Founded this year by New York artist Eric Ginsburg, the Fridge art fair presents an earnest alternative to the glitz and glam of other Frieze satellite fairs, one which also recalls a historic chapter in the Lower East Side art scene. Relatively tiny, with just 14 booths, and headquartered in one of the neighborhood’s oldest galleries, Gallery OneTwentyEight, Fridge is largely packed with work by international artists — most of whom have arrived without dealers, setting up their own booths and handling their own finances, mingling with friends in a relaxed, comfortable atmosphere.
Works in the fair are almost exclusively two-dimensional, though varying widely in style and medium. Debra Drexler’s layered, broad-stroked paintings ($80-$7,400), Susana Thornton’s sparse stills ($1,000), Cheryl Edwards’s multimedia collages and paintings ($150-$800) offer a cross-section of artists that feels comfortable in its familial Rivington Street environment. “This fair allows the viewer to come in and touch and feel the minds of the artists, to question the work and to discuss the work in an intimate and casual setting,” explained Edwards.
Founded by the artist Kazuko Miyamoto in 1986 as a space to show works by unknown artists, Gallery Onetwentyeight initially took over an abandoned building long before the neighborhood was recognized for its then-burgeoning contemporary art scene. Miyamoto was also a founding member of the women-run A.I.R. Gallery and a long-time friend and contemporary of Sol LeWitt, one of OneTwentyEight’s original supporters.
Miyamoto’s pieces in the fair — three photographs and one geometric, abstract silkscreen — are the gems of Fridge, and just a small sampling of her oeuvre, which includes dance, performance, and installation. A large photo, almost hidden in the back of the gallery, was taken during a conceptual performance she did in the ’80s, for which she wrapped herself in a blue blanket and intricately folded lengths of industrial brown paper and then walked from the Lower East Side to Tribeca.
Fridge Art Fair runs at Gallery OneTwentyEight through Sunday, May 12.