Frieze Projects New York is a non-profit organization that comprises a series of artist-commissioned, site-specific installations that come to fruition during the Frieze art fair alongside Frieze Sounds, and Frieze Talks. For the fourth year running Cecilia Alemani, the Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director and Chief Curator of High Line Art, spearheads the curation of Frieze Projects New York, commissioning five artists, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Pia Camil, Samara Golden, Aki Sasamoto, and Allyson Vieira, to make site-specific installations in and around the fair, and three artists, Alicja Kwade, Sergei Tcherepnin, and Xaviera Simmons, to create audio works.
This year, the five site-specific projects take inspirations from a 1975 Flux-Labyrinth installation designed for a show at the René Block Gallery in New York and realized at the Akademie der Kunste in Berlin in 1976. Visitors to the Randall’s Island Frieze Fair are invited to navigate this “maze” of projects. Whitewaller offers this preview of the obstacle courses, tests, and installations you may find yourself confronted with:
Ever wondered what makes you who you are? To help you find out, artist Aki Sasamoto proposes a physical personality test through a series of doors for visitors to choose from. This three-dimensional maze poses a series of questions to visitors that leads them through the fair, and then to the answer.
Too stressful? Bangkok- and New York-based artist Korakrit Arunanondchai offers visitors free massages on a series of bleached denim chairs scattered throughout the fair. The experience is complete with a unique soundtrack inspired by the artist and his twin brother’s visit to the Frieze London fair.
Literally revealing the underbelly of the art fair, Samara Golden creates a hollow compartment underneath the Frieze tent. This underground cavity proffers a sculptural installation that reveals the fair’s inner workings including wiring, pipes, and other infrastructural elements. (Don’t miss Golden’s solo exhibition “The Flat Side of the Knife” currently on view at MoMA PS 1.)
Too claustrophobic and need some air? Allyson Vieira’s large outdoor installation comprises Cyclopean scaled blocks made of recycled bales of plastic and foam that appear as large classical columns. Ironically, these fallen “ancient ruins” belie its mass produced material.
A nod to Hélio Oiticica’s wearable paintings called Parangolé, Pia Camil creates large patterned fabrics that can be appropriated as clothing or practical picnic blankets. These fabrics camouflage, or perhaps highlight, visitors as artworks.
What can we expect from the three audio works? Curator Cecilia Alemani comments, “The artists taking part in this year’s Frieze Sounds program explore the medium of sound through collage techniques, by weaving together audio tracks, sound fragments, and archival recordings from different sources and times. I look forward to seeing how visitors will interact with these newly commissioned sound tracks, either at the fair, in the VIP cars, or through the intimacy of their own headphones.”
