Art for Going Off Script during Art Fair Week

A case for selections from gallery exhibitions during Art Week

Good morning and greetings from the one of the busiest weeks in the contemporary art world! I am sure as lovers of art that your inboxes are receiving floods of art fair previews and exhibition announcements; your social media feeds are stacked with art fair highlights and auction blockbusters; and your bank account is sighing in anticipation as we buckle up buttercup for another round.

For context, NYC galleries save the May exhibition slot for their strongest presentations on purpose. This is a week when the city is crawling with (some post-Venice) collectors, curators, and writers in town for the fairs and auctions, so it is a very competitive time for galleries to put their best foot forward with knock-out exhibitions.

This newsletter has always been a space for me to sift through the noise and share with you my curated selection of said inundated inbox previews. While this week I have included a couple of artists I can’t wait to see at the fairs, my selections actually yielded incredibly strong artists with gallery exhibitions.

Even though I’m an extrovert, I personally find art fairs way too frenzied and hurried and just not at all how I like to look at art. As a function in the ecosystem, fairs are hands down the best way to discover the most art in the least amount of time. The trick is knowing when to attend the fair to actually spend time looking at the art and speaking to dealers (pro tip: it’s not VIP day, and no, no one is clocking if they saw you or not during the 11am VIP access hour at Frieze. They’re clocking if you actually buy art.) Also as a New Yorker who detests waiting in lines, my chef’s kiss art fair hour is the first hour on a public day. You’re welcome.

I also thought it was interesting that this year Art Basel next month implemented a rule that galleries must withhold at least one key artwork from their preview. The only way a collector will know about and see the artwork is if they attend the fair in person. I really love this rule for enforcing in-person viewing experiences.

So I am thrilled to share my selections of artworks this week from exhibitions that you should go see and collect from this week. Spend time in the galleries with space to breathe and engage and really look at the art.

A few places I’ll be this week if you want to find me in the wild! First off, thank you to everyone who joined last night’s ArtStack panel that I moderated at People’s with four of my favorite art writers on Substack (Julie Brener Davich, Tatum Dooley, Georgia Stylianides and Sibilla Maiarelli). On Saturday at 1:30pm I am moderating the NADA Collects panel at the fair “The Point of Sale”, all ticket-holding fair guests can join! And out of all the fairs this week, I am most looking forward to Independent and I will probably walk that fair twice.

One more thing before we get into the selections: if you were reading this newsletter last fall, you may remember my issue on the Saint Laurent Rive Droite exhibition in Paris. This week, they are back with a New York iteration featuring artworks by Rachel Rossin, whose work I have been following closely for several years, and I could not leave her out of this week’s selections. Enjoy!