DALLAS, Texas — The Dallas Art Fair is changing addresses. After years at the Fashion Industry Gallery in the downtown Arts District, the spring fair will set up in 2027 inside Armstrong Fieldhouse on the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas, with the next edition running April 15 to 18.
The fieldhouse, the Mustangs’ football practice building at Bishop Boulevard and Binkley Avenue, gives exhibitors a big open floor with high ceilings, daylight and loading docks for larger pieces. Organizers say that room will let dealers bring more ambitious installations and will make it easier for visitors to move between booths. A high-end dining option is planned on site, though details have not been released.
Co-founder John Sughrue, a developer who launched it in 2009 alongside curator Chris Byrne, said organizers spent about a decade hunting for a better venue than an office building. Fair director Kelly Cornell spotted the fieldhouse while on campus for her child’s soccer camp.
The deal is also a teaching partnership. SMU and the fair plan internships, artist talks, panels and other programs tying students and faculty to galleries and collectors, and the fair will be the first big project of the university’s new Dallas Office, led by Kit Sawers, former head of Klyde Warren Park. The campus is also home to the Meadows School of the Arts and the Meadows Museum.
The fair’s foundation has raised close to $3 million for local arts groups, and an acquisition fund shared with the Dallas Museum of Art has paid for more than 75 works now in the museum’s permanent holdings.
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