Inside the Frieze Tent at Frieze New York 2014 (photo by Jillian Steinhauer for Hyperallergic)
Have you finally recovered from Armory Week? Are you ready to do it all again? Too bad, because it’s Frieze Week in New York City! This year’s lineup features one exhibition and eight fairs — three of which are making their New York debuts — spread between Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Randall’s Island, where Frieze New York and its 200 exhibitors await. For those trying to make sense of it all, here is our primer on all the fairs, including notable special projects, talks, performances, and panels.
Also, don’t forget to follow Hyperallergic on Instagram for pics from the fairs all week.
1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair
When: May 15–17 / Friday, Saturday: 12–8pm; Sunday: 12–6pm ($10)
Where: Pioneer Works (159 Pioneer Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn)
Far and away the most interesting addition to this year’s Frieze Week lineup, the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair is bringing 15 galleries either based in Africa or that specialize in African contemporary art to Pioneer Works. Among the former will be Art Twenty One from Lagos, Afronova from Johannesburg, and Marrakech’s VOICE Gallery.
The London-based fair’s first New York outing also includes an impressive schedule of panels and talks, among them a discussion between artists Hank Willis Thomas and Lyle Ashton Harris on the importance of the term “diaspora” to their practices (May 15, 4:15pm) and a panel on the importance of “cultural specific curating” at major institutions that will feature Christa Clarke from the Newark Museum, Thomas J. Lax from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and Franklin Sirmans from Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) (May 16, 1:15pm).
Art Miami New York
When: May 14–17 / Thursday: 5–9pm; Friday, Saturday: 12–8pm; Sunday: 12–6pm ($25)
Where: Pier 94 (55th Street and West Side Highway, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan)
If you’re experiencing Armory Week withdrawal and looking for an excuse to trek back to the Hudson River piers, Art Miami New York — which boasts the most geographically confusing art fair name since Paris Photo Los Angeles — is the fair for you. It is bringing 100 galleriesto Pier 94, most of them from Europe and North America, as well as a handful of outliers from Uruguay (Piero Atchugarry), Bogota (Galería Casa Cuadrada), Hong Kong (AP Contemporary), and elsewhere.
Art Miami New York’s schedule of talks and panels will be particularly compelling for those interested in the art world’s commercial side. It includes a talk by collector and art financier Asher Edelman on the use of art in real estate developments (May 15, 3pm) and a panel on art collector faux pas (May 16, 3pm).
Collective Design
When: May 13–17 / Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday: 11am–8pm; Friday: 11am–9pm; Sunday: 11am–5pm ($25)
Where: Skylight Clarkson Sq (550 Washington Street, West Village, Manhattan)
A presentation at the 2014 Collective Design fair (photo by Sarah Archer for Hyperallergic)
Frieze Week’s lone design fair — whose “design council” features designers, architects, and Oscar-winner Julianne Moore — Collective Design boasts 29 galleries specializing in everything from 20th century modern furniture (New York’s BAC and Stockholm’s Modernity), jewelry (New Jersey’s Gallery Loupe and Hudson’s Ornamentum), Mexican modernism (ADN Galería), silver (Madrid’s Garrido Gallery), and modern and contemporary children’s design (New York’s kinder MODERN).
The fair’s special programming includes an exhibition by the lighting designer Ingo Maurer, a special section devoted to Italian design and its global impact on the field, and a site-specific installation curated by Noguchi Museum Senior Curator Dakin Hart. Notable talks and tours include a walkthrough of the fair with Museum of Arts and Design director Glenn Adamson (May 14, 2pm), a talk on the function of nostalgia in contemporary jewelry design (May 16, 11:30am), and a panel on the intersections of craft and digital design (May 16, 4pm).
Flux Art Fair
When: May 14–17 / Thursday–Saturday: 11am–8pm; Sunday: 11am–6pm ($20)
Where: Corn Exchange Building (81 East 125th Street, East Harlem, Manhattan)
Another one of this year’s Frieze Week newcomers, the Flux Art Fair foregoes galleries to match up artists and curators. Its inaugural lineup features 57 artists including Willie Cole, Lina Puerta, Sol Sax, Ai Campbell, Ivan Forde, and others. The curators include New York Foundation for the Arts’s David C. Terry, No Longer Empty founder and chief curator Manon Slome, and RaúI Zamudio, one of the co-curators of the 2013 El Museo del Barrio biennial.
