For your time in New York for Art Week, Whitewaller has put together the ultimate to-do list with all of our top fairs, exhibitions, shopping spots, and more.
FAIRS
1. Frieze New York
Opening in Randall’s Island Park, Frieze New York 2019 challenges the art fair as we know it, with a renewed emphasis on discovery. This eighth edition features leading galleries from 26 countries, showcasing influential modern artists and groundbreaking emerging artists. Frieze will also inaugurate exciting collaborations with museum directors across the United States. Patrick Charpenel (executive director of El Museo del Barrio, New York) and Susanna V. Temkin (curator), for example, will curate Diálogos, a themed section for Latinx
and Latin American art.
2. Frieze Sculpture
Frieze Sculpture in Regent’s Park has become a staple of Frieze in London each fall. This year in New York, the international art fair is bringing a similar concept to Rockefeller Center, curated by Brett Littman. Sculptures from artists represented by the fair’s leading participating galleries will be on view from April to June.
3. 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair
1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair is the leading art fair devoted to the advancement of African perspectives in art. Now in its fifth edition, 1-54 welcomes 24 galleries and 71 artists, including 12 new galleries to New York and five solo exhibitions ready to spark nuanced dialogues. The roster reflects the diversity and depth of contemporary African art practice, and the special programs promise to offer further opportunities to expand the conversations
started in the galleries.
EXHIBITIONS
4. Nari Ward at the New Museum
Now—May 26
Spanning Nari Ward’s 25-year career, “We the People” comprises 30 sculptures, paintings, videos, and large-scale installations, distributed across three floors of the New Museum. In an approach that evokes the material textures of his birthplace, Jamaica, as well as his current home, Harlem, Ward accumulates and repurposes language, scavenged materials (fire hoses, shopping carts, cooking trays, etc.), and structures that reflect on contemporary communities and their histories. “We the People” will unite Ward’s most iconic sculptures to illuminate the gentrification of Harlem, its complex social effects, and the rupturing of democracy.
5. “Camp: Notes on Fashion” at The Met
May 9—September 8
Structured around Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay (“Notes on ‘Camp’”), “Camp: Notes on Fashion” explores the influence of “camp”—theatricality, pastiche, humor—on fashion, as it headily evolved from a place of marginalization into the mainstream. Beginning with a study of Versailles as “camp Eden,” the exhibition will feature about 175 garments, sculptures, paintings, and drawings that trace “camp” from the 17th century to the present. As the exhibition unfolds, it will also confront the notion of the dandy, queer subcultures, artifice, irony, and exaggeration—and, of course, the sartorial expression of these elements.
6. Jean-Michel Basquiat at The Brant Foundation
Now—May 15
Organized in collaboration with the Fondation Louis Vuitton, “Jean-Michel Basquiat” is a timely survey of works by the eponymous artist. Pulling from The Brant Collections, international museums, and private collections, the show illustrates Basquiat’s immeasurable range, observations, politics, and innovative vision.
7. The Whitney Biennial
May 17—September 22
“Artists in the exhibition are engaged with notions of what community means and can provide while using art to confront and cope with our current world,” says Rujeko Hockley, who is co-organizing the Whitney Biennial 2019 with fellow Whitney curator Jane Panetta. The 79th in a long series of highly lauded exhibitions, this edition thematically grapples with the state of the world: the function of its history, the bodies that inhabit it, and urgent questions of inequality that plague it. Hockley and Panetta visited more than 300 studios across the United States to develop this extraordinary group of emerging and established artists, which includes individuals and collectives working in painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, film, photography, performance, and sound.
HOTELS
8. SIXTY SoHo
Through a contemporary, bohemian, and inspiring ambience, SIXTY SoHo reflects its stylish surroundings. This boutique hotel features upscale rooms, suites with balconies and soaking tubs, a lobby lounge, and a seasonal rooftop bar.
9. The Times Square EDITION
Opened this spring, Ian Schrager’s second New York EDITION hotel has graced Times Square with the neighborhood’s first sophisticated luxury hotel and restaurant headed by a Michelin-starred chef. With interiors by Yabu Pushelberg and ISC Design Studio, the EDITION’s 452 rooms and suites are outfitted with custom-designed furniture and ergonomic work areas, fully stocked mini bars, and Le Labo bath amenities. The hotel includes features like a state-of-the-art fitness center, multiple bars and restaurants, and The Paradise Club.
RESTAURANTS & BARS
10. Tokyo Record Bar
Paying homage to the jewel boxes of vinyl in Japan, Tokyo Record Bar (owned by Ariel Arce, who operates Air’s Champagne Parlor upstairs) is a not-to-miss spot. Its 16-seat space, inspired by the tiny record bars in Tokyo, welcomes guests (at 6:30 and 8:30 p.m.) for a seven-plate izakaya menu and custom playlists by guests.
11. The Polo Bar
Ralph Lauren’s The Polo Bar offers delicious American cuisine in an upscale environment, with interiors inspired by other iconic New York establishments. Guests can enjoy cocktails and appetizers at the brass bar top for a quick bite, or head downstairs to the main dining room, where leather seating and warm lights are complemented by equestrian sporting decor.
12. Sant Ambroeus
Sant Ambroeus on Madison Avenue, like its sister locations, is a hot spot for meetings. Recognized as a “place to see and be seen,” the Milanese restaurant offers traditional Italian dishes, as well as coffee and dessert for those looking for a pick-me-up or something sweet.
SHOPPING
13. 10 Corso Como
10 Corso Como’s debut U.S. location opened in the fall of 2018 in New York’s historic Fulton Market Building. Following founder Carla Sozzani’s philosophy of “slow shopping,” the 28,000-square-foot Kris Ruhs–designed space features an Italian café and restaurant, fashion, design objects, books, and an art and photography gallery and garden—all arranged like a life-size rendition of a lifestyle magazine.
14. FIVESTORY
FIVESTORY is full of curated fashion and art pieces for both you and your home, and seamlessly combines the classic and the contemporary. Founded by New York native Claire Distenfeld in 2012, the store also recently launched its first eponymous brand.
