SHEDDING OLD SKIN, DONNING A NEW AVATAR
Art Frieze moves its physical location in New York to the Shed while Indian galleries participate virtually
Art fairs are coming back in a hybrid form—as was the case with the brief window period that we saw in New Delhi, India, with DCAW. Internationally as well, it is the combined forces of the physical and the online participation that is the ongoing trend given the constantly changing and rather unpredictable scenario with the COVID 19 Pandemic.
Frieze New York, opened on May 5, 2021 and will continue until May 14, 2021. The virtual viewing room features around One hundred and Sixty galleries from around the world.
We are told that the fair has left its ‘former home’ Randall’s Island, which many people reached by ferry, for the ‘Shed’, to the arts center in Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s West Side, which is clearly more easily accessible. There is a tight selection of Sixty participants. Amongst those, Indian participants are Nature Morte, Experimenter, Jhaveri Contemporary, Project 88 and Vadehra.
Jhaveri Contemporary’s presentation at Frieze New York shines a light on contemporary drawing-based work from South Asia and its diaspora. The gallery presents a group exhibition of its artists ranging from Amina Ahmad to Lubna Chowdhary, Manisha Parekh to Rana Begam, Simryn Gill, Sagarika Sundaram, and Yamini Nayar. Collectively, the artworks on view offer a more expansive and dynamic view of drawing and mark-making, encompassing a wide range of techniques- frottage, constructive photography- and materials- clay, felt, found objects- to personal and collective histories.
Experimenter presents Ayesha Sultana, Biraaj Dodiya, and Moyra Davey for the Frieze Viewing Room, New York 2021 edition. The exhibition binds the binaries of private-public, interior-exterior, singular-multiple perspectives employing them as lenses to view our world. The work on view at the online exhibition for Frieze is reflective of a time when the world is emerging from the cusp of navigating personal spaces, interiority, and singularity.
Dodiya refers to moments where sequences of events are a blur and not chronological, often taking the form of a lament while introspecting on personal experiences. She presents two works, assembled out of gestures of direct address, relationship, and connection. Images are intervened with traces of postage- folds, labels, tapes, and stamps that become part of the material and meaning of the work.
Sultana’s practice investigates form, movement, and space referencing her surroundings through nuanced practice that unfolds through an expanding field of sight.
Nature Morte participates in the second edition of the Frieze Viewing Room, New York. The curated exhibit is titled, ‘Examples of Exhilaration’, in which they are showcasing a selection of works by three artists- Aditya Pande, Dhruvi Acharya, and the duo Thukral and Tagra (T&T). The exhibit explores the nuances of the archetype ‘painting’ in varied ways. The overall sentiment is one of popish verve with a lively yet penetrating vibe.
We are all familiar with Acharya’s imagery that is inspired by graphic art, often accented layered with dark humour. She creates catchy images that convey the often-contradictory life of the modern urban Indian woman.
T & T draw their inspiration from the reality of traditional values transfused with ideas of modern times in the context of the Punjabi culture of Northern India. The works are made up of masses of undulating lines and frantic concentric circles, making each piece appear as if it is made up of several whirlpools of energy. The viewer’s focus constantly shifts from one density to another.
Keeping in mind the ongoing COVID-19 crisis that is gripping India, Nature Morte announces a contribution of 10% of the proceeds from the sales of this exhibition to support Mission Oxygen that has been helping hospitals across the city save lives by procuring and donating oxygen concentrators.
Project 88 is showcasing the works of Mahesh Baliga, Ashwini Bhat, Neha Choksi, Dharmendra Prasad, Amitesh Shrivastava, and Risham Syed. In her Lahore series paintings, Risham Syed chooses the neglected rears of new buildings in the middle-class residential quarters with neatly done facades and unfinished backwalls. Places are not locations but sites for Mahesh Baliga, revealing curious cases which he views askance. Dharmendra Prasad remembers sites through the trees, fields, soil, and the wind. The home and studio become immaterial and reside as a memory.
In Amitesh Shrivastava’s paintings. Forms burst forth, assuming different role plays, making their way with an energy that is exuberantly animated.
Vadehra Art Gallery presents for their Frieze virtual booth a collection of works on paper, canvas and photographs by a group of leading Indian contemporary artists. The names include Atul Dodiya, Anju Dodiya, Shilpa Gupta, K.M. Madhusudhanan and Gulammohammed Sheikh. The exhibition is titled ‘This World We Live In,’ and it features the artist’s interpretation of the dichotomous forces of survival and progress. To define the flow of time is to interrupt it, but without concentrated undertaking history is motionless, contends the collection of works. The artists examine the ‘heterogenous ideological legacies’ that frame our constructs of the contemporary world.
The return of real-life booths to Frieze, which also has a fair in Los Angeles, in addition to the original in London; is certainly the biggest and most hopeful news.
“Everyone has had an experience at an art fair where they discovered something by being there — turning a corner and seeing a juxtaposition that’s unexpected,” Ms. Siegel said in her press release.
Moving to the Shed, where dealers were spread over three floors, it also means that Frieze is just a few blocks north of one of the art world’s hubs, Chelsea. This renewed interest around art and the fresh set of ideas, could certainly hold out an olive branch to the otherwise difficult times that we are navigating as a society.
Text by Georgina Maddox
Image courtesy: Represented galleries
Find more about the Fair, Galleries, Artists and artworks:
https://www.frieze.com/fairs/frieze-new-york
