Frieze New York’s opening week was defined by more than booth walls and sales talk. In Tribeca, a party for the third Counterpublic Triennial, Coyote Time, drew a packed crowd ahead of the project’s September debut in St. Louis, where the public art triennial will present work by more than 50 artists.
The evening was staged with a distinctly polished touch. Guests moved between cocktails, canapés, baseball caps, and silk scarves while an eau de parfum, Cave 0, created by artist Emma McCormick Goodhart through her scent studio, Ecdysis, was diffused into the space and even onto cocktail glassware. The result was less a standard art-world reception than a carefully layered sensory environment, one that turned smell into part of the social script.
That same blend of spectacle and insider culture carried into Frieze New York’s VIP preview at The Shed. Anderson Cooper, Michael Stipe, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sharon Stone, and Julia Fox were among the recognizable figures seen at the fair, with Ralph DeLuca accompanying DiCaprio. The crowd reflected the familiar overlap between collecting, celebrity, and the broader performance of attendance that now shapes major art fairs.
At The Shed, Oglála Lakȟóta artist Kite added a more searching note. Her new commission and performance, presented with a small ensemble, used Lakȟóta symbols developed through dream discussions with St. Louis community members as a graphic score. The work unfolded as a moving musical passage through the fair, across escalators and corridors, creating an experience that was immersive but not always easy to follow.
The social documentation continued in a special Frieze edition of New York magazine’s Look Book, photographed in a studio on the fair’s top floor. Eva Langret and Beth Rudin DeWoody were among those captured for the series, which has become a familiar marker of New York’s cultural calendar. Together, the party, the performance, and the portraits suggested a fair week where art, image, and atmosphere were tightly entwined.
