Frieze-ing in New York

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Victoria Keller looks at a British art transplant

One of the best things about going to Frieze New York was getting there.  A free water taxi from East 35th Street provided the luxury of a 20-minute boat ride up the river, with views of Manhattan on one side and Queens on the other.

Since the founding of Frieze Art Fair in London in 2003, the design of a special space has been an important feature and is what makes Frieze stand out among art fairs, which are normally presented in pre-existing spaces – in New York City that often means in an armory building.  Frieze commissions bespoke tents from internationally recognized architectural firms, and in London these are erected in Regent's Park.  In New York, for its first fair in the city, the location was Randall's Island.

Frieze commissioned the New York-based firm Solid Objectives – Idenburg Liu, referred to as SO – IL, whose most recent projects include the Province Hall in Antwerp.  There was parking on Randall's Island, which is in the East River, across from the northern Manhattan neighbourhood of East Harlem, but that boat trip was more fun.

SO – IL's design for Frieze took its environment into account.  In the late 19th century Randall's Island was the city's site for various asylums, such as the Idiot Asylum, the Inebriate Asylum and the Insane Asylum.  By the mid-1930s the island had become a municipal park with ball fields, tennis courts and a sports stadium.   The sinuous design incorporated the river setting, with the occasional opening with views of the river at the café areas. The parkland outside was used to site sculpture, which you could see as you arrived by ferry or by strolling outside after a good look round inside.

The 180 galleries inside included a strong European and American showing, but the openness of the design allowed for an airiness and lack of claustrophobia to which even the most interesting art fairs are prone.  Big pieces such as an untitled sculpture  by Anish Kapoor, a huge yellow dish that people were using as a backdrop for photos of themselves,  a sculpture by Liz Cohen called Trabanimino made up of a car in parts set up on a huge checkerboard, as well as An He's I am Curious Yellow, I am... were given the serious breathing space they needed, the latter sprawling in what looked like broken chunks sprawling across the floor.

Two-dimensional work did not fare as well as sculpture; it tended to come across as an afterthought.  For example, two galleries were showing Gilbert and George's recent work and I noticed a good example of one of Callum Innes' paintings. Though I welcomed their presence, and they felt solid and substantial, they were swamped by the deliberately insubstantial nature of much of the rest of what was on show.

To be fair, if you like to look at a lot of pictures, this was not really the show to go to.  That was the Armory Show a few weeks before, this year crowded into buildings on the Hudson River piers. 

Frieze worked hard at making the show as varied as possible, with a section dedicated to galleries established no more than six years ago, aiming at those always looking for that 'cutting edge'.  There were commissioned audio works, an entire programme of commissioned projects and a talks programme with prominent art historians and critics, curators and writers who gave talks and took part in panel discussions.

By visiting the Frieze website at www.frieze.com, you can get the flavour of what it was like to be there, water taxis and all.