The art world spent much of last year talking about fair fatigue, which might be why it’s so surprising that the answer to our collective exhaustion might be the surfeit of smaller, dealer-led initiatives emerging across regions. These alternative art fairs, or salons as many are now calling them, challenge the traditional bloated, overly commercial fair model, turning it back into what fairs were conceived as: community platforms of visibility, connection and exchange from which business could naturally flow.
In today’s experience-driven world, where storytelling and destination are everything, and collectors and dealers alike are flocking to fairs that can offer an experiential journey combining art with the history of a specific place. High Desert Art Fair (HDAF), now in its third edition, is a boutique fair set in a unique cultural outpost known as Pioneertown. Built in the 1940s as a Western film set, it sits just outside Joshua Tree National Park, about 2.5 hours from Los Angeles. This year, 15 art dealers, primarily from California and the West Coast, will mount displays in the rooms of the Pioneertown Motel, which will be transformed for the event into not only galleries but a place to celebrate interdisciplinary creativity and the desert community.
The list of participants includes both traditional art and photography galleries, as well as independent projects and publishers, such as Boxo Projects (Joshua Tree, CA), Dorado 806 Projects (Santa Monica, CA), Fahey/Klein (Los Angeles, CA), Gross Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Harold’s Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), John Doe Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Jonathan Carver Moore (San Francisco, CA), Megan Mulrooney (Los Angeles, CA), MutMuz Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), The Pit (Los Angeles, CA), Track 16 (Los Angeles, CA), Weinholt Projects (Los Angeles, CA) and Yucca Valley Material Lab (Yucca Valley, CA). Programming extends well beyond traditional visual art showcases, with panel discussions, special visits and, most importantly, engagement with the local music community.
At the heart of the fair are its two visionary co-founders, Nicholas Fahey and Candice Lawler. “I often joke with Candace that it’s easier to get a collector to go to Joshua Tree for the weekend than to get them to drive from Malibu to Hollywood for an art show,” Fahey tells Observer. “I’ve always loved hospitality and using it to connect with people and artists, which helps sell artwork.”
It all started when Fahey and Lawler hosted their first event as a test, bringing 40 collectors to the desert. The weekend included an exhibition at a gallery, a brunch, a visit to Candace’s house for an exhibition of Jeanette Beckman’s music photography, a live band with tequila shots and a tour of the Noah Purifoy Foundation’s outdoor sculpture park. The event concluded at Fahey’s house, where he hosted a coffee-and-dessert bar as part of his residency exhibition. Both founders decided to formalize their efforts, leading to the creation of the High Desert Art Fair—though the pandemic soon followed.
The fair launched shortly after, coinciding with a growing demand for unique, often remote experiences as people rediscovered nature during the pandemic.
“I come from the gallery world, from the art fair world, and a lot of this came out of wanting an anti-art fair. As soon as you get that specific group of collectors focused solely on selling, it becomes very transactional,” Fahey reflects, noting how they set booth prices much lower than typical art fairs to encourage experimentation and attract a diverse range of galleries. “We want to bring in different types of galleries. We don’t want a fair full of just the big names—because that already exists, and nobody needs more of that. There’s been a clear pushback against the same old fairs. How many years can you go to Paris, Miami or Tokyo at the same time? There’s rigidity to that, and it doesn’t allow anything else to come in unless it fits within that template.”
Fahey and Lawler, with their distinct backgrounds, are the perfect partners to create something radically different from the traditional art fair format. Fahey brings his expertise in fine art photography—he founded Fahey/Klein Gallery, an established Los Angeles-based photography gallery. Lawler was a creative director at Apple for almost 10 years; that combined with her experience in the desert’s creative community, particularly in music, adds another dimension to their venture. “We want to combine all these audiences and bring them together while creating a rich, robust artistic ecosystem,” Fahey says. “You need big collectors supporting the galleries, but you also need risk-takers and cultural makers—people doing things that don’t necessarily make them hundreds of thousands of dollars but feed their soul, and that energy feeds everyone else.”
The fair’s goal is to create a more fluid, inclusive environment that brings a more diverse audience into the fold, including those who may not traditionally support galleries but can engage financially with the programming. “We want to bring these audiences together—art and music—while creating a rich, robust cultural ecosystem,” Fahey argues. “You need big collectors supporting the galleries, but you also need risk-takers and cultural makers: people doing things that don’t necessarily make them hundreds of thousands of dollars but feed their souls. That energy feeds everyone else.”