Frieze New York
When: May 14–17 / Thursday–Saturday: 11am–7pm; Sunday: 11am–6pm ($44)
Where: Randall’s Island Park (Randall’s Island)
With just under 200 galleries split into four sectors — the main fair, the Spotlight section for solo booths, the Frame section for galleries established since 2007 showing one artist’s work, and the Focus section for galleries founded in or since 2003 — Frieze New York is a monster fair. Luckily it is also sited on a verdant stretch of Randall’s Island inside an airy and bright tent and boasts the best food and drink options of any art fair this side of the Atlantic.
This year’s Projects program of site-specific interventions includes a recreation of the “Flux-Labyrinth,” a 200-foot-long labyrinth originally conceived by George Maciunas and other Fluxus artists in 1975, a subterranean environment by Samara Golden, and secret interrogation rooms peppered throughout the fair in which Aki Sasamoto will conduct personality tests on visitors. The highlight of the program of talks and panels is a discussion between Studio Museum in Harlem director Thelma Golden and outgoing Brooklyn Museum director Arnold Lehman (May 15, 4pm) in which they’ll attempt to answer the question: “Whom do museums serve?”
NADA New York
When: May 14–17 / Thursday: 6–8pm; Friday, Saturday: 11am–7pm; Sunday: 11–5pm (free)
Where: Pier 36, Basketball City (299 South Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan)
Looking down on NADA New York 2014 (photo by Hrag Vartanian for Hyperallergic)
The week’s second-biggest fair, NADA New York‘s 2015 edition features 106 exhibitors —76 of them with traditional booths, 30 of them presenting solo projects. In addition to the usual set of Lower East Side galleries (Nicelle Beauchene, Callicoon Fine Arts, Regina Rex, Essex Flowers, etc.) there will be plenty of out-of-towners, including Detroit’s What Pipeline, Rome’s UNOSUNOVE, Dubai’s Carbon 12, and Springsteen from Baltimore.
The fair’s lineup of talks and performances includes a lecture and slideshow by artist Joshua Smith titled “You inspire me with Your determination And I Love You, Tracey Emin!” (May 15, 2pm) and the intriguingly titled panel “Cloud Based Institutional Critique” with Orit Gat , Zachary Kaplan, and Mike Pepi (May 16, 12pm). Perhaps most intriguing, however, is Melissa Brown and Where’s project “Eyes in the Sky Hold ‘Em,” a high-stakes poker game to be held off-site and streamed live at the fair in which artists will wager their own works in a winner-takes-all Texas Hold ‘Em tournament.
Salon Zürcher
When: May 11–17 / Monday 5–8pm; Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday: 12–8pm; Wednesday: 12–4pm; Sunday: 12–5pm (free)
Where: Zürcher Gallery (33 Bleecker Street, SoHo, Manhattan)
The 10th edition of the little fair that could, Salon Zürcher, features six galleries: Galerie L’Inlassable, Mathias Coullaud, and Isabelle Gounod from Paris; Cathouse FUNeral from Brooklyn; Amsterdam outfit The Merchant House; and hosts Zürcher Gallery. Expect a range of works and media, from an installation by Tim Simonds (courtesy Cathouse FUNeral) to paintings by Regina Bogat (from Zürcher Gallery), and drawings by Anne Deleporte (shown byGalerie L’Inlassable).
Select Art Fair
When: May 14–17 / Thursday, Friday: 2–10pm; Saturday: 12–10pm; Sunday: 12–6pm ($20)
Where: Center 548 (548 West 22nd Street, Chelsea, Manhattan)
The entrance to the 2014 Select Art Fair (photo via)
The Select Art Fair has come a long way and seems poised to make the jump to a major satellite fair this year with its impressive lineup of 44 galleries — 19 of which hail from Brooklyn and will occupy their own floor of the fair — extensive schedules of rooftop musical performances, talks, and performance art. And if that doesn’t tickle your fancy, Rebecca Goyette’s “Dentata Umbrella Lounge” definitely will — metaphorically and actually.
Seven
When: May 13–17 / Wednesday–Sunday: 12–6pm (free)
Where: The Boiler (191 North 14th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn)
Don’t call it a fair, Seven is a collaborative exhibition organized by seven New York City galleries — bitforms, Metro Pictures, Momenta Art, Pierogi, Postmasters, PPOW, and Ronald Feldman — under the title Anonymity, no longer an option. Surveillance-themed works on view include pieces by Addie Wagenknecht, Trevor Paglen, Suzanne Treister, and Katarzyna Kozyra, though the main attraction is undoubtedly “The Prison Ship Martyr’s Monument 2.0, AKA The Snowden Statue” (2015), the sculpture bust of Edward Snowden that was illegally installed in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park last month.
Wow! Big time clamor and glamour. Run don’t walk to see it all. Room for everyone at the table.