This week’s SPRING/BREAK Art Show marks ten years of the fair and its 11th New York edition, open from September 7—12 at 625 Madison Avenue. The theme “NAKED LUNCH” sets the tone for this year’s curator-led programming, bringing together 110 exhibitions turning to the Neo-Renaissance and previously controversial works like Edouard Manet’s 1863 Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe as a reminder that turmoil and political chaos are often the circumstances that birth the most significant developments in the arts.
“We live in an interesting gray area now, where there seems like both the feeling of a need for reprieve from everything we’ve endured, and the impossibility of it in the face of relentless political and social factors needing to be dealt with now that the plague part of what we’ve had to go through is (hopefully) abated. What’s left over is both the feeling of a belle époque and the reality of more struggle,” said the fair’s co-founder, Ambre Kelly.
Emily Royer, “We love the ocean although it stings our eyes,” courtesy of the artist.
Building conceptually on the fair’s previous iteration that looked at Neo-Medievalism, this 2022 edition delves into the idea of a Renaissance in many forms. Also acknowledging figures of other similar movements like the Harlem Renaissance, the Free Love movement of the 1960s, and more, presentations by 100+ curators have been thoughtfully composed around works and practices dealing with themes related to the quest for cultural renewal, including nature, the body, figuration, and metaphors of nudity and depictions of social encounters.
Set across multiple floors of the former Ralph Lauren offices in Manhattan, fairgoers can expect to find solo and group presentations curated by galleries and individuals alike, including Dan Halm, 532 Gallery, Lauren Hirshfield, iv gallery, Julia Maranto and Kat Ryals, Lizzie Reid, SoMad, Ketta Ioannidou with Eun Young Choi and Daniela Kostova, Shelter, Tomato Mouse, Yen Yen and Rachel Gisela Cohen, Jess Bass, Coco Dolle and Micol Ap, Brian Whitley, Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, DJ Hellerman, and Eden Airlines.
SPRING/BREAK 2021, courtesy of Samuel Morgan Photography.
Jillian Mackintosh, “Portrait of Pope Sixtus IV della Rovere,” 2022, oil on canvas, 22 x 26, Jake Scharbach, curated by the artist in a group show.
