Frieze New York 2023: 5 Directors Preview Their Booths

Founders and directors at David Lewis, dépendance, Stephen Friedman, Michael Rosenfeld, and Société introduce highlights of their booths ahead of the fair, which takes place from 17 to 21 May.

1. halley k harrisburg, Director at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York

When we submitted our booth proposal for Frieze New York 2023 in October of last year, Roe v. Wade (1973) had been overturned by the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organisation about three months earlier.

Motivated by the profound dismay we felt in witnessing this swift return to an age of forced pregnancy and unsafe abortions, we wanted to see what an exhibition of works created around the time of Roe would look like.

After analysing our holdings, we realised we had a strong body of work produced circa 1973 by some of the most significant second-generation feminists, including Magdalena Abakanowicz and Louise Nevelson.

While their works don't always directly refer to their political views or activism, an undercurrent of feminism unites the presentation, reflecting the ethos of the time in the artists' chosen subjects, materials, and approaches.

2. Ayelet Yanai, Director at dépendance, Brussels

We present works by either newly represented artists, such as Graham Little, whom we are thrilled to be exhibiting in New York for the first time, or artists we show regularly in the city, such as Haegue Yang, whose solo exhibition Handles was on view at MoMA from 2019 to 2021.

Yang's Mesmerizing Mesh builds its central idea on counter-authoritarian spiritual orientations such as shamanism. Her production deliberately circles around the materiality of Hanji, or mulberry paper, while focusing on motifs and objects in shamanism, Shinto, and folk rituals used to create objects reserved for purifying, healing, and exorcising rites.

Graham Little makes delicate gouache and pencil vignettes that situate solitary figures within intricately designed interior spaces.

His meticulously built compositions revel in the texture, pattern, and choreography of fashion advertising, while alluding to the aesthetic sensibilities and compositional strategies of Modernist figuration and the Old Masters.

3. David Lewis, Founder of David Lewis Gallery, New York

Painter and jazz musician Claude Lawrence's painting Untitled (2021) is a brilliant example of his craft, showing off his jagged and expressive line work along sensuous and rhythmic colour in gnarled and knotted passages; suggesting figures in action.

Lawrence's debut exhibition, Free Jazz, will open at David Lewis's East Hampton location at the end of May.

Leah Ke Yi Zheng's Untitled (x-ray) (2022) is a signature example from her oeuvre. Painted on translucent silk over artist-made shaped stretcher bars using dark hardwoods, the painting is both evocative and poetic.

Leah Ke Yi Zheng's debut solo exhibition is currently on view at David Lewis in TriBeCa through 3 June.

4. Daniel Wichelhaus, Founder of Société, Berlin

I have always been blown away by Trisha Baga's approach to video, which changed the parameters of the medium. It's like they explode the structures and put them back together addressing fundamental human questions and experiences, but in a really witty, personal, and generous way.

Baga's new paintings follow that path. They hold a deep connection to the human experience, vision, and mindset mediated by technology.

I loved their explanation of the painting Fingerings (2023), which depicts a bunch of iPhone icons scrolling through space Star Wars style while fingers grope through the holes of a flat green surface. Baga said that they were trying to enter the subconscious of screen space.

Another great work, called Human Achievement (2023), riffs on the iconography of high-tech space photography. It plays on notions of information and resolution. Trisha Baga was fascinated by the idea that paint has the capacity to be a lot higher resolution than a billion-dollar high-tech space image.

5. Mira Dimitrova, Director of Sales at Stephen Friedman Gallery, London

Pam Glick's work has such a presence; it brings something completely new to our gallery programme.

By layering pattern and gestural marks, Pam's playful practice has its own abstract language.

Our booth at Frieze New York features a series of new works by Pam Glick titled 'Box of Rain' (2022), which draws inspiration from Niagara Falls. The paintings absorb the energy of the place and explore the connection between water and abstraction.

Even though they appear free and expressive, they possess a great personal depth. —[O]