Discover the Austin Art Fair That’s Taking Over The Loren Hotel This May
Friends Fair brings together 17 local and national galleries, filling the lakefront hotel’s entire second floor with contemporary art
Friends Fair, which returns to The Loren hotel May 7-9, is true to its name. The visual arts fair is, at its core, a collaboration between friends — gallery owners who share a steadfast admiration for one another and a passion for championing the arts in Austin. The three-day event is organized by four Austin-based galleries: McLennon Pen Co., Ivester Contemporary, Martha’s and Northern-Southern.
Ahead of this year’s fair, Jill McLennon, founder of McLennon Pen Co., and Kevin Ivester, owner of Ivester Contemporary, spoke with TRIBEZA about the partnership behind the event and what visitors can expect from its expanded second edition.
“As dealers, we work with the same level of care,” McLennon said of the partnership between galleries. “It’s really special when you find your people who get it on the same level as you,” Ivester added.
The first Friends Fair brought together five galleries. This year, it will host seventeen, plus two non-commercial projects.
For the duration of the fair, these galleries will fill the entirety of The Loren’s second floor with their work, transforming the luxury hotel into a creative conservatory, ripe with color, texture and provocation.
“Many of the galleries are playful and lean into (the hotel setting),” McLennon reflects, noting that the Loren itself curates a celebrated art program.
Friends Fair’s beginnings
Before launching Friends Fair in 2025, the founders created the Friends of Galleries (FoG). The organization was hatched from their camaraderie — the FoG dealers supported each other’s programs for years, discussing business practices over artists’ work and crisp wine in equal measure.
“We were really collaborative about sharing contacts, which is rare for galleries,” Ivester explains. “We knew that working together would be more effective than us all trying to build solo. This town needs more collaborative events, and we all need to work on the visual art scene together.”
The Friends of Galleries began curating monthly programs, even issuing special-edition keychains to their most consistent collectors. Those events paved the way for the Friends Fair of today.
“Owning a gallery can feel lonely,” Ivester said. Having friends and colleagues to “bounce ideas off of,” he said, reflects the spirit of collaboration that drives Friends Fair and helps define Austin’s arts community.
A local collaboration
Friends Fair places Austin in conversation with major art destinations, while also honoring our city’s grassroots identity.
Many of this year’s participating galleries, including the fair’s four founders, are members of the New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA), an application-only organization and a testament to Friends Fair’s high-caliber programming.
Meanwhile, the fair maintains Austin’s community-based artistic values through its emphasis on accessibility. The event is free for all, welcoming working artists and burgeoning art collectors alike.
“Galleries can be intimidating spaces,” Ivester acknowledges. He hopes that, by hosting the fair in a non-traditional environment, attendees are able to “break down those anxieties and get to know Austin’s art scene on a deeper level.”
Friends Fair presents a unique opportunity in which Austin’s galleries, typically dispersed across neighborhoods, are united under one space. Patrons can wander The Loren’s elegant, light-flooded rooms and fall in love with local galleries simultaneously, meeting dealers and learning about their programs with ease.
Expanding Austin’s art network
Friends Fair is an entry point into Austin’s galleries, but it is also a bridge for curatorial connections across the U.S.
“We work with so many local artists who are dying to have their work shown in other cities,” McLennon said. Friends Fair helps build those relationships by introducing visiting art dealers to Austin-based artists.
This year’s fair convenes galleries from New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami and Northern New Mexico. “All these cities converging on Austin for this fair is really special,” Ivester offers. “Because then they go home and they talk about (us) there.”
The fair also bolsters Texas arts. “I’m really excited that this year we have some galleries from other big Texas cities represented,” McLennon shares, including Nature of Things from Dallas, Ruiz-Healy Art from San Antonio and Seven Sisters from Houston.
While Friends Fair expands, it is still deeply rooted in Austin. “It really does take a whole town to make something like Friends Fair happen,” Ivester concludes.
Friends Fair will run May 7-9 at The Loren Hotel Austin on Lady Bird Lake, with a rooftop launch party curated by Future Front at The Contemporary Austin on Wednesday, May 7. RSVP here and explore the full list of participating galleries, including the fair’s noncommercial suites: Co-Lab Projects and the University of Texas at Austin’s MFA class of 2026.