CHICAGO, IL.- Bridge Magazine and its 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit parent, Bridge, NFP are pleased to announce Chicago’s first ever NOVA Young Art Fair. The NOVA Young Art Fair will provide affordable exhibition space during the height of the spring art fair season in Chicago, April 28-May 2. NOVA planners have built a committee of individuals informed about and involved with young art in Chicago and the Midwest, throughout the nation and internationally. In previous years, during the spring art fair season Bridge Magazine has organized the annual Art Boat exhibition at Navy Pier. This year, in part due to the number of competing art fairs taking place at Navy Pier (Chicago Contemporary & Classic) and at Butler Field (Art Chicago 2005), Bridge staff have decided to put Art Boat on hiatus. Instead, the NOVA Young Art Fair that will take its place in the heart of the West Loop neighborhood at 857 West Fulton Market.

NOVA planners have made arrangements to procure professional 10-foot walls, and each booth will be outfitted with a trellis and several lights. NOVA planners have also assembled a staff to coordinate labor, transport and assemble exhibitor booths on-site, and to coordinate sales and exhibitor services both prior to and for the duration of the NOVA Young Art Fair. Exhibitor fees will be affordable enough to provide young gallerists and artists an opportunity to show their work, as our not-for-profit mission, during this season’s art fairs without paying the tens of thousands of dollars required for space at either Chicago Contemporary & Classic or Art Chicago 2005. But this will also be a selling show, and rental fees will be set high enough to prompt prospective exhibitors to consider the strength of their inventory.

As a not-for-profit project of Bridge Magazine, NOVA planners have already secured a number of sponsorship agreements, to provide trolleys traveling from Navy Pier that will in the West Loop neighborhood. NOVA has also contracted to offer box office sales of admission passes for 1-, 2-day and festival-length passes. Art fair planners project an attendance this year of 30,000+ visitors. Passes to NOVA will also be available on-site, through the Bridge offices and website and through E-tix.com (a service much like Ticketmaster).

The NOVA Young Art Fair staff and committee will screen applications with an eye to work that seeks alternatives to our entertainment-driven culture. Similar to the New-York based New Art Dealers Association, NOVA will be an example of what not-for-profit and for-profit organizations can accomplish as partners rather than competitors, and NOVA planners intend for the selected exhibitors to reflect this philosophy. While the NOVA planners are happy to accept participants whose samples includes painting, sculpture and traditional mediums, they are also eager to include video, new media, and to give space to less market-driven exhibitors.

Programming at the NOVA Young Art Fair will reflect this genre-bashing approach to art exhibition. A portion of the exhibition space has been demarcated for performance and will include week-long showcases of performance art, live music, film screenings and more. A reading area will also be available for weary patrons to sit, relax and sample copies of art magazines and titles from art publishers while sipping coffee.