This year’s pieces were selected by the DMA’s Interim Chief Curator, Dr. Nicole R. Myers; the museum’s Lupe Murchison Curator of Contemporary Art, Dr. Vivian Li; along with a group of museum donors. The six pieces, each purchased from a gallery participating in the fair, are works by Sarah Cain (BROADWAY), Johnny Floyd (Conduit Gallery), Danielle Mckinney (Night Gallery), Jordan Nassar (Anat Ebgi), Susan Weil (JDJ), and Carrie Yamaoka (Ulterior Gallery).

In a press release from the DMA and the fair, Li noted the diversity of the museum’s acquisitions:

“The works we have chosen from this year’s Dallas Art Fair demonstrate the DMA’s commitment to artists at all stages of their careers—from Johnny Floyd who began painting three years ago, to Susan Weil whose distinguished career spans over seventy years. A great number of works address the historical exclusion of female artists and perspectives, such as the arresting female gaze in Danielle McKinney’s contemplative self-portrait. Others, like the new works by Sarah Cain, Jordan Nassar, and Carrie Yamaoka, ingeniously blur the distinctions between fine art and craft, visibility and invisibility, and the nation and home to reassess the categories of nationality, race, gender, and medium.”

As has occasionally been the case in past years, this 2020 round of the program included a purchase from a local gallery: a painting by Detroit-based artist Johnny Floyd, from Conduit Gallery’s booth. Floyd currently has an exhibition on view at the gallery.

At a press conference announcing the acquisition, Myers noted that works the museum accessioned in past years of the program were recently on view in two exhibitions: To Be Determined in 2020, and Contemporary Art + Design: New Acquisitions from 2020-2021. She also noted that a piece the museum purchased through the fair by artist Matthew Wong is serving as inspiration for an upcoming museum project.

Donors to the 2021 Dallas Art Fair Foundation Acquisition Program include: Tricia and Gil Besing, Zoe Bonnette, Susan and Shawn Bonsell, Sheryl and Geoff Green, Dianne and Mark Laroe, Fraser and Rhonda Marcus, Cliff Risman, Linda and David Rogers, Richard Ronzetti, Gowri and Alex N.K. Sharma, Marlene and John Sughrue, and The Dallas Art Fair Foundation.