Last month, curator and gallerist Ebony L. Haynes launched 52 Walker, a new space that, despite falling under the David Zwirner empire, aims to operate more like a European kunsthalle than a garden variety gallery. The goal, she told Artnet News earlier this year, is to “change the model and slow things down.”

Later this year, she will attempt to do something similar with an art fair. At NADA Miami in December, Haynes will inaugurate Curated Spotlight, a new TD Bank-sponsored section highlighting a small group of solo gallery presentations.

“My desire to slow things down at… 52 Walker is really a desire to show how many different models can exist in this art world,” Haynes said of the thinking behind her new venture. “I think that art fairs have played, and still do play, an important role in that world.” 

An installation view from Joel Gaitan’s “La Pulperia de Dona Pina” at KDR305, 2021. Courtesy of the gallery. Photo: Rodrigo Gaya.

Eight exhibitors will make up Haynes’s presentation at the fair, all of them far—geographically and ideologically—from the blue-chip fare of Chelsea. Some aren’t even technically galleries. Dale Zine in Miami, for instance, brands itself a printer and publisher, while Tone from Memphis is a nonprofit. 

Having just opened one of New York’s most anticipated gallery spaces, Haynes provides a stamp of approval that is likely to be taken seriously by collectors. And having exhibited at NADA for years with her previous galleries, Shoot the Lobster and Martos, she knows her audience.

“Each space is representative of a vibe I’m very excited about,” Haynes explained. “They all… have created a space to support emerging and dynamic artists, some in a less-traditional gallery format.”

Henri Paul Broyard, NFA (2021). Courtesy of Saint George Projects.

The curator selected the eight Curated Spotlight exhibitors from the longer list of NADA Miami participants; they in turn approached her with ideas for single-artist presentations.

New York’s Saint George Projects will offer up a selection of Henri Paul Broyard’s Matissean paintings of domestic interiors. Meanwhile, Miami gallery KDR305 plans to present a selection of terra cotta wares by Joel Gaitan within an installation that recalls a Pulperia, or a Nicaraguan general store. Others included in the section are Los Angeles’s Dominique Gallery and three galleries from New York: Calderón, Larrie, and Regular Normal.

More than 100 galleries and other exhibitors will set up shop at this year’s NADA Miami, the 19th edition in the Magic City since 2003. It’s set to run December 1 through 4 at Ice Palace Studios.