Parallax Art Fair: Hello

Parallax Art Fair is Europe's largest entretive fair for creative entrepreneurs. We have managed 45+ editions over 16 years. That is 9000 creative businesses and tens of thousands of visitors.

A Fair Built for Independent Artists

Parallax Art Fair is an independent art and design fair built around a simple idea: artists should have a fair opportunity to show their work, meet their audience and sell it directly.

For more than a decade, Parallax has provided an alternative to the conventional art-fair model. We do not operate as a dealer fair, we do not select artists according to fashionable names or art-world status, and we do not take commission on sales. Instead, independent artists and designers exhibit their own work, speak directly to visitors and keep 100% of what they sell.

That makes Parallax particularly practical for artists who need an exhibition to work commercially. Keeping the break-even point low matters. Exhibiting is an investment, and the more of your sales you keep, the more realistic it is to turn an exhibition into a profitable opportunity rather than simply an expensive exercise in exposure.

0% commission on sales. You sell directly and keep what you earn.
Low break-even points. Our model is designed to make exhibiting financially realistic.
No sales desk. You deal directly with your own customers and collectors.
No private selling. Every exhibitor has the same opportunity to engage with visitors.
Central London. Exhibit in one of London's most accessible and culturally significant locations.
A large independent community. Join 250+ artists and designers working across an extraordinary range of styles, ideas and disciplines.

Parallax is also a place to develop an audience over time. Many exhibitors return because one appearance can lead to new collectors, new contacts, further sales and a growing awareness of their work. Around 60–70% of our exhibitors are returnees, with many choosing to exhibit with us repeatedly.

Whether you have exhibited at Parallax before or are considering it for the first time, the principle is the same: make the opportunity work for you.

And for visitors, that means something too. There is no predetermined shortlist of fashionable artists to discover. Instead, you encounter hundreds of independent makers, talk to them directly, discover work you may never see in a conventional gallery and buy directly from the people who made it.

Independent art. Directly from the people who make it.

Watch a philosophical video about us here or get the book here!

Why Parallax Works Differently

Parallax was created because we thought the art world could work differently.

Too much of the art industry is built around hierarchy: who is important, who is fashionable, whose opinion counts and whose work deserves to be seen. Parallax takes a different approach. We believe artists should not have to fit into an established hierarchy to have an audience.

That is why Parallax brings together artists and designers working independently, without asking them to conform to a particular style, movement or definition of what contemporary art is supposed to be.

You will find painting alongside photography, sculpture alongside jewellery, furniture alongside illustration, textiles alongside conceptual work and much more. Some work will be familiar. Some will be unexpected. Some may challenge you. That's part of the point.

We are interested in what happens when people are given the freedom to make, exhibit and respond to work without the usual assumptions about what is supposed to be 'good', 'important' or commercially fashionable.

That philosophy affects the practical experience of the fair as well. There is no VIP department because everyone is a VIP at Parallax. Exhibitors are not divided into tiers according to reputation, and visitors are not treated as second-class guests. Artists meet the public directly, and the public gets the opportunity to meet the people behind the work.

We also believe that an art fair should be enjoyable. Parallax can be serious about art without taking itself too seriously. The fair incorporates unexpected combinations, different ways of presenting work and the occasional element of randomness. You may arrive looking for one thing and leave having discovered something completely different.

For exhibitors, this creates an unusually open environment in which to test ideas, meet new audiences, build relationships and sell work. For visitors, it means there is always something new to discover.

No gatekeeping. No VIP hierarchy. No commission. No prescribed idea of what art should be.

Just independent artists, designers and their work, brought together in London.

RELAX. IT'S PARALLAX.

Watch videos about us here or get the book here!

Dr C G Barlow writings

Three Modes (second edition in production); A Historical Inquiry into the First Three Months of 2020 and the Six Sources of Data Prior to the UK Lockdown (in research); Aporia (album in production); Digital Democracy (album; 2023); A Dialogue on Direct Democracy (in research); The Art of Painting by John Smith (preface and footnotes; in research); The Aporia (in research); Guide to Shipping or Travelling with Art & Design (2024) UK edition / US edition; Guide to Buying Art: the End of Art Collecting (2022) UK edition /US edition; Three Modes (2021) UK edition /US edition; The Principles of Painting by Roger de Piles [preface & footnotes] (2020); The Education of the Eye by John Burnet [preface & footnotes] (2020); Probability of Historia (2020); Prescient and Ahistoric (2019) UK edition / US edition; In the Name of (2018); "Hanging Offence": Interview with Trebuchet (2014);Proem 4571 (2014); Twelve (2013); Proem 1812 Dialogue [Magma Catalogue] (2012); Parallax (2010), with Donald Preziosi, Alun Munslow and Paul Gladston; Parallax II: Juries and their delusions [Blog] (2013); Copernican Revolution [Blog] (2009)

