When Matthew Sharp and Amanda Slotover founded Frieze magazine in 1991, it quickly became the dominant voice in the British contemporary art world. In 2003 they debuted Frieze London, the international contemporary art fair that’s now an art world staple. The inaugural version of Frieze New York, in 2012, was by all accounts a success, praised by the press and visitors alike. The fair’s directors recently sat down with Ashton Cooper to talk about their much-anticipated return to Randall’s Island, the inevitable comparisons to the Armory Show, and everyone’s favorite topic — food.
What’s new at Frieze New York this year?
AMANDA SHARP: It sounds simple, but galleries bring new art each time. You don’t know what’s going to be there until you get there — it’s always unexpected. There’s something rather lovely that’s happened this year, which is that it feels as if New York has taken us even closer to its heart. We have more New York galleries in our second year than we did in our first, which makes me, as a New Yorker, very proud.
MATTHEW SLOTOVER: And some major new ones as well, right?
A.S.: Absolutely. Marian Goodman, Luhring Augustine, and also at the other end, really critically, people like Real Fine Arts. You’ve got to have the emerging voices and the established voices to get the balance of the fair where you would like it to be.
How have you gone about differentiating Frieze from other fairs?
A.S.: I think we did something pretty significant putting it on Randall’s Island. We’ve gone to an area that is intrinsically part of New York, and actually part of Manhattan, and yet it’s unfamiliar to many Manhattanites. We’ve made a bit of an adventure.
M.S.: It was a huge risk, and I think people thought we were absolutely crazy and they’d never heard of it. I had taxi drivers who’d lived in the city 75 years and said, “I’ve never been here before.” It was an amazing reaction when people actually showed up. People said it was the best art fair experience that they’d ever had — people who’d been going to art fairs for 20 years.
How do you think Frieze has impacted the Armory Show?
M.S.: When we started the fair, there were only about 40 galleries that overlapped. For a lot of the galleries that came, it was the first time they’d ever shown in New York, including some big galleries, actually. If you really analyze it, it’s quite different.
You managed to tap into New York foodie culture in a big way. How did you pick the vendors?
M.S.: We know our people love food, but we didn’t quite realize how much until we did this fair. It got such a huge amount of attention. I don’t live in New York, but I think one of the interesting things was that we sort of had uptown, downtown, and Brooklyn. All those places in one place. I know I had friends of friends who were not in the art world who thought, “Who are these Brits coming over doing this fair?” And then when they saw the restaurants, they said, “Okay, they really understand the city.”
What events are you looking forward to this year?
M.S.: Several of the galleries are doing special solo projects in the fair. Marian Goodman is going to have a Tino Sehgal performance work. Greengrassi and Andrew Kreps are joining together and doing a Pae White and Roe Ethridge stand, which I’m really excited about. The best galleries, making the most effort, with the best artists — that is the key thing. So anything we can do to provide the right context for that, that’s really our job.
Watch ARTINFO video on commissioned works at Frieze New York: