The art fair, in its current incarnation, has become a necessary evil. People with less and less time to go from country to country or even from gallery to gallery to see artists’ work, happily form an enthusiastic,  if somewhat overlarge mob that converges on the one-stop-shopping art mall that most fairs offer. Old time collectors and neophytes alike have been known to empty their bank accounts of seven and eight figure sums at or just following these extravaganzas, where they usually can compare examples of an artist’s work — as well as find out who else is buying what — all in one venue.

So let’s call the art fair of today a combination of education, competition, and commerce. This does not mean they are fun. The large fairs, most notably Miami, Basel and both of the larger fairs in New York last winter, have become tired and difficult, with bad traffic control, overpriced food, endless tire kickers, and often poor dealer attitude (well, they are stuck in a boxlike booth for hours at a time). It gets so aggravating that one can’t help but wish that there were simply another way to showcase lots of art.

That said, there are always those visionaries appearing who know how to put style back into an endeavor that has gone a little stale or tacky — such as the people who put on the Frieze fair in New York City in early May. Brits by birth and sensibility, Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover first founded FRIEZE Magazine and then added a London-based art fair a decade ago. The fair in London incorporated subtle changes in how booths were laid out, indoor/outdoor staging and imaginative use of technology, thus opening up a whole new paradigm. They knew how to mix the classic with the innovative and make it look new but comfortable. And, thankfully, they have now taken the Big Apple by storm.

In New York, Frieze ingenuity began with the choice of venue — Randall’s Island — which has been variously inhabited by a boys’ home, a hospital, and even a home for Civil War veterans. It lies in the East River, almost equidistant between East Harlem and Astoria, Queens. Randall’s Island has had its own renaissance in the last six years, hosting renowned events like The Vans Warped Tour and Lollapalooza, Electric Zoo, Cirque de Soleil, and track and field events, among others. But Frieze is the first time a truly art-oriented event has taken place there.

There were many ways to get to Randall’s, but the most fun was taking the free water taxi from 33rd Street and the East River, with everyone headed in the same direction and talking about art they owned, wanted or loved. The boats were crowded but passengers had already bonded during the trip there and everyone was in a good mood by the time they arrived. Just off the dock, at the entrance to the fair, with artworks greeting visitors in the sculpture garden, a slew of currently ubiquitous New York food trucks, such as the infamous Van Leeuwen Artisan ice-cream truck, were selling everything from Chinese to barbecue to people who took their plates and sat by the river; one couple said they had been there for an hour and had not even yet gone inside the fair. This making of a community around the fair is a hallmark of the Frieze organizers and somehow makes everyone feel part of the plan.

The fair itself was housed in a white, snake-like tent that had no hard angles that could be entered at either end, giving the venue an immediate feeling of comfort and space. There were inviting seating areas filled with curvy benches every few hundred feet and the higher end food outlets like Sant Ambroeus (an art world coffee emporium from the Upper East Side) were always close to those seats.  One of the great things about being on Randall’s Island was that, since getting there took some effort and the public transport could only hold a certain number of people, the tent never felt crowded, even at peak hours. You could look at the art without being knocked over, stepped on, or feeling like you were in the middle of someone else’s conversation.

And there was amazing art. Per Kirkeby, the Danish painter, who was also once Denmark’s poet laureate, brought his gigantic heroic visions down to earth with a group of small but luscious and romantic abstract works at the Michael Werner Gallery. At the Andrea Rosen Gallery, the strange and dark paintings/collages by Elliott Hundley had wire netting over some of the pieces, with small figures captured in it like prey in a spider’s web. Mona Hatoum’s rug with a world map gouged out of it dominated London’s White Cube booth and it was wonderful, as always, to see the oversized cartoon/portraits of Gilbert & George, this time at the booth of a dealer who works between Austria and France, Thaddaeus Ropac. Larry Gagosian and David Zwirner each get kudos for sleek, museum quality shows, the former exhibiting large, almost monochrome paintings by Rudolf Stingel, and the latter with an array of classic minimalism from Donald Judd to Dan Flavin’s haunting neon work.

There were adjunct sections of smaller galleries within the fair yet no less a part of it, also showing good work. It was great to see work by Joshua Abelow, once an assistant to Ross Bleckner, covering the small booth of James Fuentes, whose gallery is on Manhattan’s Lower East Side; they were in turn near Esther Schipper, an old-time dealer from Berlin, and also near the newer Berlin dealer Micky Schubert. Leto Gallery, from Warsaw, was next to galleries from Dublin and even Dubai. Many of them were showing almost surreal pieces, such as the work of Geta Bratescu, featuring naked, antique dolls alongside cooking utensils — a political statement, perhaps? But while there was a large international presence, some seminal New York galleries were missing, most notably Matthew Marks, Barbara Gladstone, and Sperone Westwater, probably saving their big ticket items for Basel this month and assuming that people in town would come see them anyway.

The fair also featured a series of talks on art issues of the day  with museum luminaries such as Glenn D. Lowry of MoMA, lots of outside sculpture installations (some of which looked like barracks or gardens), and a wonderful book booth (Koenig Books of Berlin). In the final analysis, being there was a satisfying and complete experience. It will be interesting to see what Frieze gets up to in 2013 and knowing, for once, that we have a fair in New York to which we can truly look forward.

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