The 10 Best Booths at Frieze New York 2022
Brian P. Kelly
May 19, 2022 12:03PM
On Wednesday, Frieze New York returned for its second edition at its new Hudson Yards home in The Shed. Last year’s outing marked the first major New York fair to reopen following the outbreak of COVID-19, and the mood then, while joyful, was also palpably charged with uncertainty. What will fairgoing be like in a pandemic world? Will people come? Will work sell? How would this new venue fare?
Now, a year later, that uncertainty has all but disappeared. Despite rising COVID cases in New York, attendance was undeterred, and it seemed as if the contemporary art world had completely come to terms with living with an endemic virus: “I’ve had COVID three times,” one attendee mentioned to another in passing. People were still coming (among the attendees touted by the fair’s press team were Leonardo DiCaprio, Glenn Lowry, and Mera and Don Rubell). Works were still selling (Perrotin, for example, sold out its day-one booth to the tune of almost $3 million).
Opinions on The Shed remained fairly evenly split, with some missing the pilgrimage to Randall’s Island and the sprawling tent that hosted far more exhibitors than the 60-some-odd galleries at the current fair. Others, however, were happy not to have to make the trek—most often accomplished by ferry—especially if they were visiting multiple times, and found the smaller number of booths more manageable. Below are the 10 best displays at this year’s fair.
