Art Week in New York, May 2025

It has been around 4 years since I have had the chance to attend the large art fairs. A while back I would not miss one and was usually accompanied by museum donors and curatorial staff, and expected at certain gallery stands.

This year I had the opportunity and the luxury to attend on my own timeline and focus on the feeling of the fairs; sighs in the air, anxious looks by gallery directors and their staff, lines at the café to get some fuel to continue standing upright for another five hours. I know the feeling all too well and was glad to be able to stroll, taking my time to look at the art, and getting closer to the works that interest me, purely the guttural attraction to the work, be it the subject matter, the color(s), the composition, the media, the texture, the origin of the work. I made it only to Frieze and NADA.

At Frieze, I found myself attracted to several works at the stand of a wonderful London gallery I have always liked and followed since working at Tate, Victoria Miro. There was a large, horizontal canvas of a reclining nude and a small still life with a very unique perspective which attracted me. These were works on canvas by Chantal Joffee. Also at Victoria Miro was a small oil on paper abstract by Flora Yukhnovich. It is intimate yet aloof in its subject and dimensions.

Besides that and a few other attractive work, in general I found the spaces on different floors a bit claustrophobic and not on the same scale as when I attended 5 years ago. I cannot pinpoint what exactly was different, but it felt less exciting, a bit too contrived.

I loved seeing two large vases by Grayson Perry. Perry’s work always brings back good memories of London. The wit, charm, and juxtaposition of time and ideas breaths British.