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At Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center, NOMAD’s First U.S. Edition Found an Ideal Stage

From Emirati ceramics and Mexican craft traditions to a François-Xavier Lalanne Mouton, the presentations spanned continents, disciplines and centuries with uncommon dexterity.

There’s a constant across NOMAD editions: a spatial storytelling that turns curated showcases of art and design into contextualized narratives. From Monaco to St. Moritz, Capri to Abu Dhabi, NOMAD’s nomadic format has transformed unique historical locations into destinations for art, design and singular creation. Most of the creators exhibiting at the fair resist easy distinctions, embracing practices that move fluidly across categories and are often open to alternative systems of circulation, from special commissions to brand activations. For its U.S. debut, NOMAD could not have found a more suitable stage than Robert Wilson’s iconic Watermill Center, establishing a context-specific dialogue with the experimental, interdisciplinary nature of the center and the eclectic, multilayered collection Wilson gathered over the years, now housed in his apartment and across its spaces. “Robert Wilson created a place unlike any other, where theater, visual art, architecture, performance and experimentation coexist; that spirit feels remarkably aligned with NOMAD,” founder Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte told Observer in a recent interview.

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After Wilson’s passing last July, Bellavance-Lecompte chose to frame NOMAD’s inaugural U.S. edition as a deliberate homage to Wilson’s artistic legacy and his approach to human creative expression. Visiting the fair gave one access to Wilson’s world: intimate guided tours of his apartment revealed a singular, encyclopedic and anthropologically attuned approach to collecting, with no distinction between high and low—an ethos perfectly reflected in his scenographies, his stagings and the curation of his everyday life.

Admittedly, NOMAD Hampton’s opening day felt more like an industry-centered gathering of design-world insiders, joined by a few curious locals, but the fair grew busier over the weekend as New Yorkers began arriving from the city. The more than 30 exhibitors presenting in the special venue were split evenly between American and international galleries, with most coming from Europe, where the NOMAD brand is already well established, and the Middle East, where it launched last year in the decommissioned Terminal 1 of Abu Dhabi’s Zayed International Airport.

Ascending Robert Wilson’s monumental staircase, visitors were welcomed by an enveloping rope installation by Emirati artist Afra Al Dhaheri—a simultaneous act of symbolic and physical embodiment and disembodiment, tracing an ever-evolving sensory and emotional relationship with the space. The installation is part of “Rooted Movements,” a capsule showcase presented in collaboration with the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi, which brings together three Emirati women artists: Al Dhaheri, Zuhoor Al Sayegh and Azza Al Qubaisi. Organized in separate clusters, Al Sayegh and Al Qubaisi’s bodies of work engage with the notion of inherited knowledge through materials and handmaking, considering how identities, materials and cultural knowledge travel across distance while remaining connected to their origins. Al Sayegh’s ceramic sculptures draw from the life cycle of the date palm, particularly the offshoot that separates from the mother tree to establish roots of its own. Al Qubaisi’s works abstract forms from the natural world, translating layering, growth and evolution into sculptural meditations on identity, memory and place as a living process shaped by adaptation and exchange.

Moving through the space, visitors encountered established names in the design world, including London-based Gallery FUMI, which presented work by a globally diverse group that included Rowan Mersh, Shinta Nakajima, Jeremy Anderson, Jesse Schlesinger, Kobina Adusah, Voukenas Petrides, Charlotte Kingsnorth, JAMESPLUMB, Francesco Perini, Max Lamb, Lukas Wegwerth with Corinna Dehn, Sam Orlando Miller, Glithero and Johannes Nagel. Though it was the gallery’s first time in the Hamptons, they quickly understood why the area has such a strong community of collectors, architects and creatives, Valerio Capo told Observer. “Despite the challenges of exhibiting in such a unique site, we’ve had an exceptional response, particularly to works by our youngest artist, Ghanaian ceramicist Kobina Adusah, as well as Max Lamb, Jeremy Anderson and Lukas Wegwerth. We’ll leave with a real sense that this inaugural Hamptons edition has been a success, and we’d be delighted to return.”

Further on was veteran but newly reconceived art gallery Robilant, which brought some of the most expensive works on view, including two prime Andy Warhols, a large mirror by Pistoletto and delightful Fontana ceramics, alongside more design-oriented gems, including the glass creations of Tristano di Robilant and one of François-Xavier Lalanne’s iconic and highly sought-after Moutons. Coming from a Greek collection where it had been held for years, it was priced at $400,000—a fair figure,........

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