The third edition of the British import Frieze Art Fair opened to VIP ranked guests on Thursday in its grandly scaled bespoke tent on Randall’s Island. Timed to coincide with the influx of global collectors heading to New York for the big contemporary art auctions, Frieze has fashioned an effective platform that draws a pleasing mix of contemporary art and cultural tourism.
Among celebrities ranging from Leonardo DiCaprio to Uma Thurman and ranking collectors such as Don Rubell and Herbert and Lenore Shorr, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg drew surprised stares as he sauntered into Cheim & Read’s stand. Moments later, he chose “Jicarilla,” a glazed ceramic sculpture from 2013 by Lynda Benglis and priced in the $65-85,000 range.
“Yes, Mayor Bloomberg bought a Benglis,” said founding partner Howard Read, “and we put on a beautiful show of her ceramics at the gallery in January and blah, nothing happened. You put them in a goddam tent on Randall’s Island and people fight over them.”
Read wasn’t kidding — three other collectors wanted Benglis’s “Comanche,” also from 2013 and scaled at 21- by 15- by 15-inches. It sold in the same price range to an important New York collector, according to Read.
Nearby, Paris/Salzburg dealer Thaddaeus Ropac had good things to say about the fair. “All of the Europeans are here,” he said. “It has the right mix of American and European collectors.” Ropac admitted that he had pre-sold a new bronze edition of Georg Baselitz’s “Zero Ende,” an impressively scaled, black and organic shaped 1,000 kg bronze that went to an American collector for $1.8 million. The gallery also sold a striking and large-scale Robert Longo drawing, “Untitled (Falcon),” from 2013, in charcoal on mounted paper and measuring 70- by 80-inches for $350,000 and a mirror-like Not Vital sculpture, “Head (Li Gao),” to a Salzburg collector for $260,000. The 2013 piece, from an edition of three, plus one artist proof, is made out of stainless steel with PVD coating and stands at 69-inches high.
There were clusters of other early sales as collectors armed with checkbooks prowled the generously proportioned light filled tent with striking views of the park-like, riverfront setting. At New York’s Salon 94, Sylvie Fleury’s Pop Art-esque works were well received as the bubble gum colored “Skin Crime 3 (Givenchy 318),” from 1997, in enamel paint on a compressed Fiat 128, sold in excess of $100,000 to an American collector as did “Blade,” from 2012, in Inox and Alcuban. The 83-inch high mirror finished objet looked just like the old style Gilette razor blades of former close shave times. It was priced in excess of $50,000.
The gallery also sold freshly minted paintings, including a 70- by 80-inch multi-figured, fantasy resort scene, “Fortune Island,” by Jules de Balincourt in the $100-150,000 range. It also went to an American collector. A large-scale, boldly colored abstraction by Jayson Musson in flashe on canvas, “Recently Discovered Constellation,” from 2014, sold for $30,000, as did other similarly priced works by Musson that are currently on view in his “Exhibit of Abstract Art” at Salon 94 Bowery through June 21. It is his second solo with Salon 94.
At Cologne’s Galerie Gisela Capitain, a beautiful and minimal, multi-panel work by Gunther Forg, “Untitled,” from 1986, executed in acrylic on lead panels sold in the region of £250-300,000 to a European collector, according to gallery founder Gisela Capitain. Capitain said an American museum had placed a reserve on a major Zoe Leonard work, “1961,” consisting of vintage suitcases, one piece for each year of her life and ongoing, priced in the $300,000 range. The hard-bodied, “Mad Men”-styled suitcases, in varying and faded shades of blues and greens, were parked upright at the gallery entrance like so many Carl Andre bricks.
In one of the fair’s most impressive installations, New York’s Gladstone Gallery mounted a retrospective-like hanging of 211 works on paper by Carroll Dunham dated between 1979 to 2013. The sweeping vista of Dunham’s subject matter, from nudes and bathers to crusty gunslingers and trees, provided a satisfying refuge from the infinite distractions of an art fair. Dunham curated the selection and the works ranged in price, for the most part, between $5,000 and $10,000.
“He handpicked these,” said Abby Margulies, working the floor at Gladstone, “and they show the spectrum of his practice. We’ve sold a decent amount and people seem excited to see the range of his work.”
Some of the distractions that typically come up at art fairs were captured in Eric Fischl’s painting, “Art Fair: Booth #1 Play/Care,” from 2013, at London’s Victoria Miro, where Fischl will debut later this year with a solo show. The painting, priced in the mid-six figures, is based on fragments of photos he shot at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2012, and forms the basis of his new series.
At the other end of the Miro stand, partially cloistered from view, was a Yayoi Kusama“Infinity Nets” (G Ban)” painting in acrylic on canvas from 2014. Two of the Kusama paintings had sold in the first few hours of the fair in the mid-six figure range, according to gallery partner Glenn Scott Wright. The gallery was also debuting a new bronze edition Kusama “Pumpkin (S),” from an edition of eight, priced at $950,000.
Wright was working his cell phone, arranging for various collectors to press the button on the five medium-scaled bronzes the gallery had on offer. Miro also sold an untitled abstract painting in gouache, acrylic, and alkyd on canvas from 2014 by the Spanish artist Secundino Hernandez, who has recently joined the gallery, in the region of $40-50,000.
London’s Pilar Corrias Gallery had one of the most ambitious single works in the fair with Charles Avery’s wildly populated and funny art history scene, “Untitled (View of the MoAO from the direction of the Place de la Revolution with Hammons, Hepworth, Koons, Unknown Easter Island Artist).” It sold for $145,000 to a European collector. Avery’s last show at the gallery in November sold out.
One of the better known non-art buyer’s roaming Frieze on Thursday was Tom Finkelpearl, the former director of the Queens Museum and the newly named Commissioner of Cultural Affairs of New York City, appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio.
“I feel there’s this overall ecosystem of the arts,” said Finkelpearl, “and it’s all important. I’m here because I’m glad Frieze is here. This is good for the city.”
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Frieze New York runs through Monday, May 12.