October 2025

Terry Danziger Miles, the dealer for Francis Bacon, Henry Moore, Lucien Freud and many other Twentieth-century icons, takes part in the 40th edition of the fair at Chelsea Town Hall.

July 2024

Thirty-seventh edition shows Peter Luisi's art film "The Last Screenwriter", the first movie written entirely by ChatGPT. The film was banned by the Prince Charles Cinema in London. Kelly Ali from the 1990s Sneaker Pimps and South Indian movie director Thota Tharani take part, along with over 200 artists and designers, seventy per cent of which are returning exhibitors.

April 2023

Parallax opens at MG Studio in Los Angeles with an experimental show. Exhibitors have the freedom to set up a space according to their individual choice. 5000 visitors tickets are taken.

October 2022

Lead actor of the famous British radio show The Archers, Tim Bentinck, exhibits his hard drive artworks.

2022 July

Hollywood actor and director, Paul Michael Glaser exhibits alongside three hundred international exhibitors. PAF Screen, LED NFTs, GAP Booths and PAF Music are integrated into the fair for the first time.

2021 July

Parallax Club website is launched. Underscoring a key philosophy of no selection committee, it includes the first automated shopping-cart-style application for a fair in the world.

2020 September

Parallax Art Fair launches "Shop Parallax" as part of its fully e-commerce website.

2020 March

PAF TV is launched.

2019 October

C G Barlow publishes The Prescient and Ahistoric; the theory and history of Parallax Art Fair and entretive fairs.

2019 February

Parallax Art Fair opens at two venues in London in Kensington and Chelsea. Over 500 exhibitors take part.

2018 November

Parallax Art Fair opens in Manchester, UK.

2018 February

Parallax Art Fair moves to a larger venue in Kensington, London, UK. Three shows of Setsuko Ono are curated by Dr C G Barlow in his trademark style, including at Asia House and Daiwa Foundation in London. Catalogue is available here. See also. Some images.

2016 April

Parallax Art Fair opens in Los Angeles, USA. For an archive of the website from April 2016, go now. Please note, some icons and images do not now exist.

2012 December

Parallax Art Fair opens in Miami, USA.

2012 August

Parallax Art Fair opens in New York, USA. For an archive of the website on 02/04/2012 see archive.org. Go now. Please note, some images do not now exist.

2012 February

Parallax Art Fair moves to Chelsea in London, UK. (Prof. Alun Munslow gives a lecture at the October 2012 edition.). See an archive of the website from 15/01/2012. Go now.

2011 July

Parallax Art Fair opens at Royal Opera Arcade, London, UK. (Prof. Donald Preziosi gives a lecture at the October 2011 edition. See an archive of the lecture programme on archive.org Go now.).

2011 February

Parallax Art Fair website and application is live on 2 February 2011. Over 500 applications are received.

2011 January

The first communication is sent to exhibitors on 25 January 2011. An archive of the original website from 19th February can be seen on archive.org. Go now. Please note, some images do not now exist.

2010 November

Parallax is held over 22-28 November at the Royal Opera Arcade, London, UK. Catalogue contributors are: Alun Munslow, Donald Preziosi, Paul Gladston and C G Barlow. See archives of 2009 website on archive.org Go now. Please note, some images do not now exist. See the original catalogue

2010 October

Second Parallax pre-exhibition held over 14-16 October at The Royal Society of Medicine, London, UK. A rare image of this installation can be seen in an archive from 2010 on archive.org. Go now.

2010 August

First Parallax pre-exhibition held over 8-10 August at the ROA Gallery, London, UK.

Get to Know Us

Make Money

Let Us Help You

Your Account
Your Orders
Shipping Rates & Policies
Returns & Replacements
Online Sellers
Submit your Music
Refer a Friend

PAF Gift Cards

Coming soon...
Parallax Gift Card FAQs