The Outsider Art Fair returned to the Metropolitan Pavilion from February 27 through March 2, 2025. Its 33rd New York edition brought together 66 exhibitors from 40 cities in nine countries, presenting self-taught art, Art Brut, historical collections, and work by living artists within a marketplace built specifically around practices long excluded from mainstream institutions.
TheNakedNYC Coverage
Instagram: Across the Outsider Art Fair
Photo Gallery: Inside the 2025 Fair
What to Know
The Fair Began in 1993
Sanford L. Smith founded the Outsider Art Fair as the first fair devoted exclusively to self-taught art. Wide Open Arts now operates the New York and Paris editions.
Sixty-Six Exhibitors Participated
Dealers and organizations arrived from 40 cities across nine countries. Their booths joined established collections with discoveries and contemporary practices.
Historical and Living Artists Met
Works by Henry Darger and Bill Traylor appeared in the same fair as contemporary artists including Noviadi Angkasapura and Shuvinai Ashoona, complicating any simple division between archive and present.
Art Brut Has a Specific History
Jean Dubuffet developed the term Art Brut in the 1940s for work produced beyond established cultural systems. The fair helped build collector and institutional attention around overlapping but not identical outsider categories.
A Curated Project Added Context
Mateus Nunes organized Follow My Moves as a focused presentation within the larger marketplace. The official fair maintains exhibitor and program archives.