THIS WEEK'S HOT TOPIC
Chicago’s art fairs have always had a “homey” feel, but the city’s newest fair, called Neighbors, will take that distinction to a whole different level.
Debuting this week, Neighbors is set to take place across the rooms of a single, 1,200-square-foot flat in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood. The apartment, formerly home to one of the fair’s co-founders, Mirka Serrato, is less than two miles from the Navy Pier, where EXPO CHICAGO will kick off its 2026 edition on Thursday.
Neighbors isn’t competing with EXPO; it’s a true satellite fair in design—a friendly new, well, neighbor. Serrato teamed up with Jonny Tanna, founder of the London gallery Harlesden High Street, for the humble new venture, which has done away with booths, walls, and other overhead costs in the name of good old-fashioned communion. Hans Goodrich from Chicago, Post Times from New York, and Tureen from Dallas are among the galleries set to show in the inaugural edition.
The question hanging over Neighbors is not whether its model will work (though of course that is also on the table), but whether Chicago can sustain a new satellite fair at all. Others have tried and failed. In 2019, for instance, the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) launched a fair called the Chicago Invitational, but it only lasted a year before the pandemic dashed hopes for future editions.
At any rate, the Windy City’s art fair scene could use an injection of fresh energy, and going more intimate might be the answer. Even Frieze, which acquired EXPO CHICAGO in 2023, is dialing back. Last year, the company brought on a new Director, Kate Sierzputowski, and curator, Essence Harden, to helm what it called a “more focused, intentionally scaled” version of the fair.
How these two events, which are at wildly different stages of existence, evolve from here could tell us a lot about the future of “regional” art fairs.
3…THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT RESALE RIGHTS
1
The artist’s resale right (ARR), also known as droit de suite, is not universal and varies by country. Nearly 100 countries have adopted some form of ARR legislation, but several major art markets do not currently enforce such laws. Efforts have been made over the past several decades to introduce ARR laws in the US, but none have been successfully implemented at the federal level. By contrast, Australia, the European Union, and the UK have established systems to administer these royalties. The ARR typically applies only to secondary-market transactions involving an art market professional, such as a gallery or auction house. If you’re bidding at an auction in London, for example, it’s worth noting whether a portion of the sale price includes an ARR royalty.
2
Artists do not receive resale royalties directly from galleries or auction houses. Instead, payments are administered through collecting societies, often referred to as collective management organizations. When a qualifying resale occurs, the royalty is included in the buyer’s invoice, then collected by the seller and transferred to an organization such as Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) or the Société des Auteurs dans les Arts Graphiques et Plastiques (ADAGP). These organizations track eligible sales and distribute payments to registered artists or their estates. This structure ensures consistency and helps monitor compliance across the secondary market.
3
Failure to comply with ARR obligations can carry real consequences. In most cases, the seller—typically an auction house or gallery—is responsible for processing the royalty payment. Collecting societies actively monitor the market, and if a qualifying sale is not reported, they can pursue the responsible party for payment. Penalties may include fines, interest on unpaid amounts, and reputational damage. While collectors are not usually liable for processing the royalty themselves, understanding how ARR laws work and flagging a transaction if something seems unclear supports a system designed to ensure artists share in the ongoing value of their work. A major point of ARR laws is to give credit where credit is due for the creator of an artwork.
A NUMBER TO KNOW
90
The number of countries with some form of artist’s resale right, per Anny Shaw in The Art Newspaper. Such laws funnel a royalty payment to contemporary artists (or their estates) whenever their work is resold under certain conditions.
But two nations you won’t find in that group of 90 are the US and China, the perennial largest and second-largest markets for art on the planet. The closest the US has ever come to instituting an ARR was a 1976 California law that mandated a 5% resale royalty payable to artists residing in the state—until it was struck down as unconstitutional in 2018. Chinese lawmakers considered amending the country’s copyright law to include an ARR in 2012 and 2014, but ultimately scrapped the idea after lobbying from the art trade.
Why the pushback? Critics say ARR schemes penalize individual resellers, competitively disadvantage the countries that adopt them, and struggle to adapt to changing market conditions (especially as technology redefines what an artwork can be). Others allege that these laws mainly help artists who are already successful, when emerging artists are the most in need.
The UK complicates at least some of these points. Since it ratified an ARR in 2006, more than £144m ($191m) in royalties have been paid to around 7,000 artists and their heirs, per the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS), which collects and distributes the royalties. Around 60% of those payments are for works resold for £1,000 to £5,000—far below the market’s peak. And the UK has stayed among the top three regional markets by annual art sales the whole time.
That definitely doesn’t mean the US or China will reverse course on ARR policies. But it does show how uneven the global playing field is until they do.
—Tim Schneider / The Gray Market
ASK: ACCESS SOPHISTICATED KNOWLEDGE
Ben from New Zealand ASKed: To what extent are artists and dealers from Southeast Asia and India now driving taste and pricing globally, rather than simply feeding into Western centers?
Josh Baer for NoReserve: While it’s no question that those markets have become more robust in recent years, they still have a ways to go. I don’t think those regions can get to an equal footing with the Western art world until they develop dealers on the level of Larry Gagosian or David Zwirner. Asian dealers serving as gallery or sales directors for Western galleries are not enough to change markets and tastes; these regions need their own homegrown talents. Non-profit institutions, however, are getting closer. M+ in Hong Kong has changed the landscape and is well on its way to being on par with MoMA, the Tate, and so on.
Have your own question for the NoReserve team? Reply to this email or reach out to us on Instagram, @no.reserve. Readers whose submissions we choose get a special prize—six free months of our paid newsletter, The Baer Faxt.
2 MINUTES WITH…
What does it take to build a collection that becomes the stuff of legend? Ask Howard and Cindy Rachofsky, owners of a world-class collection that is as big as it is focused, encompassing 800-some works of contemporary art exploring global minimalism and the post-war notion of identity. Tune in below to hear about the Rachofskys’ collecting journey and how their incredible pledge to the Dallas Museum of Art liberated the way they collected. For even more insights into the Rachofskys’ vision, head ➡️ here.
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