Clio Art Fair May 2025: A Two-Edition Celebration of Independent Art and Provocative Performance in the Heart of Chelsea
- Bianca Mafodda
- May 23
- 5 min read
Two editions. One space. Endless discovery: Clio Art Fair's 18th and 19th editions have just wrapped up.
The May 2025 editions of Clio Art Fair, held at 532 W 28th Street in Manhattan, unfolded across two distinct weekends—May 1–4 and May 8–11—offering a dynamic survey of 70+ independent, self-represented artists from all over the world. Known as the “anti-fair,” Clio continues to champion artists who forge their own path, free from institutional filters and market-driven pressures.
These two consecutive editions presented an expansive range of contemporary practices—from painting and sculpture to mixed media and conceptual work—underscoring Clio’s ongoing commitment to platforming diverse voices. Among these visual artists, there are a few who have stolen the spotlight.
Qinza Najm (b. 1976 in Lahore, Pakistan; lives and works between NY and Pakistan)
Raised in Lahore and based in New York City, Pakistani-American artist Qinza Najm brings an unflinching gaze to the politics of female subjectivity. Her interdisciplinary practice confronts gendered violence and patriarchal control through intimate yet universally resonant forms. Najm’s work bridges cultural contexts, using the body as both site and symbol of resistance. With each piece, she challenges dominant narratives, asserting space for healing, autonomy, and the complexity of womanhood in a fractured world.
Andrea Borga (b. 1985 in Trentino, Italy; lives and works between Italy and NY)
Andrea Borga approaches metal as both artisan and artist, engaging in a profound material dialogue that transcends technique. Trained as a blacksmith, Borga reimagines the ancient tradition of metalworking through a contemporary lens—one where the process holds as much importance as the final form. Borga dissolves the boundaries between craft and conceptual art, proposing a vision of creation that is as philosophical as it is tactile.
Luis Gutierrez (b. 1990 in Colombia; lives and works in NY)
Colombian-born and New York-based, Luis Gutierrez crafts poignant visual narratives rooted in migration, memory, and the physicality of labor. Drawing from his own immigrant experience and familial ties to manual work, his paintings and installations explore how colonial legacies persist in the structures of daily life. Gutierrez’s compositions are marked by layered textures and symbolic forms, evoking a terrain where identity is both constructed and contested. His work offers a quiet yet necessary meditation on the costs and complexities of survival across borders. His site specific installation for Clio Art Fair, Aquí Estamos Todavía (We Are Still Here) celebrates the resilience of people living under colonial and imperial regimes.
Borinquen Gallo (b. 1975 in Rome, Italy; lives and works in NY)
Through vibrant, intricate weavings of discarded materials—trash bags, caution tape, netting—Borinquen Gallo reclaims the detritus of urban life to create sculptural installations pulsing with movement and color. Gallo transforms refuse into resilience, confronting environmental neglect while revealing unexpected beauty in the broken and forgotten. Her practice is one of reclamation, not only of materials but of narrative: a reminder that what is cast off can be reborn, and what is fragmented can be woven back into wholeness.
Julia Rivera (b. 1965 in Bronx, NY; lives and works NY)
Julia Rivera draws upon classical technique and contemporary critique to produce works that reflect her enduring fascination with the human condition and the values that run the world today. Melding her academic training in Florence, Paris, and San Juan, as well as her Puerto Rican descent, Rivera creates portraits and assemblages that carry both technical finesse and emotional depth. Rivera's pieces resonate with personal history and collective consciousness, inviting viewers into a space of empathy and introspection.
Ronen Gamil (b. 1980 in Brooklyn, NY; lives and works in NY)
In his richly layered installations, Gamil uses cheerful colors and playful forms to smuggle urgent critiques of social and ecological crisis. Constructed from salvaged materials—aluminum cans, steel wire, wood, and fabric—his miniature tent cities question human exceptionalism and destabilize the lines between species, class, and survival. With a practice rooted in research and activism, Gamil explores housing precarity, migration, and environmental collapse. His work confronts viewers with unsettling truths, camouflaged in candy-bright aesthetics that complicate first impressions.
Alongside the visual art component of the fair run the usual performance program, questioning the viewers around the theme "Behave As If God Exists". Through immersive, provocative, and visionary artistic actions, the performers have explored the boundaries between the sacred and the profane, between genetic code and binary code, between faith and algorithm. Clio Art Fair has once again established itself as a laboratory of ideas, where the audience was invited to question the future of ethics, spirituality, and identity in the post-human era. Among the performers presented, two have caught my eye.
Adam Nicklewicz, known for conceptually driven sculptures and interventions, not only exhibited visual works but also played a key role in the performance program, bringing to life the iconic performance Tactile Drawing by Czech artist Milan Gryger (1966) for all the Clio Art Fair visitors to relive. Using his body as both tool and conductor, Nicklewicz has transformed the act of drawing into a multisensory performance, where sound, motion, and mark-making converge in a single gesture.
Liz Miller presented a powerful interactive performance titled Ritual designed to shift the energy of Chelsea, NYC, toward equity and restoration. Known for her blessing and cleansing rituals, Miller’s work engages the public in a participatory act of healing, inviting attendees to co-create a collective space of intention and transformation. Her performance draws from traditions that honor spiritual balance and uplifts spaces of historical and cultural significance—particularly those connected to the presence and contributions of Black communities in the United States. Through movement, sound, and communal gestures, Miller’s ritual seeks not only to cleanse but to re-center the site with reverence and purpose, challenging viewers to reimagine the neighborhood through a lens of justice and inclusion. Her performance ritual took place both at the venue and at the iconic location of the High Line in Chelsea.
Across both weekends, Clio Art Fair May 2025 served as a vital snapshot of independent contemporary art today. With its open curatorial structure for visual works and a bold, thematically unified performance series, the fair succeeded in creating a space for both individual expression and collective questioning—a rare balance in the ever-commercialized landscape of art presentation.
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