CONDUCTOR Art Fair Opening Night in Brooklyn

Conductor, a new art fair hosted by Powerhouse Arts opened in Brooklyn on Wednesday night with a crowd size expected from a biennial preview, rather than a typical fair opening. Within hours, more than 800 people had passed through Powerhouse Arts, drifting between booths that offered the unexpected.

There were 28 galleries and 20 special projects spread across the building, with installations that often spilled out of traditional stands and into shared space. This is the first full edition of the fair following last year’s teaser, and pulling it together was not far from straightforward. “Some of the gallery’s that wanted to participate had to pull out at the last minute because of the war in Iran, which was very difficult,” said fair director Adrianna Farietta. Still, the result is an inclusive fair with many works worthy of a serious look and a layout that rewarded wandering. You’d turn a corner and find yourself standing gazing into a large installation or entering a quiet, self-contained environment.

The fair’s jubilant pace shifted completely inside House of Silence, a tent-like structure by the Turkish artist Vuslat and architect Sana Frini. From the outside it reads as a simple yurt form, while inside felt like an oasis. The floor absorbs sound, and the only light shone from a hole at the top of the tent. Across from the low, built-in seats was a large canvas outlined with eyes, a horse’s head, what appeared to be disembodied limbs, and a coiled snake. It’s built around the idea of a portable home, something you carry with you rather than return to. Aptly, people ducked in, stayed for a few minutes, and exited noticeably calmer.

Another project that drew attention was Retorno (2022) by Juan José Barboza-Gubo, presented by Praise Shadows. It’s built around a hand-carved boat the artist sourced from the Amazon and then reworked with carved acrylic, cement leaves, and pieces of wood. The work stretches out across the floor, close to eight-feet-long, and looks like it’s either being swallowed by the jungle or growing out of it. Throughout the night I wasn’t the only person who circled it slowly, trying to figure out where it started and where it ended. Elsewhere in the booth, Barboza-Gubo showed an intricate, jigsaw puzzle of semi-translucent geometric shapes inspired by mosaic tiles the he sourced in the ashes of a burned-out building in Iquitos, a city on the outskirts of the Peruvian rainforest.

At one stand tied to Riyadh-based space WhereArt.Works, fabric works made through sun printing and layered photographic processes were priced low enough to feel like an attempt to build a market from scratch rather than chase one. “It’s a nice way to test the market and see what the appetite is,” said Justin Gilyani, who runs the space, describing a model built as much around mentorship and salons as sales. The model itself came up as much as the work, with an emphasis on mentorship, salons, and slower growth.

Meanwhile, Beya Gille Gacha, showing with Keijsers Koning, drew a steady crowd with a sculptural work built from glass beads, wax, fiberglass, concrete, and a living element in the form of a sage tree. The piece sits low to the ground and gathers organic and industrial materials without smoothing over the tension between them. Gacha, who is set to appear in the Cameroon Pavilion in Venice, had one of the more focused presentations in the fair, one that reads clearly even in a crowded room.

Khaled Jarrar’s contribution worked in a different register. His An Orange Tree with Two Scars (2026) is a relatively compact wall-based work, built through slip casting and glaze, but it carries the weight of his broader practice, which draws directly from his experience in the West Bank, Palestine. Even among larger installations, it held attention, in part because of its restraint.

There were multiple points of overlap with the Venice Biennale crowd. Several artists showing here are headed there next week, including Ebony G. Patterson, Annalee Davis, and Tammy Nguyen in the main exhibition, along with pavilion participants like Beya Gille Gacha (Cameroon Pavilion), RojoNegro (Mexico Pavilion), and Bugarin + Castle (Scottish Pavilion).

The night ended with singing from Lido Pimienta, accompanied by a ferocious percussion and some nifty use of a delay pedal which made her voice echo and twist around in the main hall. For an inaugural edition, Conductor is still figuring out its shape. But its spirit is strong and opening night, clarified at least one point: Conductor is less interested in conventional rows of booths than in creating situations where work, context, and audience all blur a bit.