I first came to Marseille in 2022 to visit London artist Charlie Warde, who had relocated here just before covid. We were planning an application to the Edition & Design section of Art-O-Rama with an interactive and disruptive project which surely would be too out there for an art fair. It wasn’t and I came back with collectors, supporters and most importantly a mentor in the art world, in the person of the fair’s director Jérôme Pantalacci. I am not alone in this experience. Over the last three years I have fallen in love with the spirit of this fair, which has been shaped by Jérôme and the team he has built around him, who genuinely understand and nurture young galleries – and this is something I have heard consistently from the other gallerists I have met there.
At the time I ran a research space in an industrial warehouse in London where I was focused on production – a position diametrically opposed to the market-facing role of commercial galleries, selling at fairs. However Jérôme understood my vision and for the following three iterations of the fair found a way to include and support my position with radically curated projects, in the always buzzing Editions section. I was not alone. One of the first friendships I made at the fair was with Davide Bertocchi – artist, academic, and one of the drivers behind the superb artist-led initiative More Projects. They too had set up an unconventional booth, using a sort of lucky dip format, toying with the commercial principle of the art fair and positioning between fair and fayre.
I participated in Art-O-Rama Edition & Design in 2022, 2023 and 2024 with ever wilder projects, which took editioned work as a departure point for installation and performance, always with the fair’s support and encouragement. In that time I watched as a number of young London galleries were appearing downstairs in the Galleries section. I saw how pivotal Art-O-Rama was to their careers, as many of them took off swiftly after. I saw Ginny on Frederic (then still in its fabled sandwich shop in Farringdon), first in the online section of the fair in 2022 (the ‘Immaterial Salon’) and then met Freddie with Alex Margo Arden in 2023. This year Ginny debuted at Art Basel and Alex Margo Arden was chosen as one of three top breakthrough artists at the Sky Arts Awards. In 2024 I saw Public Gallery return with a smashing solo booth by Bulgarian artist Stefania Batoeva, while I was there for my third time, in partnership with Bulgaria’s two most exciting art spaces – Punta Gallery and Posta Space. That was also the debut year for Deptford galleries Xxijra Hii and Studio Chapple – two frontline new galleries in London, operating from Resolution Way, where I had started my own journey a decade before.
After closing my five year research and residency space in London in August 2024, I opened my first gallery, in Sofia, in March of this year. I already knew I wanted to return to Art-O-Rama, this time as a gallery. The moment could not have been more special for my debut at the Galleries section of the fair. In 2025 Art-O-Rama marked 20 years since the passing away of its founder, the mythical Roger Pailhas, who really founded the Marseille art scene with his 1996 gathering of hot young talent at the cheekily named ‘Art Dealers’ – the predecessor to what is now Art-O-Rama. I was two booths up from the tribute booth to Pailhas, curated by Gabrielle Bryars, an important 80s New York gallerist, from Marseille and erstwhile “partner in crime” of Roger Pailhas. The booth reunited eight galleries who began their careers at Art Dealers twenty years ago, including Galleria Continua, Esther Schipper and Mennour – monumental names to any fresh faced gallerist opening a space today and a testament to the role of Art-O-Rama as a place that continues to recognise early talent.
The British Invasion at Art-O-Rama once again this year continued apace, reflecting the truly happening young scene that has been bubbling and boiling in London post Covid. Xxijra Hii and Louis Chapple returned with a strong three way collaboration with local Marseille gallery Double V. Last year Xxijra Hii and Louis Chapple’s presentation of Hannah Morgan and Hoa Dung Clerget respectively, was a personal highlight. And this year they did not disappoint, with superb new work by David Micheaud (whom I had seen and loved at Xxijra Hii’s Deptford space), Julie Maurin, Louise Oates and Elvire Bonduelle. I particularly appreciated seeing a large sculptural installation in their booth (by Oates) – sculpture is a choice requiring substantial effort and investment by a gallery showing internationally and a meaningful stand from Xxijra Hii behind their artist.
There was another outstanding debut by much talked about young London gallery Neven, with artist H M Baker. Baker’s prints on carpet tiles and clock faces, speak about “systems of power” and labour. A sleek minimal installation left an entire wall empty to platform a cool performance by Marseille musician dan a.
The highlight of the fair was a debut by Season 4 Episode 6 with David Attwood – which won the Roger Pailhas Award, given each year for the most daring curation at the fair. Attwood’s striking installation of vacuum rods cum distended Red Bull cans, bristling from the concrete floor of the booth, were the kind of exhibition-like presentation that I have come to love Art-O-Rama for.
Together with Alice Amati (showing Rike Droescher and Annabel Agbo Godeau) and Soup (showing Alia Hamaou), London was represented in 5 of the 35 gallery booths at the fair, perhaps 6 if Cable Depot’s London roots count. It really was a home away from home and a space to discover our own London scene in Marseille.
Art-O-Rama was from the first and continues to be the highlight of my calendar as a gallerist, because they support experimentation, through prizes that reward risk and an open minded approach to what is possible at a fair. Point in case is my own journey this year, with director Jérôme Pantalacci encouraging me to take a leap of faith with a politically relevant, institutionally oriented installation proposal by Gabriela Löffel, obliquely critiquing the Art Fair with video work about an Arms Fair. Art-O-Rama is a place where this kind of stance can be taken by an artist and a gallery, and was recognised by curator Massimiliano Maglione with a Special Mention at the “BECAUSE OF MANY SUNS” Prize. Just one of the prizes at the fair which help gallerists to take the kind of daring decisions that make this the most interesting gathering of galleries I know.
For me Art-O-Rama and Marseille have become an essential part of my programme planning and I look forward to many more years of genuine passion from gallerists and art which continues to surprise me.
Words Iavor Lubomirov
(B. 1978 Sofia, L. London) is the owner of Cable Depot gallery in Sofia, Bulgaria (founded March 2025). From 2019 to 2024 he ran a research and residency space from a warehouse in SE London, following on from more than a decade of experience in the non-profit art sector. @cable_depot
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- Alia Hamaoui
- Alice Amati
- Annabel Agbo Godeau
- Art-o-rama
- Art-O-Rama 2025
- Charlie Warde
- dan a
- David Attwood
- David Micheaud
- Davide Bertocchi
- Double V
- Elvire Bonduelle
- Esther Schipper
- Gabriela Löffel
- Galleria Continua
- Ginny on Frederic
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- Julie Maurin
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- Louise Oates
- Massimiliano Maglione
- Neven
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- Public Gallery
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- Roger Pailhas
- Season 4 Episode 6
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