Close to Independent’s new venue Pier 36 is a thriving community of galleries, many of whom will exhibit at the fair for the first time this year. These include Spencer Brownstone Gallery, a groundbreaking space originally founded in Soho in 1998 and since reopened on the Lower East Side, which will present a curated exhibition of works by Mira Dayal, Jane South, and Jaime Pitarch at the fair. Another is David Peter Francis, which will show the 2026 Venice Biennale artist Carrie Schneider’s imperfectly exposed images on unwieldy lengths of paper hundreds of feet long that push photography into the realm of sculpture. Other nearby galleries making their Independent debut are Kiang Malingue, Superhouse, OSMOS, and Post Times while Uffner & Liu, MARCH, and Long Story Short will return to the fair this year, creating a strong local presence.