James Fuentes

About the Gallery
Since 2007, James Fuentes has championed a gallery program that is led first by exceptional contemporary artists who are atypical from the conventions of their field. The gallery has become known for its focus on humanity, history, and society with a non-exclusionary approach, positioning itself as a leader in the field as our contemporary institutions seek to do the same. In the spring of 2023 the gallery opened an outpost in the Melrose Hill neighborhood of Los Angeles.

About the Presentation
James Fuentes will debut at Independent with a group presentation featuring work by Izzy Barber, Oscar yi Hou, Hannah Lee, Keegan Monaghan, and Stipan Tadić. The presentation is shaped by the artists' shared experience of living and working in New York. Each artist draws visual inspiration from the city’s density, rhythms, and cultural layering, translating its social and architectural textures into distinct artistic languages. For many of them, New York is also experienced through the lens of migration, inflecting their work with questions of displacement, belonging, and adaptation. Taken together, their practices reflect the city not as a singular image, but as a lived, continually shifting environment, one that is both formative and contested, and deeply embedded in their daily lives.