New Elsewhere Fair Aims to Bring in the International Audience Philly Art Deserves

Megan Galardi, founder of Elsewhere and Blah Blah Gallery / Photograph by Natalie Cecelia

It’s the early days of Philly’s semiquin summer and we’re all thinking about the past. But over the next three days, in the handful of rooms at South Street boutique hotel Yowie, Blah Blah Gallery’s Megan Galardi asks us to think about the present.

Galardi’s new art fair, Elsewhere, brings together 26 galleries from the U.S., Canada, and Europe to exhibit on the walls (and in the hallways, and in the beds, and in the bathrooms) of Shannon Maldonado’s mod Queen Village hotel. It is the city’s first formal contemporary art fair since 2019, and the very first of its kind here — an art fair founded by a local gallerist, held in a hotel, bypassing the challenges and prohibitive costs of the bigger, typical convention center and warehouse fairs. (Building booths and paying for lodging ain’t cheap — this format eliminates both hurdles).

Elsewhere joins a growing national trend of micro-fairs held in hospitality and living spaces, like Chicago’s Neighbors Art Fair and the Berkshires’ Arrival Art Fair, the latter of which inspired Galardi to pitch this new venture to Maldonado this time last year.

Yowie room featuring a painting by Philadelphia-based artist Patricia Renee Thomas, who will show in Elsewhere with Blah Blah Gallery / Photograph courtesy of Yowie

“I felt like it was really important to situate Philly in those national conversations of the art world, and also to give the rest of the world a look into what’s happening here in Philly,” says Galardi. “That was the goal.”

Her work at Blah Blah Gallery since opening in 2023 has had similar aims; the intimate Bella Vista space often exhibits woman and nonbinary artists in their early and mid-career stages.

“I get asked all the time, ‘Are you a Philadelphia gallery that shows Philadelphia artists?’” she says. “I’m like, ‘No, I’m just a gallery that is showing really good contemporary work that is on par with anywhere else in the country and anywhere else in the world.’”

Lingering Warmth by Nicholas Kennedy

Galardi has attended art fairs across the country and participated in several throughout the Northeast as a gallerist, she tells me; the usual suspects in New York, Miami, and L.A. Uniting the tight-knit, sometimes insular, Philly arts scene with the kind of international audience these fairs attract is one of many hopes in founding Elsewhere.

“We get a lot of conversation about Philly versus New York, and I think it needs to not be like a ‘versus’ anymore. Philly can be a connector, not a launcher, like a true connector in its own unique right.”

Anti-Hero’s Revenge by Veve

Still, plenty of Philly connections will be making appearances. There’s the nomadic 5U Gallery showing Nicholas Stathopoulos, Spring Garden-based Fleisher/Ollman showing Molly Metz, New York gallerist Darla Migan presenting Forbes‘ 30 Under 30 honoree and Philly-resident textile artist Qualeasha Wood. Don’t miss exciting out-of-towner displays as well, like Chicago-based Point Blank’s Alessandra Norman or L.A.-based Stowaway’s solo presentation of new work by Brooklynite Indiana Hoover. And expect to see displays from across the pond, like London’s Harlesden High Street showing sculptor Emmanuel Massillon’s work.

9 SANDCLOCKS by Indiana Hoover

And that’s just the main event: Programming throughout the week also includes tours of the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Fabric Workshop and Museum, visits to artist’s studios like Camden-born Alex Da Corte’s Northeast Philly space, panels and even a party or two.

Well over 1,000 attendees had RSVP’d by the time Galardi and I spoke on Monday, some of them repping major collectors. She expects even more walk-ups. “I’m already getting people who are saying they want to do it next year,” she says of plans for Elsewhere to be an annual event. “This is not a one-time fair. This is bringing art to Philly.”