NEW YORK — Ambitious projects peppered the floor at NADA, which is held this year at a sporting facility on the East River waterfront that’s been converted into a light-filled exhibition space with an outdoor café area. Vast spaces outside the more traditional booth setup are set aside for special sculpture installations, and on the first day, fairgoers seemed particularly drawn to these.
Matthew Dipple of American Contemporary placed a work by artist David Brooks, “Roof Cuts,” in one of the six sculpture installation spaces. Consisting of a series of roofs that look like they have been ripped off of their homes, all of them suspended by cables above the floor, the installation was one of NADA’s more breathtaking contributions.
It was also a relative bargain: At roughly $750, the space was a lot less costly than the much-smaller booths, priced nearer to $10,000. Though the gallery had done NADA before, it had never been able to bring such a large work to an art fair. “It’s cheap real estate at a fair, so you can have these difficult pieces,” said Dipple.
Other highlights from this section: Thomas Kovachevich’s “Untitled (16 Paper Cubes),” a sculptural installation consisting of a set of large parchment paper sculptures, which is bathed in sunlight from the outdoor area. Visitors can actually walk through David Shaw’s sculpture “Gem,” an open cube constructed from iridescent steel tubing.
Such exciting works attracted a lot of attention, but were not the only thing attracting commercial interest. Dealer Nicelle Beauchene, whose large booth was filled with plaster works by Ruby Sky Stiler, had plenty to celebrate right off the bat. “Everything sold,” said Beauchene, “within the first hour.”