the larger backdrop of Milano Art Week, Miart in Milan, now in its twenty-ninth edition, is Italy’s biggest contemporary art fair and occupies a central place in the country’s cultural calendar, commanding attention not just for its scale but also for its thoughtful blend of historical depth and forward-looking programming. Directed by Nicola Ricciardi and organized by Fiera Milano, the fair returns in 2025 with a broad chronological offering, moving deftly from early 20th-century giants like Balla, de Chirico, Schiele and Picabia to contemporary heavyweights like Francis Alÿs, Rosa Barba and Monica Bonvicini. But this year’s heartbeat is Robert Rauschenberg, whose centenary inspired the fair’s theme “among friends”—a nod to his belief in art as collaboration. That ethos can be found in every section: Established bridges modern masters with fresh work and collectible design; Portal blurs timelines and disciplines under the eye of Alessio Antoniolli; and Emergent, curated by Attilia Fattori Franchini, gives the floor to rising voices in contemporary practice.
Discovery Art Fair Cologne 2025
April 4-6
Discovery Art Fair Cologne (formerly known as KÖLNER LISTE) has quietly built a reputation since 2013 for showcasing rising talent and cutting-edge work without the intimidation factor that can come with bigger-name events. Housed inside Cologne’s historic XPOST—a 4,000-square-meter industrial space that still has a kind of late-19th-century charm—the fair brings in around 100 galleries from across Europe and beyond. The tone is friendly, the prices are accessible and the mix of work feels curated for, well, discovery and not just display. First-time buyers rub shoulders with seasoned collectors, and the fair’s marketplace vibe keeps things lively. This year’s curatorial team—Barbara Fragogna, Stefan Maria Rother and Peter Funken—is keyed into the Cologne art scene, and this year’s edition includes a dedicated photography section positioned as its own show within the show and the return of the Urban Art Section for its tenth edition. Beyond the booths, Discovery leans into education, offering tours, workshops and talks aimed at both artists and art professionals.
The Dallas Art Fair 2025
April 10-13
Launched in 2009 by John Sughrue and Chris Byrne, Dallas Art Fair has matured into the region’s definitive anchor for cutting-edge contemporary art, attracting upward of 30,000 visitors annually. Each year, more than ninety galleries from around the world descend upon Dallas’ Arts District to showcase their best, forging new connections between galleries and artists and a rapidly growing Texas art collector base. “The reason that so many galleries are continuing to come and return year after year is that this collector base here is sticky,” the Dallas Art Fair director Kelly Cornell told Observer earlier this month. This year, the Dallas Art Fair will present ninety-one total exhibitors, including thirty-one new entries and eighteen international galleries, with more than twenty-one countries represented. Among the newcomers is one of Mexico’s most prominent art galleries, Galeria OMR, joined by notable international participants such as Tezukayama Gallery (Osaka), Duarte Sequeira (Braga, Seoul, London), Galería Ethra (Mexico City), WHATIFTHEWORLD (Cape Town) and the energetic L.A. gallery Make Room.
San Francisco Art Fair 2025
April 17-20
First launched in 2010 as Art Market San Francisco, San Francisco Art Fair has become the Bay Area’s premier contemporary art fair, drawing an enthusiastic crowd of more than 25,000 art collectors, dealers and art lovers each year. Staged in the Fort Mason Festival Pavilion, it courts blue-chip internationalism without abandoning its local soul. In 2025, the fair leans into its Bay Area DNA with a host of local galleries and a roster of public projects curated by local arts groups, including “Jewel Box” by Creativity Explored and “(Re)Constructed Worlds” presented by The San Francisco Art Dealers Association. This year’s lineup includes returning stalwarts like Altman Siegel and Catharine Clark alongside a slate of international names (France, Germany, South Korea are represented) and the oldest gallery in California, Studio Shop.
Startup Art Fair 2025
April 18-20
Another hotel art fair? You bet! After taking what would become a lengthy pause in 2020, Startup Art Fair is returning to the iconic Hotel Del Sol motor lodge for a weekend of art discovery in San Francisco. Just blocks from the Bay and Fort Mason’s more buttoned-up San Francisco Art Fair (taking place concurrently), Startup offers an unpolished, independent counterpoint. Launched in 2015 by artists who wanted to bypass the art industry’s gatekeepers, the fair gives sixty artists a room key and free rein to turn hotel rooms into miniature exhibition spaces. The result is a relaxed but still serious platform where artists connect directly with novice and experienced collectors, curators and your average art lover—no middlemen, no velvet ropes. It draws a pretty varied crowd, with attendees arriving from across the U.S., Mexico, China, Europe and South America. This year’s Special Projects program extends the fair into the hotel’s shared spaces with panel discussions, performances and installations, including Jane Fisher’s larger-than-life tribute to Pudgy Stockton, Margaret Timbrell’s Selfie Wall 2.0, and Suze Riley’s oversized motel room key.
Art Dubai 2025
April 18-20
Launched in 2007, Art Dubai has rapidly established itself as a luminary event on the international art circuit—a crossroads where the traditional and the avant-garde aspects of Middle East, North Africa and South Asia’s cultures converge in displays of artistic prowess. This year’s lineup includes more than 100 galleries from dozens of countries mounting displays across its Contemporary, Bawwaba, Art Dubai Modern and Art Dubai Digital sections under the direction of curators Mirjam Varadinis (chief curator at the Kunstmuseum Zurich), Magalí Arriola (director of Museo Tamayo in Mexico City), Nada Shabout (an art historian specializing in modern Iraqi art) and curator and author Gonzalo Herrero Delicado. Over thirty galleries are exhibiting at Art Dubai for the first time in 2025, including Bortolami (New York), Cortesi Gallery (Milan/Lugano), Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art (Lisbon) and Don Gallery (Shanghai), and there will be a strong lineup of galleries from the Middle East, Africa, and South and West Asia. Major new digital artworks by Ouchhh Studio, Breakfast, Jacopo Di Cera and Hybrid Xperience will debut this year, but what won’t change is the Art Bar’s After Dark fetes, which bring some of the best up-and-coming DJs from around the world to the fair.
