Art World Agenda
January—April 2026

Each January, the London Art Fair reopens the capital’s cultural calendar with a clear-eyed survey. With its assembly of more than 120 galleries, the event reminds that collecting can be as intuitive as it is strategic. For its 38th edition, the fair partners with the National Trust to illuminate the legacy of 20th-century British modernism, tracing its threads through architecture and archives alike. The signature sections—Platform, Encounters, and Prints & Editions—continue to anchor the fair’s reputation for intelligent curation: new galleries standing shoulder to shoulder with the established, the experimental brushing elbows with the canonical. London’s first art fair of the year remains one of its most social—the place to reappear, reconnect, and retrain the eye for the months ahead.

Now in its seventh decade, The Winter Show remains North America’s grandest salon of art and design, drawing a mix of patrician collectors, museum curators, and a sharp new wave of younger buyers with a taste for the celebrated. Every corner of the storied Park Avenue Armory offers a time warp: Etruscan pottery and Italian glass, a Shaker cabinet in dialogue with Memphis design. The fair’s vetting is legendary—over 100 experts guard the line between treasure and trinket. Its signature evenings set the pace: Opening Night hums with jazz, cocktails, and couture, while the Young Collectors Night folds the Armory’s history into something like a private club, pulsing with DJs and potential acquisitors. Beneath it all, the original purpose holds: every ticket supports the East Side House Settlement and its education programs across the Bronx and Northern Manhattan.

Geneva’s annual salon unfolds within the lakeside halls of Palexpo, where the 14th edition of Art Genève brings together around 80 modern and contemporary galleries. The fair’s strength lies in its balance—intimate in scale yet international in reach. Institutional stands from Swiss museums and foundations line up beside private collections and academies, creating a dialogue between the market and the museum floor. The Sur-Mesure section gives monumental installations rare room to breathe, while the Music program carries sound installations beyond the main venue into the city itself, linking the fair’s atmosphere to Geneva’s wider cultural life.

February belongs to Mexico City. Zona Maco Arte Contemporáneo fills the Centro Citibanamex with a vast, high-energy display that anchors a week of different fairs across the capital—Diseño, Salón del Anticuario, and Foto—turning the city into one continuous circuit of exhibitions, parties, and private openings. Directed by Havana-born curator Direlia Lazo, the 2026 edition gathers 200 galleries from nearly 30 countries, with curatorial sections spanning Sur, Arte Moderno, and Ejes beyond the core contemporary focus. The mix of Latin American voices and international heavyweights creates a layered perspective on the present, with thoughtful dialogues on material, memory, and technology. A VIP program extends into studios, courtyards, and late-night terraces, where conversations carry easily in the warm air. Zona Maco’s strength lies in its openness—this is a fair that feels alive to the possibilities of the year ahead—and far beyond.