At Thursday’s preview gala for the Dallas Art Fair, two live human mannequins donning Roberto Cavalli gowns posed in the windows, greeting guests as they entered. It’s an appropriate introduction to an art fair in the retail luxury hub that is Dallas, Texas. The living clothes hangers came courtesy NorthPark Center, a gargantuan shopping mecca started by Raymond Nasher, the collector whose largess created the Nasher Sculpture Center in town and established Dallas’s dual-cylinder devotion to buying clothes and buying art.
It was unclear how many works were getting snapped up by institutions, but at least one museum was buying. The Dallas Museum of Art, through the Dallas Art Fair Foundation Acquisition Program, added the following pieces to its collection: a sculptural painting by Justin Adian from Skarstedt, a painting by Katherine Bradford from Canada; a photographic work by Andrea Galvani from Eduardo Secci Gallery, an acrylic work by Summer Wheat from Fridman Gallery, a painting by Matthew Wong from Karma, and two works by Derek Fordjour from Luce Gallery.