New York Is About to Sell $3 Billion in Art. Who’s Buying?

On Monday evening, the British Museum hosted a cocktail hour in a board member’s apartment on the Upper East Side. After Nicholas Cullinan—the director of the British Museum, who, in his first two years on the job, has already boldly transformed the institution into something bloody exciting again—gave remarks, I was introduced to one of his London-based colleagues, who had just arrived in New York, minutes ago, for the first time. Recommendations? What a conundrum!

The Met’s Raphael show, the Duchamp show at MoMA, and the Matisse show at Acquavella. The new New Museum? Oh, yes, it’s worth the trip downtown. Perhaps after a stroll over to Russ & Daughters—as I can only imagine what it would be like to visit Russ & Daughters during one’s first-ever hours on the island of Manhattan.

And then, there’s the cultural obligation in one of the least compelling corners of this incredible city: Hudson Yards. For me, it was time to boldly walk by the monstrosity that is Thomas Heatherwick’s Vessel, duck under buildings designed to be as anodyne as humanly possible, and finally reach The Shed, a performing arts venue on roller skates. It was time for the opening of Frieze New York.

BOONNNGGG!

An hour into Frieze New York’s VIP opening on Wednesday, a terrifying tone rippled through the main hall. It was some bell of unknown origin. When everyone realized it wasn’t an emergency or a fire alarm, conversations wheeled back to dinner reservations, Memorial Day plans, and art prices. I followed the sound to Anton Kern Gallery’s booth. It was the result of a gong with the word “GONG” taped on the front. A mallet hung from the side. Anyone could hit it.

“It’s an installation by David Shrigley,” Anton Kern told me, standing in the booth, near new work by Alvaro Barrington. “He made it for The Problem, you remember, the performance he did on Hydra, with the guitars that have three strings?”

I was trying to remember it when—BONGGGGG!—someone else hit the gong.

Kern’s been doing Frieze fairs since the second edition launched in London back in 2004. Frieze New York began in 2012—he did that one too. It’s hard to fathom that it’s been 14 long years since the British art mag opened its fair outpost in Gotham, and it feels so, so much longer. What even was New York without Frieze? Or even Frieze, before it was scooped up by Ari Emanuel—who has now owned it for a whole decade.

Perhaps that’s because it’s such a no-brainer for New York to have a big-ticket art fair—it’s the place where nearly 90% of the country’s art sales happen. But that might actually make it harder for Frieze to capture all the attention. Next week, the auction houses are set to sell at least $2.6 billion in art, much of it of pretty remarkable quality, fully on view to the public, for free. The museums have their marquee shows up. And there are hundreds of gallery shows open throughout Chelsea, the Upper East Side, and Tribeca. Can an art fair even compete?

I arrived at Frieze just after it opened to VIPs on Wednesday morning, and it was packed wall-to-wall. Is that a good thing? Not exactly—there’s only so many people there to buy art, and plenty of others are there to rubberneck. I didn’t see anything ravishingly exciting, but it wasn’t embarrassing either. A curator described it as “small c conservative.” Cindy Sherman works, from just last year, looked great on the Hauser & Wirth booth. Same with the Joe Bradley paintings at David Zwirner. Antwaun Sargent commandeered the Gagosian booth, which has a pleasantly group show-y feel, with a nice moment featuring a Theaster Gates sculpture flanked by a Stanley Whitney painting and a Tyler Mitchell photograph. One small wall has two Gerhard Richter paintings.