When the lights cut out at the first NADA fair in 2004, it felt like a glitch — but once power returned, the market caught fire. Riding the halo effect of Art Basel Miami Beach, NADA became the launchpad for a new generation of galleries whose once-scrappy operations were suddenly selling out to serious collectors. “We served ourselves up like tasty hors d’oeuvres on a silver platter, and collectors ate it up,” said Rebecca Smith of Bellwether, capturing the moment when emerging dealers pivoted from hustlers to gatekeepers. As Kavi Gupta put it, “I realized I should start putting the artist’s birth year on the labels” — a wry acknowledgment that, in Miami that year, youth wasn’t just part of the narrative, it was the commodity.
