Other Places Art Fair

For the past two years, Other Places Art Fair (OPaf) has popped up at Battery Leary-Merriam — an abandoned military battery scattered with graffiti in Angel’s Gate Park. The fair, which in the past has been timed to loosely coincide with major L.A. art fairs like Frieze and ALAC, is anything but a typical white-cube fair. Instead, it features unconventional art spaces and experimental artist-run initiatives — anything goes. Last March, OPaf was slated to host its third iteration at Battery-Meriam Park but had to postpone due to the pandemic. After taking some time to adapt to a new online format, the fair has migrated online, and is on view through the month of October.

This online iteration of OPaf exists as a dynamic website that has compiled dozens of artist projects, installations, events, and performances — all unconventional in their output. Some installations, like Niche Gallery’s “Gnomon”  or Outback Arthouse’s Soft Reflex, were actual IRL art installations that visitors could see with an appointment. Others, like Brittany’s group show — which was originally conceived to be installed on the exterior of an RV at the now-canceled March iteration of the fair — is a speculative plan for a group show that never manifested. Whether speculative, realized, on a flagpole, or the side of a hill, all art is fair game as far as OPaf is concerned. As they state in their manifesto: “Art is everything and nothing at once.”

OPaf’s online fair will be on view at opaf.info through October 31.