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Published 14/05/2017 PRINT
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Frieze New York 2017

The fairs extensive list of programmes and projects, including a symposium on Latin American art, performances and lms,
celebrated diversity by including domesticated others, but failed to deal with the reality of the world outside the tent

Randall's Island Park, New York

5-7 May 2017

by NATASHA KURCHANOVA

This years Frieze Art Fair in New York, now in its sixth edition, was, as always, an impressive undertaking. Located in a
temporary tent construction on Randalls Island Park on East River, which separates Manhattan and Queens, the fair could easily
have overwhelmed the unprepared visitor by the sheer quantity and variety of art on display. With more than 200 galleries from 31
countries participating, it left an impression of boundless excess and barely contained creative energy, limited only by the space of
the temporary construction that housed it and its short duration just three days. What struck me as I approached it on foot by way
of a pedestrian bridge was that this extravagant display of wealth and plenty was next door to Manhattan Psychiatric Center, a New
York state mental health facility that caters mostly for the citys poor and underprivileged, the majority of them black and Hispanic.
The fancy fair and the mental institution may have been neighbours in terms of location, but they were worlds apart in terms of
social stature and interaction. There was nothing within the fair that indicated the proximity of the hospital, or vice versa. This
glaring divide between the inside and the outside of the tent haunted me throughout the otherwise brilliant display of highly
selective art from around the globe. Guided by this sense of a gap, I was trying to nd traces of that divide, which did not t in
with the clamouring business of visual stimulation.

It was not an easy task, although not entirely hopeless. Of course, there were many thematic and visual references to poverty and
exclusion that were framed by the discourse of art history as in a metal construction by Jannis Kounellis [who died in February
this year] that combines a hard-edged steel-cast minimalist frame with multicoloured rags of Arte Poveraat White Cube, for
example;or in a an arresting display of Sadie Bennings drawings made of wood, Aqua-Resin, casein and acrylic gouache with
motifs reminiscent of African textilesat Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects; or works about otherness framed by the formerly
excluded, or on their behalf as in a display from the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg, South Africa; or Andres Serranos
unforgettable photographs of notable gures in American pop culture, such as his portrait of Snoop Dogg (America) (2002) placed
next to that of Donald Trump, on view at Galerie Nathalie Obadia. Otherness as a gap, however as something that was not
appropriated as a symbol, but that could be sensed only obliquely as an oddity and a strange discomfort that we are reluctant to
face existed only in a handful of works, some of them installations that included at least two objects and some digital media
work. Foremost among them was Anish Kapoors Void, a large hollow semi-sphere made of breglass and painted in a deep shade
of velvety red in combination with his Mirror Glow (Oriental Blue), a concave mirror made of stainless steel and positioned across
Void on the opposite wall in such a way that a viewer looking in the mirror could notice the other works reection, while not
seeing their own. The resulting sense of displacement and loss of ones body is uncanny, to say the least. Were it not for the
surrounding crowd, the disorientation and unease arising from not seeing ones reection in the mirror and, instead, facing the
literal and metaphoric void would be viscerally unsettling.

Brock Enrights installations at the Kate Werble Gallery booth was another memorable work that questioned our sense of
boundaries and the status quo in a probing but subtle manner. It consisted of a sprawling display of objects, including transparent
miniature containers, small twigs, winding snakes of varying shapes and sizes and tiny columns resembling cat scratching-poles
all placed on small pedestals resembling coasters on the oor in a form of a rectangle, occupying most of the available walking
space in the gallery. This odd installation of fragile and transparent objects contrasted sharply with the clamour of the fairs
abundance and offered a refuge from it. Sparsely composed paintings by Michael Berryhill hung alongside Enrights installation
echoed its carefully organised randomness, contributing to a poignant sense of missing something essential. A similar feeling of
disruption, but much more emotionally charged, was occasioned by watching a captivating video, Fight (2001), by Polish artist
Zuzanna Janin. The video captures an excruciatingly brutal and seemingly endless ght between a man and a woman in a boxing
ring. We nd ourselves drawn viscerally to the reality of aggression emanating from the screen yet repulsed by its utter
senselessness and sadistic undercurrents.

Apart from the exceptional examples of video, installation and sculpture, Frieze 2017 also demonstrated the enduring power of
traditional two-dimensional media, particularly of the realist variety. Gigantic monotone paintings by Alfred Leslie were
commanding in their scale and imposing presence. Depicting Americans as separate gures and in groups, they loom over the
viewer, confronting us with their unsmiling gaze. Aliza Nisenbaums playful gurative compositions present a different side of
Americana, in which people relax and enjoy each others presence. Teresa Burgas masterful collages convey a sense of
displacement and marginality not only by the composition of the gures, but also through the scattered, disconnected visual signs
that form their background. Adrian Pacis gentle paintings and watercolours of bathers transport us into the world of fun and
relaxation, offering a respite from the hustle and bustle of our surroundings.

The fair is divided into ve sections Main, Non-Prot, Spotlight, Focus and Frame, with participating galleries arranged by their
stature within the art world, sources of funding, and certain qualifying features of art on display academic or young, for
example. This division achieves a certain order as it guides the visitor through well-known names and an emphasis on research and
art history to a more unfamiliar territory of emerging galleries and artists at various stages of their acceptance into the canon. It
does not necessarily determine the quality of art on display. While Kapoor, Serrano, Burga and Paci are represented by well-
established galleries Kapoor by Lisson in London, Serrano by Nathalie Obadia from Paris, Burga by Barbara Thumm from
Berlin, and Paci by both Frith Street in London and Galerie Peter Kilchmann in Zurich Janin, Nisenbaum and Enright, for
example, are featured by galleries in the Focus section Warsaws Lokal 30, Glasgows Mary Mary and New Yorks Kate Werble,
respectively meant to showcase the strongest young galleries.

The fair itself and its extensive list of programmes and projects including a symposium on Latin American art, performances and
lms celebrated diversity in a sense of inclusion in the world of the market of previously excluded but domesticated others. Its
conspicuous location, however, required a more sensitive approach to the question not only of racial and cultural differences, but
also economic disparities. It is a pity that the fair refused to confront the reality of the world outside the tent.

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