In just two short years, Frieze has quickly become the gold standard for art fairs in New York. Its soaring white tent offers the best visitor experience by far, with an abundance of bright airy light and wider aisles that lessen the feeling of being cramped into an endless rabbit warren. While too much time in any fair can generate sensory fatigue, a wandering amble through the booths at Frieze is about as good as it gets for all-in-one smorgasbord fair going.
Photography-wise, Frieze offers an almost perfect foil to the AIPAD photography fair. While there isn’t a single photography specialist booth on the map here, photographs are on display in abundance, with work on view from the top contemporary art galleries and lesser known venues from all over the world. For those interested in photography, Frieze becomes like a kind of treasure hunt, where each booth needs to be scoured for photographs that might be hiding somewhere. Since the photographs are not isolated out in a special section, they are seen in the messy, chaotic context of everything else that is going on in contemporary art, which provides some refreshing juxtapositions and unexpected visual connections. It’s an energetic, exciting slice of the medium.
This report is divided into five sections of image highlights. I have consciously avoided selecting works that have recently been on view in New York gallery shows or that I have already reviewed in another context, instead opting for fresh images new to the market or surprising finds from the past. Gallery names/links are followed by the artist/photographer name, the price of the work (in a dizzying array of currencies), and some notes and comments as appropriate. The booths are organized in my path through the fair, beginning at the South entrance.
Page through the slideshow to see each image and its supporting information.
Continue to Part 2 here.
