KAMIAR’S MONTHLY REPORT

The Vision and Justice Project at Frieze New York

This year’s fair had a theme: The Vision and Justice Project, which sparks conversation on the art's role in understanding race and citizenship in the US.

The fair was split over three floors and a large percentage of the galleries represented were from New York. Many highlights of Frieze included the booths of Gagosian with Rachael Feinstein and Eva Juszkiewicz, Chateau Shatto who presented Zeinab Saleh, the hard-working Mendes Wood with their fabulous booth of Vojtech Kovarik, Solange Pessoa, Pauo Monteiro and more. Gordon Robichaux showed Otis Houston Jr and Company Gallery represented Wang Shui.

Mitchell–Innes & Nash’s and Esther Schippers’ collaboration booth also was a treat. It shows that collaborations in times like this can work.

Annette Messenger at Marian Goodman Gallery showed a spookier tale to installation work. Karon Davis at Wilding Cran showcased a set of sculptural portraits rendering in white plaster and others on pedestals and encased in blue acrylic cases. All in all, it was a fabulous event, and we congratulate the team for pulling off such a master stroke.

In and around New York City there were some tremendous shows happening at museums, botanical gardens and of course galleries.

Gerhard Richter showed his Cage Paintings at Gagosian, William de Kooning at Matthew Marks Gallery, Francois Ghebaly opened his exhibitions pace in NYC with a show on the subject of the body, its porosity and vulnerability, with work by Christine Sun Kim and Cassi Namoda. There also were works by Patrick Jackson and a favourite of mine, Neil Beloufa.

Nan Goldin showed at Marian Goodman Gallery, Huma Baba at Salon 94 and Kristi Cavataro at Ramiken. Louis Fratino persented at Sikemma Jenkins, and VOLTA New York alumni artist Doreen Gardner at JTT Gallery.

In regard to the museum shows that were happening around Frieze, the most notable ones were Kusama’s take over of the Botanical Gardens with her pumpkin and flower sculptures.

Nikki De St Phales, one of the first artists I remember seeing as a young boy in Munich, has a fabulous show at Moma PS1 with over 200 works on view including sculptures, drawings and films this is a must visit show. Kaws What Party shows his first survey of his work it includes rare graffiti work at Broooklyn Museum until early September.

The New Museum presented Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America. ARTECHOUSE, the nation’s first innovative digital art space dedicated to showcasing the work of groundbreaking artists who use technology to create art shows Geometric Properties, an immersive audio-visual journey through fractional dimensions and the first solo exhibition of Dutch artist Julius Horsthuis in New York. The Met Museum shows the first museum retrospective of American artist Alice Neel in New York in twenty years: Alice Neel: People Come First.

Highlights of VOLTA galleries around the city during Frieze Art Week included:

A restaging of Hermann Nitsch’s first solo exhibition, “Bayreuth Stories”, at Slag Gallery in partnership with Galerie RX and parallel to Nitsch’s solo exhibition at RX’s Paris space. Concurrent with Nitsch’s show, Slag debuted new colorful outdoor sculptures by Ben Godward, the American artist who notably sawed and sold one of his looming pigmented urethane sculptures “by the kilo” at Slag’s booth at VOLTA Basel 2015.

C24 Gallery was showing innovative ceramic works by Brendan Lee Satish Tang, Hinrich Kröger, and Steven Montgomery, and the gallery extended its viewing period into the summer. Other VOLTA alumni galleries elected to showcase solo artists at their spaces, such as Otis Jones at Marc Straus Gallery, Jim Peters at Ethan Cohen New York, Jerry Kearns at Frosch & Co, Alyse Rosner at Rick Wester Fine Art (part of the gallery’s curated project for VOLTA New York 2020), and Francie Hester at Susan Eley Fine Art, following the gallery’s presentation of Hester’s “Daily Drawing Series – 40 Days” at VOLTA New York 2020.

Plus, VOLTA alumni artist Tariku Shiferaw, who exhibited with VOLTA in 2019 with the support of Alaina Simone Inc., enjoyed “It’s a love thang, it’s a joy thang”, his debut solo exhibition with Galerie Lelong & Co, which had viewing hours through the fair week.

Text: Kamiar Maleki and Brian Fee, images: Nathan Clements-Gillespie

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