After the frenzy of the Venice Biennale, the art world will now shift its attention to the Frieze art fair in New York, which opened its doors to VIPs yesterday. It returns to the Shed in Hudson Yards, and this year has 68 exhibitors.
This location means Frieze attendees will be just a 10-minute walk away from the nearby galleries in Chelsea. While the area’s buzziest show might be the one at Gagosian for Maurizio Cattelan, who is fresh off of his participation in the Venice Biennale’s Holy See Pavilion at the Giudecca Women’s Prison, there are also many other exhibitions worth checking out.
At times, it can feel like there are too many exhibitions on view to know what to do with. ARTnews has selected five to see during Frieze New York...
Kenyan artist Elias Mung’ora’s new figurative paintings are contemplative interior scenes, each set in the same living room. With its bright colors and washed-out walls, this setting evokes displacement. Many of Mung’ora’s subjects are shown sitting on a pale red couch, but most do not appear relaxed, only weary or focused on the screen in front of them. The paintings draw upon the artist’s own experiences and relationships, as well as his journey to understand his ancestry in the central Kenyan town of Nyeri. Carpets are a recurring motif in several works as a reminder to the viewer of how a sense of home is created both physically and emotionally.
Through June 29
