Open Calls That Could Shape Your 2027
Some opportunities give artists space. Others offer visibility, professional development, community, or simply a reason to take an idea further than it has gone before.
This week’s Art Dealer Street selection brings together four very different paths into 2027: a performance open call exploring intimacy and power, an opportunity for independent artists to exhibit in Chelsea, nearly a year of free studio space in Brooklyn, and a community-based residency connecting artists with older adults across Manhattan.
What connects them is the possibility of creating better conditions for the work itself.
Whether you are developing a live performance, preparing an exhibition-ready body of work, searching for dedicated studio space, or interested in bringing your practice into a community setting, each opportunity supports a different kind of next step. Here is what is currently open.
1. Clio Art Fair — Performance Open Call 2027: Penetrating Your Mind
Location: 511 West 25th Street, Chelsea, New York City Opportunity Type: Performance / Open Call Disciplines: Performance, Dance, Theater, Sound, Video & Interdisciplinary Practice Application Deadline: March 1, 2027 2027 Editions: May 6–9, May 13–16 & September 23–26
Clio Art Fair has opened its 2027 Performance Open Call, bringing its May and September performance programs together under one curatorial theme: Penetrating Your Mind.
Artists are invited to examine desire, intimacy, connection, power and control through one of two curatorial sections.
The Flirting Addiction looks at contemporary intimacy through swiping, ghosting, attention, situationships, distance and the increasingly complicated relationship between digital connection and the physical body.
The Era of the Optimization of the Persecutor turns toward systems of control, surveillance, algorithms, discrimination, manipulation, productivity and resistance.
Artists choose the section that best fits their proposal and indicate which of the three 2027 editions they would like to join. The application asks for a performance proposal of up to 500 words,
documentation of previous work, technical requirements and a short artist biography.
For performance artists interested in placing experimental work inside the context of a contemporary New York art fair, the program offers a platform where performance can operate as interruption, confrontation and direct encounter with an audience.
2. Clio Art Fair — May 2027 Early Bird Applications
Location: 511 West 25th Street, Chelsea, New York City Dates: May 6–9 & May 13–16, 2027 Opportunity Type: Art Fair / Exhibition Opportunity Early Bird Deadline: December 1, 2026
Clio Art Fair is accepting Early Bird applications for its 26th and 27th editions, taking place across two consecutive weeks in Chelsea next May.
May 6–9, 2027 | 26th Edition
May 13–16, 2027 | 27th Edition
Built around independent artistic practice, Clio Art Fair focuses on artists working without exclusive New York City gallery representation and creates a direct exhibition platform within the Chelsea art district.
Applications are open internationally to solo artists, collectives, emergent dealers, nonprofits and artist-run organizations across media including painting, photography, sculpture, installation, video, mixed media, digital art, drawing, collage, design, printmaking, sound and new media.
Applications are reviewed by the Curatorial Board, with decisions generally issued within 10–14 business days. Selected applicants can choose between Gold, Platinum and Diamond participation plans, with exhibition space beginning at 5 feet. Services vary by plan and may include lighting, VIP passes, online and social media visibility, art handling, wall labeling, storage and art-dealer support.
Artists applying by December 1, 2026 also have the standard $50 application fee waived, making the Early Bird period particularly useful for artists already planning their 2027 exhibition calendar.
Early Bird Deadline: December 1, 2026
3. Smack Mellon — 2027–28 Artist Studio Program
Location: DUMBO, Brooklyn, New York Opportunity Type: Artist Studio Program / Residency Application Deadline: December 1, 2026 Residency Period: September 8, 2027 – August 8, 2028
For artists who need something increasingly difficult to find in New York—affordable working space—Smack Mellon’s Artist Studio Program offers a particularly substantial form of support.
Six early-career NYC-based artists will receive a free private studio for eleven months, 24/7 access to shared production facilities and a stipend depending on available funding. Studios are located at Smack Mellon’s DUMBO space at 92 Plymouth Street and range from approximately 250 to 300 square feet. The program does not provide housing.
The residency is aimed at artists within approximately the first two to ten years of their public careers who would benefit from consistent studio access, curator visits, open studios and a professional artistic community.
Applicants must be NYC residents, have filed taxes in New York City for at least one year before the deadline, be at least 18, and be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Artists cannot be enrolled in a degree program during the residency or simultaneously participate in another studio residency.
For an early-career artist struggling to maintain space for sustained experimentation and production in New York, the value here goes well beyond square footage: it is eleven months in which making the work can remain the central priority.
Deadline: December 1, 2026
4. LMCC — SU-CASA Creative Aging Residency 2027
Location: Manhattan, New York City Organizer: Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Opportunity Type: Community Arts / Teaching Artist Residency Application Deadline: November 12, 2026 at 6:00 PM EST Artist Stipend: $6,000 Materials Budget: $2,000
LMCC’s SU-CASA Creative Aging Residency takes artistic practice outside the studio and places it directly within communities.
Selected Manhattan-based artists are matched with older adult centers, where they develop and lead participatory arts programming designed around creative learning, social connection and healthy aging.
Residencies take place from March through June 30, 2027 and require a minimum of 20 contact hours with older adult participants. Each project culminates in a public component that shares the participants’ creative process with the center and surrounding community.
Selected artists receive a $6,000 stipend, an additional $2,000 materials and supplies budget, and access to Materials for the Arts.
Applicants may work across artistic disciplines and do not need previous experience teaching older adults. Individual artists and collaborative pairs of up to two people are eligible, provided they live or maintain a permanent workspace in Manhattan.
Rather than asking artists simply to present finished work, SU-CASA is built around process: teaching, exchange, participation and adapting an artistic practice to the needs of a particular community.
For artists interested in education, socially engaged practice, community building or simply bringing their work into a different kind of space, it offers a meaningful way to expand what an artistic practice can do.
Deadline: November 12, 2026 at 6:00 PM EST
What Does Your Practice Need Next?
These opportunities may all sit within the art world, but they are solving very different problems.
The Clio Art Fair Performance Open Call is for artists who want to put ideas into motion—to test performance through bodies, sound, interaction and live encounter.
The Clio Art Fair May 2027 editions are about visibility and presentation, giving independent artists a destination for exhibition-ready work in Chelsea.
Smack Mellon addresses something even more fundamental: the need for physical space and sustained time to make new work.
And LMCC SU-CASA asks artists to move outward, translating their practice into an experience that can be shared, taught and developed alongside a community.
Before applying, it is worth asking what your work actually needs at this moment.
More space? A public audience? Time to experiment? A professional platform? A new community? Or an opportunity that pushes your practice into territory you have not explored before?
The best opportunity is not always the biggest one. It is the one whose structure gives your work something it currently does not have.
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