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Art RestartAuthor: The Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts
Host Pier Carlo Talenti interviews artists who whatever they make, wherever they work are shaking up the status quo in their fields and their communities. Art Restart is produced by the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. The views and opinions expressed by speakers and presenters in connection with Art Restart are their own, and not an endorsement by the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts and the UNC School of the Arts. Hosted by Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information. Language: en Genres: Arts, Performing Arts, Visual Arts Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Free Art, Real Value: The Zero Art Fair Story
Episode 1
Wednesday, 7 January, 2026
For more than a decade, conceptual artists Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida have collaborated on sharp, often darkly funny critiques of the art world’s economic and political machinery. One of their earliest projects together, a satirical telethon staged during the Great Recession, planted a seed they later returned to: What would happen if you ran an art fair where every work of art was free? That question eventually evolved into Zero Art Fair, a real, fully functioning event that uses a radically different contract to redistribute both artworks and power within the art market.Zero Art Fair invites participating artists to place selected works into a five-year “store-to-own” agreement with collectors who take the work home at no cost. During those five years, ownership vests gradually; if a collector later decides to sell the work, the artist receives half of the sale price as well as a 10 percent resale royalty. The result is a system that clears storage, builds new relationships across class lines, and asserts one of the Fair’s core beliefs, namely that price does not equal value. So far, Dalton and Powhida have staged two editions — the first in a barn in the Hudson Valley as part of Upstate Art Weekend, the second this fall at the FLAG Art Foundation in Manhattan — together seeding more than 400 works of contemporary art into new homes.In this interview, Dalton and Powhida explain how the Fair’s unconventional contract works, why prioritizing access for people who “need help to live with art” reshaped their second New York edition, and what kinds of unexpected relationships and ripple effects have emerged along the way.https://www.zeroartfair.com/Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.
