Inside the Frieze Art Fair on New York’s Randall’s Island, there’s a hotel with two beds so guests can sleep among the artworks for as much as US$375 a night.
A security guard will keep tabs on the slumber party to make sure no one is wandering around the white serpentine-tent housing 190 contemporary-art galleries from 28 countries. They can hang out in this art installation and watch hotel-themed films such as Grand Hotel, the 1932 Greta Garbo classic. Breakfast and dinner will be served.
The art world elite including billionaire collectors Eli Broad and Alice Walton are expected to converge today on the fair, a short car or ferry ride from Manhattan. Now in its third year, Frieze, which ends tomorrow, is cementing its role in New York as a hip marketplace for emerging and blue-chip art.
Photo: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton
Wealthy collectors can grab a US$2,000 cast bronze champagne corkscrew by emerging artist Chris Bradley or drop US$650,000 on a Donald Judd minimalist box. Frieze also commissioned surprising art projects like the sleepovers and organizing brainy talks, which this year will include a conversation between members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot and New Yorker editor-in-chief David Remnick.
“I always keep in mind it’s an art fair,” said Cecilia Alemani, who coordinated Frieze Projects, the site-specific artworks commissioned for the fair such as the Al’s Grand Hotel. “It’s not just collectors. People can listen to great talks or a concert or just enjoy an afternoon on the lawn.”
Auctions, Fairs
The fair coincides with two weeks of semi-annual auctions in New York, which are expected to sell as much as US$2.3 billion of art. It also anchors at least eight other art fairs including Pulse, New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) and mini-fairs Seven and Salon Zurcher.
Frieze, which started in 2003 in London, where it will hold its next edition in October, is considered one of the world’s three most important contemporary-art fairs, along with Art Basel in Switzerland in June and Art Basel Miami Beach in December.
“Most collectors believe it’s a must-see event,” said Wendy Cromwell, director of New York-based art advisory firm Cromwell Art LLC. “They have a really nice high-low strategy, with a good representation of high-end art and emerging art. It’s taken them three years to get to this point.”
Solo Shows
More than 20 galleries are dedicating their booths to solo artist presentations, ranging from American veteran Ed Ruscha at Gagosian gallery to emerging Brit Eddie Peake at Lorcan O’Neill.
New York’s Gladstone Gallery will show more than 200 drawings by Carroll Dunham created between 1979 and 2014. David Kordansky Gallery from Los Angeles is showing Sam Gilliam
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