Market dispatch·New York
Independent 20th Century relocates to Sotheby's Breuer for its biggest edition yet
The fifth Independent 20th Century, running 24-27 September at Sotheby's at The Breuer on Madison Avenue, gathered 57 exhibitors and 130+ artists in a space roughly 75% larger than before.

Independent 20th Century has opened its fifth edition in a new home, and the change of address is doing some of the talking. Running from 24 to 27 September 2026 at Sotheby's New York at The Breuer, 945 Madison Avenue, the fair is approximately 75 per cent larger than previous iterations, with 57 nominated exhibitors presenting works by more than 130 artists. The building comes with its own art-historical memory. Designed by Marcel Breuer and opened in 1966 as the Whitney Museum of American Art's first purpose-built home, it later served as the Met Breuer from 2016 to 2020 and then housed the Frick Collection during the Frick's Fifth Avenue renovation. It is now Sotheby's New York headquarters. For a fair dedicated to art made between 1900 and 2000, and to artists and movements that have been overlooked, under-recognised or reconsidered, that layered museum history creates a direct conversation between place and subject. The curatorial model remains what sets the fair apart. Around 80 per cent of presentations are solo or two-person exhibitions, each functioning as a concentrated argument about what deserves renewed attention. This year's programme includes areas such as women in Surrealism, Arab modernism, American regionalism, the New York avant-garde, Brazilian artistic legacies, indigeneity and self-taught practices. Highlights include the Andy Warhol Foundation presenting a selection of Warhol's homoerotic drawings from the 1950s, described as never before seen, and London dealer Niru Ratnam showing Bronx-born artist Rita Keegan, whose photocopy collages of the 1980s explored identity, family and community and who played a significant role in Britain's Black Arts Movement. Independent is also acknowledging the building explicitly: a talk titled 'Reenacting the Breuer' brings together former and current museum leaders to consider its history, while eight solo presentations feature artists who previously had one-person exhibitions in the building. Running alongside the Armory Show at the Javits Center, the fair gives late September in New York a second pole, with the Breuer's architecture as part of the experience.


