A year after staging a soft-launch invitational, Conductor: Art Fair of the Global Majority will mount its first full edition at Powerhouse Arts in Brooklyn from April 30 to May 3, 2026, with a VIP preview on April 29.
The fair, organized by Powerhouse Arts and directed by Adriana Farietta, will bring together more than 50 galleries and artists from Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Oceania, and Indigenous nations. Its mission, Farietta says, is not simply representation but redistribution: lowering barriers for young galleries and artists who have historically struggled to access New York’s blue-chip fair circuit.
“In this historical moment, amplifying global voices isn’t optional, it’s essential,” Farietta said.
The 2025 preview featured artists including Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, Khaled Jarrar, Modupeola Fadugba, and the Brazilian collective MAHKU. For 2026, returning exhibitors will include Carmo Johnson Projects (Brazil), which presented MAHKU in the preview. New participants include Yehudi-Hollander-Pappi with Ana Raylander, fresh from the São Paulo Biennial and an upcoming Sculpture Center show, and Monique Meloche Gallery (Chicago), presenting Jamaican artist Ebony G. Patterson.
Eric Shiner, president of Powerhouse Arts, framed Conductor’s model as ambitious, but pragmatic. By supporting fabrication onsite in Powerhouse’s shops and studios, the fair sidesteps customs and shipping costs that often keep international artists from showing in the U.S. “With Conductor, we’re pairing curatorial ambition with practical systems that make international exhibition more attainable,” he said.
Alongside the exhibitor booths, the 2026 edition will include an installation by La Vaughn Belle (Trinidad and Tobago/US Virgin Islands), The House That Freedoms Built, originally commissioned for the Cooper Hewitt’s 2024 Triennial. Fair programming will extend to symposia, talks, and fabrication activations across Powerhouse’s workshops.
Whether Conductor can distinguish itself in a city crowded with fairs will depend less on mission statements than on collectors’ willingness to show up. Still, with a controlled venue, a fabrication-forward model, and an emphasis on the global majority—a term used to refer to people of African, Asian, indigenous, Latin American, or mixed-heritage backgrounds—it is positioning itself as one of the few truly alternative entries into New York’s fair circuit.
