Though hardly the first event of the year, the Melbourne Art Fair marks the end of summer, a back to school for the art scene in the city. It’s a key time to take the temperature of the market, see what is in vogue (abstract expressionism always) and out of favour (photography, with two notable exceptions). The Melbourne Art Fair is not lowbrow, though I certainly felt I was wandering through opening night. 

Walking down High St, the gnarled hands in the window were my first clue I was in the right place. The second was the canary yellow paste-ups papering the side of the building. At 83 High St in Prahran, an old, abandoned office building has been transformed into an art-filled haven, office-standard concrete and carpet notwithstanding. The hands were simultaneously flipping me off and beckoning me in, and were a great taster for what I would find inside of the fair, which for 2026 is aptly titled “Lust for Life.” There was never a time in the show that any one artist’s practice could have been confused with another. The curation was such that each inclusion was singular, yet the works spoke to each other but never repeated what the other was saying. 

If you had told me I would be spending my Wednesday being offered glasses of champagne at the Windsor Hotel two weeks ago I don’t think I would have believed you. Alas sans champagne (for this review did not write itself) there I stood, ready to contend fully with a cornerstone of the Melbourne art calendar, the Spring1883 Art Fair. There are 35 galleries in this iteration of the fair, hailing mainly from Melbourne, but also Sydney, New Zealand, and Mildura. 

My day at Spring1883 began with Kate Barber (fair co-founder and co-director) giving us a rundown of the fair in the gorgeous Kalli Rolfe Contemporary suite, its history, and her view on how it runs every year. Learning about the limitations of the heritage listing of the location- no damage to the walls means an unhealthy dependence on command hooks- and her vehement views on a non-hierarchical structure gave me the needed background to fully appreciate the tenth iteration of the fair. Important to note is that the rooms differ in size, obviously with the larger ones going to more established galleries but not for virtue of name, simply because it allows for the fair to provide a sliding scale, allowing for more young galleries and ARIs (artist-run initiatives) to take part.