As the art world emerges from the chaos of the past two years, Frieze New York is raising the bar with its tenth exhibition. There’s a new fair director of Frieze New York 2022, Christine Messineo – a former gallery owner pulled from his own vaunted list – and a new partnership with leading virtual and augmented reality art platform Vortic.
The contemporary art fair returns to The Shed on the west side of Manhattan. More than 65 galleries from 17 countries participate here, including Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Esther Schipper, Thaddaeus Ropac, Galeria Luisa Strina and White Cube.
Hauser & Wirth International Powerhouse offers a personal presentation of five new large-scale works by Charles Gaines from his famous and ever-evolving Numbers and Trees series, which he began in the 1980s.
For these new works, according to gallery owner Marc Paio, an artist from Los Angeles, he literally changed course. The artist has reversed the layering process he is well known for when creating his multi-dimensional mixed media artwork. In his work, trees are central to serving as a backdrop.
This new approach brings the dark branches of the tree to the forefront and hides the bright, intricate numbered grid drawn underneath.
The image of the tree, says Payot, has been central to the artist’s work since the mid-1970s, and his methodical exploration of its form continues in this latest iteration of the series, inspired by the huge trees Gaines encountered during a trip to Dorset, England, in early 2020.
Other highlights of i Frieze New York 2022nclude presentations by São Paulo gallerist Luisa Strina, who offers mixed works by Alexandre da Cunha. The London-based Brazilian sculptor uses mundane objects as his main medium, creating tapestries of cleaning mops and washbasin totems that evoke the work of artists associated with Turin’s Arte Povera movement of the 1960s and 70s.
Meanwhile, Chelsea gallery owner Tanya Bonacdar unveils a set of sculptures by LA-based artist Kelly Akashi, including an as-yet-unnamed work in onyx and lost-wax lead crystal. . As for the partnership with Vortic, according to Messineo, it literally brings a new dimension to the fair.