Both founders have strong local connections in the community. “We really want to enrich the cultural experience in the high desert, not just capitalize on it,” Lawler emphasizes. As a creative director, she was always hungry for more in this cultural melting pot of music, art and conversations across industries, but found that it wasn’t happening. HDAF was born to fill that gap.
Since bringing in brothers Mike and Matt French, the owners of the Pioneertown Motel, the fair has grown exponentially. Matt French is a fixture in the community because he lives full-time in Pioneertown, explains Lawler. “Once we brought him in, it locked in this tangible experience, most importantly, solidifying it in one place, Pioneertown, instead of it being a tour, like it used to be,” she says. “It started more spontaneously—kind of like an art week model, bringing people together—and then evolved into what you see now.”
Though the founders still describe HDAF as a fair, the event clearly has broader ambitions. “We’re using it as a platform to amplify the local community and catalyze cultural development,” explains Fahey. They formalized it as an art fair rather than a biennial or just a platform because it provides a solid structure. The fair’s lineup and target audience intentionally place strong emphasis on local and regional involvement. “Joshua Tree is such a legendary location in Southern California, and it’s a great place to bring regional energy. Audiences from the region can easily get there, whether by train or car. We’re not focused on getting the top 1,000 collectors to show up and buy $50,000 paintings. We’re one spoke in the wheel.”
The ecosystem HDAF engages with has expanded considerably since the pandemic, especially with more people moving to the area. “It’s different from when we started; there’s a much larger community now, and it’s great that we can provide that touchpoint for everyone. We want to give people a platform to connect and create,” Fahey says, emphasizing how they’ve always wanted the event to evolve naturally. “We’re open to different partnerships and ideas from community members.”
Anchoring the weekend this year is Mark Mothersbaugh—artist, composer and co-founder of Devo—who will headline Saturday night’s concert at Pappy & Harriet’s, in the fair’s debut partnership with the legendary Southern California music venue. “They approached us last year, and they said, ‘Why aren’t we a part of this?’ We hadn’t even thought of it, but of course, they should be,” Fahey recalls. “We’re evolving with the community, not just sticking to visual arts. It’s becoming more interdisciplinary, more fluid, and more about experiences,” Lawler echoes.
HDAF’s panels and talks this year reflect this shift, moving away from traditional formats toward more dynamic and engaging experiences. In collaboration with the Library of Esoterica, the Palm Springs Art Museum will host a group exhibition, “A Queer Arcana: Art, Magic, and Spirit,” which explores contemporary practices at the intersection of queerness, mysticism and spiritual inquiry.
The focus is on creating an immersive, fluid experience that transcends visual art and connects with other creative industries and diverse interests already inherent to the area’s identity. With nearly three million visitors to nearby Joshua Tree National Park in 2024 alone, and the architectural heritage of Palm Springs alongside the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, the fair is poised to attract a collector base attuned to art, music and design. “What we’re doing is expanding to touch on these special elements that already exist in the desert and are drawing people from all over the country to experience them,” Lawler notes. “We’re building off a culture that’s already in motion, but I think we’re the cornerstone of the only execution bridging as many touchpoints as we are right now,” Fahey adds, noting that their unique position in both the commercial fine art world and the local desert community enables them to function as a bridge unlike any other.
The response so far has been enthusiastic, especially as visitors last year enjoyed the crossover with music—something not always present at other art events, despite the long history of art and music moving together. This has even led to an invitation for the performance duo Puppies and Puppies to join the programming this year.
Lawler emphasizes that the aim is not to replicate Coachella, but to ensure that music complements the fair’s mission. “Our emphasis here is art—art first, always. While I work in music, management, and creative direction, which has been my background for 25 years, when I looked at who I wanted to program for the lineup, Nick and I were very clear that we wanted this to feel like the intersection of art and music, and how both cross-pollinate the creative process. They really are fluid,” she notes.
Mothersbaugh accepted the invitation to be part of the fair because he was drawn to the project. Fahey and Lawler pitched it as an opportunity to create something unique—an art piece rather than just performing Devo songs. “I wanted him to come up with something you’ve always wanted to do, something you could only do here in this one-time experience, and make a sonic art piece for an hour that Devo fans cannot afford to miss. And that is a musician’s dream,” Lawler says. “We want the artists to have fun using the sonic medium as an art form.”
Looking ahead, the pair is committed to letting the event grow organically within the context of the local ecosystem. Three years in, they still view it as being in a phase of testing and experimentation. While expanding the number of galleries and publishers is a goal, they are determined to do so in a way that remains authentic and avoids the traditional “big white tent” model. Instead, they hope to revitalize more of Pioneertown’s historic buildings to preserve local heritage while making space to expand the fair’s offerings.