After days of simultaneously damp and drizzly weather, Frieze New York opened its doors to a warm, bright, and energetic morning on Wednesday. Compared to last year’s spring art week, this year’s is especially jam-packed, with Frieze and TEFAF’s US edition separated by just 24 hours instead of a week. And so, the sales floor was animated throughout the VIP day.
On top of the bevy of fairs, there are a multitude of gallery shows, museum exhibitions, and art fairs opening or already on view this week. In a market where collectors are choosing to take things more slowly when it comes to spending their time—and their money—than in previous years, that is seemingly a good thing.
But there’s more in the air than talk about the market. The aisles buzzed with conversations of the financial and political state of the world.
“This week will set the tone for how the global market will behave in the coming months,” London-based adviser Arianne Piper told ARTnews. “The unfortunate truth is that the political situation has disrupted that. It’s not so much the current economic situation but the fear of the economic consequences of that situation.” That said, Piper added that the people who made it out to the Frieze on Wednesday are buying. “It’s not about the money. It’s about the bandwidth.”
Tina Kim, who brought to the fair a range of works from the women artists in their program, sold works by Lee ShinJa, Ghada Amer, Pacita Abad, and Suki Seokyeong Kang for between $80,000 and $200,000.
—Daniel Cassady, Karen K. Ho
