The future of art fairs, according to many plucky, enterprising young gallerists, is to stop trying to think like a collector and start thinking like a human. “People don’t just want to buy art; they want to experience something,” insists Jonny Tanna, the founder and director of London’s edgy Harlesden High Street gallery. “The big fairs, in my opinion, are too quiet. There’s no energy. I’m trying to set a tone so others follow suit.”
Tanna’s tone has so far been defined by his distinctly punk aesthetic—one that blends raw energy with social conscience. His programming spotlights fresh, cutting-edge talent like Savannah Harris, Toby CATO Grant, Rachel Jones, Alvaro Barrington, and Mandy El-Sayegh, and it’s grounded in a knack for community-building and mutual aid. His first gallery began as a support group for domestic-violence survivors, and he continues to collaborate with rehabilitation programs for formerly incarcerated people. Throughout, Tanna has remained committed to championing artwork by people of color, and for three years he operated the only artist-run Black residency in London.
Since 2023, during London’s marquee art week in October, Tanna debuted the experimental art fair Minor Attractions at The Mandrake Hotel. The event seduced art lovers with the promise of a “non-fair”—which, in practice, meant unconventional booth curation, live performances, and a refreshingly anti-establishment spirit. The inaugural edition was a hit, and this year, Minor Attractions nearly doubled in scale. Tanna’s success with the boutique fair has solidified his name within the international art market, marking him as both an innovator and a provocateur in the contemporary scene.
Thus, he was tapped by Untitled Art to curate the Nest section of the upcoming fair in Miami Beach. Nest, which was launched for the 10th edition of the Miami Beach fair in 2021 and imagined in response to the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the gallery sector, offers a suite of emerging galleries a progressive pricing system as a means to bring Untitled Art’s global audience to engage with emerging galleries that may not emphasize commercial gains.
“I want to bring culture to places that are missing the countercultural energy the art world used to have,” Tanna explained. “Right now, that spirit lives in indie spaces. For collectors, the key is to create an environment that draws them in. Otherwise, it’s just the same cycle—Miami, Paris, Basel—without any feeling. If a fair offers something different, with real flavor, that attracts attention. I’d like to see galleries tap into real culture again, not just the market. Collectors can only buy so many paintings.”
Harlesden High Street’s popularity and growth is a living testament to Tanna’s assertion. This fall, it was announced that the gallery was moving into the tony Mayfair neighborhood to grow into a larger space shared with German gallery Setareh. The move didn’t compromise Tanna’s vision, however, as he told ARTnews: It’s not about suddenly becoming a Mayfair gallery. It’s about keeping quality high without getting trapped in the commercial cycle,” he said. “When you get stuck doing commercial shows nonstop, your quality dips, and you end up in debt to your own inventory. I never want that.”
Tanna found his way into London’s art scene through a kind of back door—at a low point in his life, while struggling with a gambling addiction. One night, a friend invited him to a film screening at a local pub, where an experimental film struck him with unexpected force. There, he met the event’s organizer, Hank Targowski—formerly a producer for Lee “Scratch” Perry—who became an early mentor. Targowski invited Tanna to help organize his underground festivals, which grew so popular they eventually migrated to a gallery space.
Not long after they began working together, Targowski passed away from lung cancer, leaving Tanna to carry on their creative project alone. That loss became a turning point. He threw himself into the art world full-time, stumbling upon his first gallery space in a derelict antique shop and becoming a real estate intern, which led him to open shop in London's West End. “That’s how it all began,” he says. “I paid off my debts, got my life together, and found a purpose. Art genuinely saved my life.”
Since then, Harlesden High Street has become a fixture on London’s experimental edge, known for its unpolished spirit and sense of community. This year, Tanna is taking that energy abroad for the first time, bringing his audacious vision for the art market to Miami’s marquee art week. Each Nest exhibitor, from London to Seoul to Sao Paulo, has been invited for its grassroots ethos and capacity to generate dialogue; many are showing at a fair of this scale for the first time, while others are making their US debut. Through this experimental structure, Tanna aims to model what a fair could look like when its core value is generative collaboration, bringing to the table emerging galleries.
“We have participants like John Doe Studio, Bolanle Contemporary, Alyssa Davis Gallery, and Studio/Chapple—spaces that haven’t shown at any major art fair before,” Tanna said proudly. “This will be their first time.”
To Tanna, the problem endemic to the art market right now isn’t a crisis of economy but a crisis of imagination. The fairs have become predictable, he argues—too polished, too safe, too focused on liquidity over risk. The galleries he has curated into the Nest section are meant as an antidote: scrappy, inventive spaces that value experimentation over market logic.
“Despite the cost-of-living crisis and how expensive it’s become to operate, galleries still rely on fairs to meet collectors and keep their programs alive,” he said. The money will follow this spirit of experimentation, he argues. Tanna is betting on the long-term appeal of authenticity over convention by creating in-roads for the risk-taking and underrepresented. “I think once they see someone like me—someone outside the mainstream art world—curating this section, they will want to be involved.”
Tanna’s curatorial approach mirrors the story of his life, his gallery, and the art fair he founded: each is driven by a restless urge to rebuild, to test boundaries, and to reinvent what already exists. From his perspective, art’s real power lies not in prestige or capital, but in its ability to surprise itself, and to draw from what’s been discarded. This year in Miami Beach, Untitled Art will embrace this spirit put forth by Tanna and his various ventures, erecting a fair that celebrates the noisy, the unpredictable, and the alive.
Annie Armstrong is a writer and reporter based out of New York City. She has been on staff with Artnet News since 2021, when she was brought on to helm "Wet Paint", a weekly gossip column of original scoops about the glamorous and largely unregulated art industry. In addition to the column, Armstrong writes profiles and features that illustrate the personalities and power plays which shape the art world by combining insider access with cultural commentary. Her writing has also appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine, GQ, and other leading publications. Armstrong was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia and studied journalism at Emerson College in Boston.