Frieze New York diary: splashy showstoppers, steamy snapshots, and art that saves

One of the most colourful, eye-popping exhibitions making waves this week in New York is the show of Tableaux Éclatés (“burst paintings”) at Salon 94 gallery by the late French artist Niki de Saint Phalle (until 22 June). These mechanised pictures, with their moving parts such as a rising sun in the sky and a pop-up Statue of Liberty, are making even the most hardened art-world veteran smile. But the real showstopper—a fountain crowned by a large pool (La femme et l’oiseau fontaine, 1967-88)—can be found on the second floor of the sumptuous gallery. This watery wonder comprises a typically voluptuous Phalle-sque figure spouting fluid over a bird-like sculpture, soothing onlookers enchanted by the trickle of water running into the artificial basin. In a sweet touch, visitors are also flipping coins into the pool, making this a genuinely communal experience.

Gormley on rotating Rhodes

Artists, museum directors and curators plus the occasional TV news anchor (we saw you, Anderson Cooper) were spotted at the VIP preview of Frieze New York. Among the fair luminaries was the high-profile UK sculptor Antony Gormley, who was his usual candid self, discussing life, the universe and everything including the ongoing debate about controversial historic statues and their place in society today. In 2021 Gormley proposed that the statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oxford University, UK, be turned so that it faces the wall at Oriel College. “I don’t think that we can make statues into scapegoats for political truths that we should live with and reflect upon,” Gormley says at Frieze New York, adding that the debate around headline-hitting memorials has not really moved on. “It’s a live issue—how we both acknowledge history and also change as a result of it.” Meanwhile, White Cube New York is hosting AERIAL, a Gormley exhibition in which "the artist considers sculpture as an instrument for proprioception—the body’s innate capacity to sense and perceive its position, movements and orientation in relation to itself and the environment", says a gallery statement (until 15 June).

Stellar, sexy snapshots

Stanley Stellar’s arresting images of gay men cruising and hooking up (basically) on New York’s Hudson piers in the 1970s are a highlight at Frieze New York this week. Entitled The Piers: In Color, the images with Kapp Kapp gallery reflect “Stellar’s kodachrome vision of New York City’s West Side piers of the late-1970s through to the 80s. A pre-Aids paradise mostly remembered in black-and-white, Stellar’s colour photographs recall a vibrancy and texture often omitted from visual history,” says a gallery statement. Visitors might spot another significant documentarian in Peter gets his dick sucked (1981): Peter Hujar, the photographer considered a seminal chronicler of gay life in the city (and the subject of a major solo show across town at the Ukrainian Museum).

Art is reverend’s saviour

One of the most interesting people at Frieze New York this week is Reverend Joyce McDonald, the artist, minister and activist who is showing a selection of her ceramic works at the fair with Gordon Robichaux Gallery. McDonald has led an eventful life, frankly; after her HIV diagnosis in 1985 and a long battle with addiction, she was ordained as a minister at the Church of the Open Door in 2009. She suffered a stroke two months ago, but art has been a lifeline, she explains. “My art is like medicine,” she says. “I wake up at 3am and know I have to create.” The gallery is showing both new and historical works such as Prayer of Hope (1999). And how does it feel to be on show at Frieze? “It’s overwhelming, I thought I might faint,” says the inspirational Reverend.

Back to the grind

The artist Sharif Farrag turned the art world on its head at Frieze Los Angeles with Rat Race (2024), a racing competition featuring rodent sculptures constructed atop remote-control cars, which visitors raced around a track. Farrag is bringing a new version of the rodent motors to New York this week thanks to Frieze and Art Production Fund (Gotham Grinders: Hamster Wheel, 2-4 May), welcoming participants of all ages to the iconic skating rink at Rockefeller Center (the project also features custom vanity plates and vintage patches specific to New York City). “It’s an allegory [based on] the race of capitalism and survival in corporate culture,” Farrag quips. “The cars have heads made of fragile ceramic that break down as they race. I’m trying to really highlight the competitive nature of art fairs… and to also bring joy to that dark equation of stress, survival and competition.”

Loo looter locked up

The Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan is making a splash this week in New York with his Sunday installation at Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea replete with gold-plated, bullet-studded panels. Another of Cattelan’s mega gold pieces has also been in the headlines recently—his fully functioning 18-carat toilet (America, 2016), which was removed from Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, UK, in 2019. The news that James Sheen, 39, pleaded guilty to the burglary at Oxford Crown Court this past month rather slipped under the radar (in November, three other men were charged in connection with the toilet’s theft but have pleaded not guilty). The high-end lavatory was never recovered (all hopes of finding the golden loo went down the pan).