The Photography Show by AIPAD 2025
April 23-27
The longest-running fair dedicated to photography in the world, AIPAD’s The Photography Show is coming to the Park Avenue Armory with a refreshed floor plan, a globe-spanning roster of exhibitors and its usual blend of history, innovation and intellectual rigor. Known for presenting the full spectrum of photographic practice—from classic black-and-white prints to avant-garde digital experimentation—the fair is welcoming returning galleries and newcomers from across Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, the UK, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Japan, Slovenia, Spain and Argentina. (First-time exhibitors include Galeria Alta, Galerie Julian Sander, LARGE GLASS and Ungallery.) For 2025, AIPAD is rethinking the fairgoing experience: publishers will now be situated in the main exhibition space of Wade Thompson Drill Hall to affirm the essential role of bookmaking in photographic culture. And as always, AIPAD Talks will run alongside the show for four days of probing conversations with curators, artists, writers and advisors, reaffirming the fair’s place not just as a marketplace but as a true intellectual forum for photography’s past, present and future.
EXPO Chicago 2025
April 24-27
Owned by Frieze, EXPO Chicago has risen to prominence as a leading international exposition of contemporary art, annually hosting more than 130 galleries and attracting a huge global audience. Set against the iconic backdrop of Navy Pier, the fair is renowned for its eclectic mix of work and rich programming, including insightful panel discussions, film screenings and art installations—all of which are complemented by a broad range of city-wide arts programming. This year, EXPO Chicago will showcase work brought by 170 galleries from ninety-three cities in thirty-six countries. In addition to the EXPOSURE section, curated for the second year by Rosario Güiraldes of Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, which spotlights solo and two-artist presentations from galleries ten years and younger and the PROFILE section that features solo booths and focused projects by established international galleries, EXPO Chicago will debut CONTRAST, a new section curated by Lauren Haynes, and present a special collaboration with the Galleries Association of Korea (GaoK) that brings twenty leading Korean galleries to the fair.
Superfine Art Fair NYC 2025
April 24-27
Launched by Alex Mitow and James Miille, Superfine Art Fair is an artist-led art event that has carved out a loyal following in New York and beyond by sidestepping the usual gatekeeping and bringing art collecting back down to eye level—literally and figuratively. Now set in the industrial sprawl of the Duggal Greenhouse at Brooklyn Navy Yard, Superfine returns in 2025 with over 150 artists, immersive installations and a steady stream of in-fair programming. What sets it apart isn’t just its size or setting but its insistence on inclusivity, transparency and actual human connection—rare commodities in a field where price tags are often secret and conversation is optional. The works on offer—curated, affordable and generally unpretentious—manage to appeal to first-timers without boring the seasoned set.
Art Vancouver 2025
April 24-27
Art Vancouver, Western Canada’s largest international contemporary art fair, opened its doors for the first time in 2015 and quickly established itself as a must-attend event in the international art calendar. Founded by Lisa Wolfin, this April art fair is on the smaller side, drawing a crowd of 10,000 visitors annually to the Vancouver Convention Centre, but it typically attracts more than 100 local and international galleries. Now in its ninth edition, Art Vancouver is lauded for its commitment to showcasing a diverse range of artistic expression, from cutting-edge contemporary art to more traditional works, and for its engaging supplemental programming that includes the much-anticipated Art Walks, live artmaking demonstrations, the fast-paced Art Masters competition and a speaker series that provides insight into both artists’ creative processes and art market dynamics.
Art Brussels 2025
April 24-27
Art Brussels has been captivating the art world since it was launched by the Belgian art fair organizer and gallery owner Georges Vermeesch as Foire d’Art Actuel in 1968, attracting annually more than 25,000 art industry insiders and art lovers to the heart of Belgium. This year, the fair will welcome 165 galleries mounting displays in distinct sections: “Discovery,” “Invited,” “Prime” and “Solo.” In 2025, the “‘68 Forward” section will host fourteen galleries that will compete for the new 68 Forward prize, which will be chosen by judges Melanie Deboutte (curator, Raveel Museum), Yilmaz Dziewior (director, Museum Ludwig Cologne), Margriet Schavemakers (curator, Kunstmuseum Den Haag). This springtime art fair stands out for its support of younger galleries and emerging artists and its innovative curation. There really is something for everyone—including talks, performances and tours.
Even more April art fairs in 2025
As usual, what’s above doesn’t represent the totality of April art fairs in 2025—there are scores of smaller, lesser-known and niche art fairs happening around the world. Here’s a quick roundup of several more art events you might want to check out this month.
PAD Paris 2025
April 2-6
Plural 2025 (Montreal)
April 11-13
Art Düsseldorf 2025
April 11-14
Pinta Lima 2025 (Peru)
April 24-27
Urban Art Fair 2025 (Paris)
April 24-27
The Philadelphia Show 2025
April 25-27
KunstRAI 2025 (Amsterdam)
April 30 – May 4
