Palate Cleansers at Frieze NY

"Senior Editor Valentina Di Liscia, who visited Frieze New York last week, likens visiting the behemoth fair to "scarfing down an assembly-line chopped salad in a drab Sweetgreen." Still, she encountered several works that pulled her out of the white-cube monotony and into worlds of lush canopies, diaphanous portraiture, and ancestral gardens."

"There was plenty to dazzle the patrons of the Nouveau Gilded Age at this year's edition of the Park Avenue Armory fair. Though smaller than previous editions, the contemporary African art fair draws our attention to works that are tactile, surprising, and alive with material expression."

"As it settles into a sprawling new venue on the Lower East Side waterfront, the fair feels older, glossier, and increasingly global. Instead of presenting a series of segmented gallery booths, the New York show fosters connections between them."

"We also remember Austrian artist Valie Export, who died last Thursday at age 85. Critic Olivia McEwan looks back on her radical life and decades of guerrilla performance that paved the way for future generations of irreverent, feminist artists."

Frieze New York was compared to eating assembly-line chopped salad, yet it produced moments that broke the monotony of a trade-show atmosphere. Visitors encountered lush canopies, diaphanous portraiture, and ancestral gardens. Other NYC fairs and events provided additional dispatches from Future Fair, 1-54, and TEFAF. Park Avenue Armory featured Nouveau Gilded Age patrons with tactile, surprising contemporary African art and material expression. Coverage also noted zany sculptures and assemblages, shiny abstracted forms, and kitschy vibrancy. The Lower East Side waterfront venue was described as older, glossier, and increasingly global, with connections fostered between gallery booths. Valie Export, an Austrian performance artist, was remembered for radical life and decades of guerrilla performance that advanced irreverent feminist artists.

Read at Hyperallergic