By Zoë Lescaze 5/10 2:55pm

Frieze New York 2013

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Andrea Bowers Letters Disappear Overnight from Susanne Vielmetter Frieze Booth

When the staff of Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects arrived at their Frieze New York booth this morning, they found a string stretched across the entrance and certain items missing. Artist Andrea Bowers, who became uncomfortable participating in the art fair after learning that certain unions were protesting its labor policies, asked the two galleries showing her work to display a letter alongside the pieces explaining her position.  Read More

By Zoë Lescaze 5/10 3:45am

Frieze New York 2013

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A detail of Tom Friedman, Circle Dance (2010), which is made out of baking sheets cast in stainless steel.

Balloon Beasts, Rubber Tongues, Metal Men Abound on Tom Eccles’s VIP Sculpture Park Tour

Any lingering storm clouds hanging over yesterday’s VIP preview of Frieze New York were thoroughly blasted away by 4 p.m., when bright sunlight glinted off Paul McCarthy’s Balloon Dog (2013), an 80-foot, cherry-colored sculpture created especially for the fair. “Paul has sexualized the dog,” said the rakish Tom Eccles, former Public Art Fund director and this year’s Sculpture Park curator, as he led a few card-carrying VIPs up to the gigantic piece. Mr. Eccles pointed to the anatomically suggestive shapes of the Koons-esque animal, though they didn’t need much identification. Now executive director of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard, Mr. Eccles briefly discussed his curatorial work on Mr. McCarthy’s upcoming installation at the Park Avenue Armory. He described “WS,” which stands for “White Snow” and opens June 19, as a “gory, horrifying tale of Paul McCarthy as Disney, as Hitler, in love with Snow White.” (Spoiler alert: Mr. McCarthy is eventually destroyed by the seven dwarves, but not before he engages in “a sexual frenzy” with them and Snow White.) Read More

By Zoë Lescaze 5/08 2:38pm

Frieze New York 2013

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Frieze Week 2013 Art Fair Cheat Sheet

While it’s safe to say that we’ll be spending most of Frieze Week at its namesake fair out on Randall’s Island, there are other fairs afoot. Here’s a guide to finding them.

FRIEZE NEW YORK: MAY 10–13
Frieze New York is returning to Randall’s Island with over 180 international exhibitors for its second edition. The big news here is that the mint green Wards Island Footbridge, which was inconveniently closed for construction last year, is now open, allowing (relatively) easy access to the island. If walking sounds wearisome (or wet given the weather forecast), there’s the Frieze ferry service, which runs every 15 minutes during fair hours from the 35th Street Ferry Dock on the East River and takes about 20 minutes (the $12.50 roundtrip tickets must be booked in advance). Alternatively, the Frieze bus service will pick you up outside the Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue between East 88th and 89th Streets, arriving approximately every 10 minutes during fair hours. The bus journey will take about 15 to 20 minutes according to the fair’s website, and roundtrip tickets cost $5.50 (they are also only available in advance).
Hours: May 7–12, 11 a.m.–7 p.m., May 13, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Admission: one day $42, students $26, one day + catalog $75. Read More

By Zoë Lescaze 5/08 1:15pm

Frieze New York 2013

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Raqs Media Collective, Waiting, 2013

Frieze New York Preview: Part 3

The image at left says it all—we are in the home stretch of the countdown to Frieze New York, which opens on May 10. (Those attending tomorrow’s VIP preview don’t have to wait quite as long.) Here is the final installment of our Frieze first look. The galleries included here hail from all corners of the art world, from South Africa’s Goodman Gallery to China-based Boers-Li Gallery. Some work hits very close to home, though, like Frank Heath’s video Asymptomatic Carrier (2013), which focuses on the defunct quarantine hospital on North Brother Island, next door neighbor of Randall’s Island. Read More

By Zoë Lescaze 5/07 2:25pm

Frieze New York 2013

Tino Seghal. (Courtesy Frize Foundation)

Tino Sehgal Piece on Deck at Marian Goodman’s Frieze Booth

Tino Sehgal, whose work often involves fleeting social encounters, will present Ann Lee (2011) at Marian Goodman Gallery’s Frieze New York booth. Gallery representatives have been understandably careful to avoid disclosing details, since his pieces tend to work best when visitors, who regularly become participants, don’t know too much going in. (The artist prohibits visual documentation of his work.)

Ann Lee, which was first performed at the 2011 Manchester International Festival, does not appear to hinge on audience participation as much as say, This Progress, his 2010 Guggenheim project, in which visitors engaged in conversations with various people while ascending the museum’s rotunda. Ann Lee reportedly involves a young girl personifying an eponymous manga character that French artists Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno purchased as material for artworks. The two have asked a number of artists to make art around the purple-haired teen over the years. (Looking forward to hearing what that’s been like for her.) Read More

By Zoë Lescaze 5/07 12:00pm

Frieze New York 2013

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Jack Early, Jack Early's Ear Candy Machine, 2009

Frieze New York Preview: Part 2

The countdown to Frieze New York continues, and it’s time to raise the curtain a little more with Part 2 of our preview. In this edition, mediums range from oil on canvas to astroturf on rubber, gold leaf to glass eyes. Get a taste of what’s to come when the fair opens May 10 in the slide show at left. Read More

By Zoë Lescaze 5/06 12:55pm

Frieze New York 2013

40 Photos

Joan Jonas, Mirror performance III, 1969

Frieze New York 2013 Preview: Part 1

It’s only a matter of days until the second edition of Frieze New York opens its doors, offering up another intoxicating long weekend of fine art and fine food, from May 10 to 13. (Invited guests arrive on May 9.) The more than 180 international exhibitors (some 20 percent more than the inaugural iteration) that are Read More

By Michael Woodsmall 5/07/12 5:21pm

Frieze New York 2012

(Courtesy Linda Nylind/ Frieze)

An Art Fair Virgin Visits Frieze

The yellow school bus zoomed up and over the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, through a ragged row of tired factories and lonely playing fields and past an eerily well-kept mini golf course before coming to a halt a stone’s throw from a massive white tent. There, I wavered under the damp East River breeze, anchored a few hundred yards off of Manhattan on Randall’s Island, for Frieze. The cultural Babylon seemed to be erected as a newfound art Mecca, one that the bespectacled Austrian across the aisle from me would now count among his yearly pilgrimages. The behemoth beckoned and we came. Read More