You’d think a curator of a such massive undertaking as Superfine Art Fair (Thu/6-Sun/9, use code 48HILLS30 for 30% off tickets)—filling Fort Mason’s Festival Pavilion with craft cocktails, live music, mochi donuts, circus performers, art battles, artisan coffee, Frameline movies, oh and the work of 150+ artists—would have all kinds of heady things on their mind. But Superfine’s lead curator Sharone Halevy surprised me over the phone by revealing her one main obsession in planning the fair.
“It’s pinball,” she said with a laugh over the phone, as she prepared to activate 35,000 square feet of space over four days, welcoming thousands of visitors seeking out accessible art and one-on-ones with local and international artists. “Most of my job is solving this giant puzzle of how to fit all these different booth sizes and recreation areas into this huge building, which is the kind of challenge I love. And one of my big inspirations is vintage pinball games. I did a lot of research on them while designing the fair.
“I love the idea of people bouncing around from one stimulating environment to another, with as many senses engaged as possible. You get pulled into a big, beautiful art maze, not the usual alienating mass of tiny cubicles. You can wander around taking everything in—you can meet a tarot reader or a fortune teller, dance to the DJ, maybe ending up sprawled on one of our armchairs with a coffee or a drink and a donut, listening to some live music or taking in one of the immersive installations from Risa Iwasaki Culbertson and KREL.
“It’s a day of no rush and no stress and no pressure. People can spread out and breathe.”
Superfine’s main objective is to connect attendees directly with the artists themselves, without the daunting intermediary barriers presented by other grand art affairs. “Our big advantage is that the booths are operated by the artists themselves, not the galleries, so they’re right there, in real life, talking about their work. I love listening in on the conversations as I pass by. I’m always picking up little factoids I didn’t know about the artists, and there’s usually a lot of laughter and just uplifting conversations about art. That’s really cool, and something very needed right now.”
Don’t worry about cashing out what’s left of your 401K, either, to being something new and luminous into your space: Price points start at $100. “We really want people to get excited about up-and-coming artists and to realize how easy it is to become an arts patron. You’re investing in someone’s vision from the ground up. Even if you just take home a small piece, that makes you a collector and part of the artist’s story.”
Some of her favorite things at this year’s fair? “I think we have an incredibly strong base of artists. What I found really exciting is that it’s all different ages, different races, different backgrounds. There’s a huge array of folks that are starting out in their art career, and then people that have been at it for a while. You can really see the whole gamut of the art world, and I think that diversity and variety is reflected in our partnerships with Frameline [the longest-running LGBTQ+ Film Festival in the world] and ArtSpan [the 50-year-old local organization that runs Open Studios in the fall].
“I especially love the connection with ArtSpan because you can meet an artist at Superfine and then follow their journey to Open Studios later this year. So you’re kind of bouncing around in time with them.”
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SUPERFINE ART FAIR runs Thu/6-Sun/9 at Fort Mason’s Festival Pavilion, Pier 2, SF. More info here (use code 48HILLS30 for 30% off tickets)
