Frieze New York is back with 60 galleries from 27 countries, once again led by Frieze’s Director of Americas, Christine Messineo. This year’s fair offers up some stunning solo booths (more on this below), a spate of striking work by women and a puzzling number of pink mirrors—“That’s very LA, this pink” a nearby fair-goer said, perhaps with some envy. One takeaway: the blue-chip galleries seem to pack the most punch this year.
Michael Rosenfeld Gallery revisits the legacy of Roe v. Wade (Booth D11)
Last year, decisions limiting a women’s choice over her own body loomed over the fair, and this edition of Frieze New York similarly showcases work exploring pressing topical issues. The gallery’s 1973 is a group exhibition featuring works created in the months leading up to and immediately following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.Head over to see Magdalena Abakanowicz’s vulva-shaped sculptural textile work, Kolo I (Orchidee I), and ponder the origins of life.
Women take center stage in Dastan Gallery (Booth D2)
The Tehran-based gallery is presenting work by five Iranian women artists: Behjat Sadr, Farideh Lashai, Farah Ossouli, Bita Fayyazi and Newsha Tavakolian. Ossouli’s standout David and I (2) subverts French revolutionary painter Jacques-Louis David’s rendition of the Roman myth of the Sabines, who are said to have been abducted and raped. Through similar poses, Oussouli’s painting takes on a different meaning through its subjects’ Persian traits and costumes. The women—depicted as heroes, not victims—intercede, plead and protect. Next to it, Tavakolian’s six-channel video from the series Listen shows the elevated intimacy of Iranian women. They sing in front of sequin backgrounds, as a transgression against their suppressed voices in their home countries.
Nan Goldin debut at Gagosian (Booth B6)
Impeccably curated presentations steal the show at Frieze New York 2023. Crowning these efforts is the impossible-not-to-love altar to Nan Goldin’s vision from Gagosian, a debut show a few weeks after the gallerist announced his representation of the famed artist-activist. It’s a significant improvement over last year’s gimmicky vending machine. Here, eight of Goldin’s grid works are on show, each with photographs exploring individual themes and the perception of color arranged in grids of gold, blue, red and other hues. Some of the photographs show distress, others absolute bliss. In a grid devoted to translucent veils (Veiled), Goldin juxtaposes classical paintings and contemporary photographs to question our evolving appreciation of beauty. The veil hides; it also enhances and charms. Single images make us “peep” at the lives of others—the voyeuristic impact heightened by sensual and sexual poses. The Instagram-like grid additionally invites the viewer to consider the daily curation of their existence on social media and the ambiguous authenticity of these moments.
David Kordansky Gallery presents the work of LA-based Lauren Halsey (Booth B1)
Rising stay Halsey recently unveiled her Met Museum Roof Garden commission with the eastside of south central los angeles hieroglyph prototype architecture (I). At Frieze, we have an opportunity to dive into Halsey’s Afrofuturistic psychic world of excesses. Her digital collages create visual saturation, a consumerist feeling augmented by hip-hop, Black culture and ancient Egyptian motifs—mouth grills over sphinxes, pyramids next to skateboarders and marching signs. She mixes archives and contemporary daily scenes to interrogate the familiarity of urban landscapes, spiritual longings and genealogies of love. It’s a chaotic mess of daring freedom.
Société’s solo presentation of Trisha Baga’s new works (Booth C7)
Société presents work that engages with cosmic infinity and the human interpretation of space imagery. As a “hoarder of images,” Baga is transfixed by the technological advances of the James Webb Space Telescope and the vastness captured in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Her paintings convey awe and the limitation of our comprehension. RENT shows a living room—a chair, coffee table with a beer bottle, the protruding two feet of a sleeping resident—superimposed over a celestial sky, countless stars and internet-related symbols, such as the Opera and Internet Explorer thumbnails. Through this jumbled juxtaposition, she interrogates reality and our relationship with virtual and cosmic “otherness.” Do we really know our surroundings?
Silverlens makes its fair debut (Booth B2)
The Manila gallery showcases the work of Filipino American modernist Carlos Villa (1936-2013), who inscribed Filipino art in history. A first retrospective of Villa’s work toured U.S. institutions last year. Now the gallery’s solo booth includes paintings and installation works spanning from the 1960s to 1990s, recalling Villa’s commitment to the civil rights movement and centering Filipino bodies and identity. American Immigration Policy (2 of 2) speaks vividly to discriminatory policies, stigmatization and the bureaucratic maze of immigrants of color. A door adorning black plumage is left ajar—enough to gaze at a possible future in the U.S. but not so wide as to let someone through.
Naudline Pierre at James Cohan (Booth B5)
Don’t miss Pierre’s haunting escapes, which often look consumed by fire. Angels or demons, we’re not quite sure. In fact, they are both and neither. The Only Way Out Is In engages with curiosity and transcendence. An intrepid character is pulled to another world, as several other figures look on. In yellow, pink and blue-green hues, An Invocation shows a winged figure that seems to extirpate itself from fire—as if invincible and paving the way for others. Her creatures chart new paths.
The Frieze ‘Focus’ galleries (second floor)
Here, you’ll find several single-artist presentations organized by younger galleries. Brazil-based Mitre Galeria highlights invisible worlds in the presentation of Marcos Siqueira’s works featuring earth-toned pigments extracted from the soil of Minas Gerais applied to wood. What we see are faceless characters exploring a minimalist world in which light holds mystical properties. The sun contains the image of Saint George slaying a dragon. A torchlight reveals truth from under the sea.
Also in the Focus section, Barro presents Mónica Giron’s Patagonian-inspired works. With a work on paper and merino wool creations, Giron’s trousseau for Patagonian birds underline their absence and our lack of care toward an endangered habitat. Elsewhere, Rose Salane’s six-part Confessions shown by Carlos/Ishikawa playfully discusses the repatriation of historical objects in a series of sorry letters. In them, people confess to having taken from and returned fragments to the archaeological site of Pompei while on vacation. May we see more of this, in the real world.
Frieze New York is on view at The Shed through May 21.
